In terms of Native American (NA) subject-matter as the basis for utopia/dystopia, it's interesting to consider NA culture in general; the difference elucidated particularly during the 19th century between the "noble savage" vis-a-vis Rousseau, and the "injun" who was corrupt, capable of torture, and so forth. On one hand NA was being driven to extinction (which was also seen as part of manifest distiny); on the other, the culture was perceived as both perfect and anti-technological, a perception affecting our "reading" of John Neihardt, for example. I believe it was Charles Gagnon whod did some research on these themes in Quebec. I think the split still dominates the American psyche, and may be a factor in the inability of the hippies to leave a residue similar to the Green Party in Germany. It's odd to consider that both utopia and dystopia "begin at home," occur in the midst of our notions of nativism and "motherland." It's also instructive that our home soil is NEITHER "motherland" nor "fatherland," but something perhaps far more troubling. In regard to all of this, I remember a middle-class (white) Tasmanian woman telling me in Hobart that "it's a good thing that the British killed off all the natives, because the natives we're going to die off anyway - they didn't even have fire." Alan Sondheim Check, by the way, the Hudson River School and the illuminist painters of the West, not ot mention George Catlin and 19th-century photography of NA. The Smithsonian had a catalog on the latter. Sorry these are not directly cinematic references, but they surely infect cinema more than any particular film.. // [ // ] ...rain... // \\ [ \\ ] \\ ...still...