King Vidor's Northwest Passage: Movie Analysis

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Northwest Passage (1940) In King Vidor’s Northwest Passage, the Native Americans are portrayed as the villains, attacking the White settlers. This film's depiction of American Indians has in recent years been seen as racist, even by Hollywood’s standards at the time it was made. “The movie's presentation of the raid on St Francis as a heroic act is historically questionable, and it isn't helped by the unceasingly racist depiction of all native Americans as degenerate subhumans” (Tunzelman, 2013) .The film is also surprisingly hardcore on the theme of cannibalism, such as the white Rangers feeding on the mutilated remains of Abenaki people. It is speculated that they may have been killed just for that purpose. “The popularity of Northwest Passage