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Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology

Premiere: 3/28/2023 | 00:14:11 |

Filmmaker Sergio Rapu follows Anishinaabe artist Jonathan Thunder as he dives deep into the inspirations behind his surrealist paintings and animations. From the killing of an iconic American hero to critical perspectives of how indigenous people were portrayed in early children’s cartoons, Thunder’s art prompts viewers to take a critical look at our shared mythologies.

About the Episode

Sergio Mata’u Rapu’s director statement

Jonathan painting in his studio, photo by Jeff Saunders.

I first met Jonathan Thunder when we worked together on Leya Hale’s “Bring Her Home,” an hour-long PBS doc about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic.

As I got to know him more, I saw such a stark contrast between his warm calming demeanor and the evocative surrealist works that he created. In conversations I found shared similarities in our goals and struggles. As Indigenous men, storytellers and artists, we yearned to be seen beyond just our cultural identity and more so for our talents and skills. As fathers–a soon-to-be one in Jonathan’s case–there was this added sense of responsibility for guiding and protecting a new generation of youth in a seemingly bleak world.

I gained inspiration for crafting the visual style of the film through Jonathan’s work.

Jonathan Thunder and wife Tashia at home, photo by Jeff Saunders.

I wanted to live within many of his paintings and films, where Indigenaety played a small facet of a much larger complex world. In that world, great legends were killed, women were revered heroines, and we humans were part of nature, not separate from it. I worked with cinematographer Jeff Saunders to frame Jonathan using anamorphic lenses so as to elevate his real world into the realm of mythology. In working with Anishinaabe artist Moira Villiard, we also melded Jonathan’s own animations into his live action world, hoping to visually cement his pieces in reality. In that way, Gichigami (Lake Superior) also became a key character in the film. Its ice shards and frozen surface in the winter transitioned to the glimmering enriching lake in the summer, mimicking Jonathan’s own transition into fatherhood.

In the process of making this film, my own uncertainties around career, fatherhood, and being an indigenous man were validated through Jonathan’s own experiences.

Though our ancestry and upbringing were different, I felt great comfort in the fact our experiences and values were so similar. To that end, this film is as much about Jonathan’s journey, and my own, as it is about many indigenous fathers trying to be a present, positive force, for our families by grasping onto the fleeting connections to our culture and past.

About Jonathan Thunder

Jonathan Thunder, photo courtesy of Jonathan Thunder.

Jonathan Thunder infuses his personal lens with real-time world experiences using a wide range of mediums. He is known for his surreal paintings, digitally animated films and installations in which he addresses subject matter of personal experience and social commentary. Thunder is an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, and makes his home and studio in Duluth, MN.

He has attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM and studied Visual Effects and Motion Graphics in Minneapolis, MN at the Art Institute International. His work has been featured in many states, regional and national exhibitions, as well as in local and international publications. Thunder is the recipient of a 2020-21 Pollock – Krasner Foundation Award for his risk taking in painting. Since his first solo exhibit in 2004, he has won several awards for his short films in national and international competitions. His painting and digital works are in the permanent collections of multiple museums and universities.

About filmmaker Sergio Mata’u Rapu

Director Sergio Mata’u Rapu, photo by Danica Donnely.

Sergio Rapu is a documentary filmmaker native to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). His content priorities are in uplifting under-represented voices and telling stories around environmental conservation.

His award-winning directorial debut, “Eating Up Easter,” was screened around the world and broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2020. In 2021 he produced and edited “Bring Her Home,” the latest feature by director Leya Hale (Dakota/Dine) which follows three Indigenous women as they work to vindicate and honor their missing and murdered relatives who are victims in the growing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Rapu also developed and produced “That Got Weird,” an animated digital series about racism and microaggressions.

As one of the only native Rapanui working in documentary film, he seeks to uplift under-represented voices and create thought-provoking media around environmental conservation.

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology is directed by Sergio Mata’u Rapu.

It is produced by Mara Films, LLC, and is a production of Firelight Media in association with The WNET Group.

For the IN THE MAKING digital series, Michael Kantor is the Executive Producer for American Masters. Stanley Nelson, Marcia Smith and Monika Navarro are the Executive Producers for Firelight Media.

About American Masters
Now in its 37th season on PBS, American Masters illuminates the lives and creative journeys of our nation’s most enduring artistic giants—those who have left an indelible impression on our cultural landscape—through compelling, unvarnished stories. Setting the standard for documentary film profiles, the series has earned widespread critical acclaim: 28 Emmy Awards—including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special—two News & Documentary Emmys, 14 Peabodys, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards, an Oscar, and many other honors. To further explore the lives and works of more than 250 masters past and present, the American Masters website offers full episodes, film outtakes, filmmaker interviews, the podcast “American Masters: Creative Spark,” educational resources, digital original series and more. The series is a production of The WNET Group.

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UNDERWRITING

Original production funding for In the Making is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Major support for the In the Making digital series is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Anderson Family Charitable Fund, The Marc Haas Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation and Edgar Wachenheim III.

American Masters series production funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, AARP, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Judith and Burton Resnick, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Seton J. Melvin, Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Vital Projects Fund, The Marc Haas Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation and public television viewers.

TRANSCRIPT

(warm music) (warm music) - My mom had to help me in the third grade with a drawing exercise that basically was draw a happy face and draw a sad face and I remember not knowing how to do it.

My mom sat down with me.

She saw that I had been sitting there for a while and she was like, "Why don't you try this?"

And she'd draw two circles, and in one she put two dots and a smile and the other, she put two dots and a frown.

And I remember my little third grade brain, my mind was blown.

And I remember thinking, "I wanna learn how to draw like a great artist like my mom is."

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Good mythology is so farfetched that there's no way you could have made it up so it has to come from somewhere, which makes it amazing.

Artists have always sort of referenced mythology, like Christianity, which I call white people's mythology.

I reference Ojibwe mythology, which is something that I learned about in my adult years because I didn't really grow up with it.

I grew up in the Twin Cities, even though my family, both my parents are from the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation.

Growing up in the Twin Cities, it was more like we were kind of just urban brown people.

I never knew about the living, breathing, storytelling world that exists for the Anishinaabe culture.

That was something that I was introduced to in my artwork.

It was almost like, through my artwork, I became a productive member of my tribe.

(bouncy music) So yeah, this is a little spray paint mess that I made a few years back.

(warm music) I always think about identity and I'll take the different chunks that would make a character who they are and I'll just build them, like you would build a robot or Voltron or something.

So this mask with this animal and this suit or dress with these shoes, boom.

That's who that person is.

(gentle music) It's kind of a mix between, I would say, the things that I like in contemporary, current culture and just a sprinkle of Ojibwe perspective, sometimes Ojibwe mythology.

(gentle music) Maybe my brain just works that way, like if there's an image, there's gotta be a story.

(warm music) (kettle whistles) You could hear their pounding steps and their shrieks.

Naniboujou pushed his legs to the limits of their speed.

The stones behind Naniboujou sank, pitching the wendigos into the water.

The wendigos thrashed the water while trying to stay afloat.

This is story time for Minnow.

How about you hang out up here?

Is he waking up?

- Yeah, he's waking up.

He loves story time.

- Little guy, I can see him moving around in there.

- During the first year of the pandemic in 2020, we were living in Central Minnesota, which is heavily Paul Bunyan country.

Paul Bunyan is, in my eyes, sort of this character that was created to make the land grab and resource grab that has happened historically in Minnesota and displaced tribes, to make it look noble, to give it a noble face.

So "On the Grave of the Giant" is the scene of an Ojibwe couple harvesting wild rice, which is something that's considered by a lot of people synonymous with Anishinaabe and Ojibwe identity, and underneath the water is the corpse of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

(bright music) Also, I wanted to give a nod to Patrick DesJarlait.

He worked on the design for the Land O'Lakes butter box.

Patrick DesJarlait was a member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, where my family is from.

DesJarlait influenced me because we had a print of his work in our house when I was a kid.

DesJarlait's style was different, it was kind of cubic.

He wasn't paying attention to proportions of the human anatomy and proper placement of joints and stuff like that.

He was just making art.

(bright music) To me that was really interesting and it was freeing.

He really kind of just inspired me to pursue the kind of artwork that I do today.

(bright music) Painting is just what I know, but I love creating digitally, working on a tablet, animating in animation software, which is mostly for my own amusement but the paintings themselves sometimes feel like they're moving, and it's just too tempting for me sometimes to not actually make them move.

(whirring noise) "The Lighthouse" is actually a large scale painting.

I based the painting on a historical painting called "Washington Crosses the Delaware," depicting George Washington as this fearless leader.

But if you think about what was happening in Indigenous communities, he just seems like a big Hamburglar, just a clown.

(whirring noise) You see a woman pregnant, probably thinking about the future and is the only one in the painting that actually sees the lighthouse, in the stormy waters that they're in.

(whirring noise) (warm music) (warm music) (warm music) (warm music) (water sloshes) (warm music) Animation wasn't always friendly to cultures outside of mainstream culture.

I remember seeing Bugs Bunny shooting Indians by like huge numbers and singing about it.

One little, two little, three little Indians.

(gun fires) - Four, little five, little six little Indians.

Uh oh, sorry, that one was a half breed.

- These are the cartoons that I was, on Saturday mornings, I'd be sitting there as a little kid watching, right?

I like to reference those older cartoons in my paintings and kind of make them not sacred, make them a little sketchy, kind of grimy.

(warm music) I thought it'd be cool to take three stories that I heard in my travels in Northern Minnesota and adapt them.

So this is one of the comps from Manifest'o.

Each piece, like this piece right here is for the Mishu Bizhiw, the Great Lynx which is said to be an inhabitant of the Great Lakes, a protector of the water.

It's gonna be installed at the Minneapolis International Airport and really excited about how much wall space Manifest'o is gonna take up.

It's ultimately like doing a digital kind of mural.

- Here you go, Martin.

- Okay.

- It's all about the illusion, you know what I mean?

It's about the illusion of this thing being a part of that wall.

It's about the illusion of this thing, I guess, being a component of that tunnel.

Otherwise, it just feels like you're looking at a TV screen.

See right here, we gotta line up those cracks of the animation to match the cracks of the case?

I was starting to think we're almost done for the day but I think that's probably gonna take us a little while.

- It's not like I really sit down knowing exactly how it's gonna go.

I'm a little nervous about the technical side of figuring that out.

I'd imagine it's like jumping out of a plane, like you just have to jump and then later, you'll find out if your parachute works.

(warm music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - The people that fly that concourse they fly into Northern Minnesota, which is where the seven Ojibwe nations are located and they're probably gonna see Ojibwe language around some of the smaller cities up here and that might prepare them for what they're about to see.

(warm music) (warm music) (voice whispers) (bell tings) (water gurgles) (chimes ting) (warm music) - In the last decade or so, I've been witness to a great movement of contemporary Indigenous artwork and I think it's a sign that culture evolves and exists in contemporary times which is what I'm interested in.

(warm music) There's a certain responsibility that I feel to say something about our time.

If not to say anything profound, to at least say, "This is how it was when I was here."

Hopefully that will leave a better place for my son to stand when he's my age.

And those building blocks will leave a much better place for his kids to stand.

(warm music) (warm music) (warm music) (warm music)

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