'I am a crow' Kirby Sattler
I love this Native American portrait. This coming Monday I'm filming 'The Lost Boys' which is a grungy, cool version of the Peter Pan story. And if anyone remembers the Disney movie, Tiger Lily is a Native American Indian!
The bar set will be this sort of theme and I'm going to do some makeup relating to this theme! I love makeup like this because it dates back centuries when tribes like to mark themselves to differentiate from other tribes. Like we do nowadays with tattoos!
This particular picture is famous for the strong resemblance. There isn't any photos dating back that far, so I look towards art to give me a fair impression of what they would wear or what they would look like.
My Interpretation
This man looks like a royal tribes man, almost the leader of the group. I say this because he is embellished with necklaces, earrings, feathers in the hair and a mighty fur coat. He's an older man with strong bone structure. A huntsmen, conveying little emotion.
Could also show the unity of humanity and nature. To us crows are creatures we don't like to associate with, but it's interesting he's taking this animal in his stride.
It gives a great insight to what native Americans may have looked like back then.
Also why the black and white face paint? Why not colour? Maybe the artist liked the contrast of these colours and that it fears off bad omens. Or bad spirits. It certainly doesn't camouflage very well, but maybe this is him standing out from everything and saying he isn't afraid.
The painter has created a character like we do with film, and with this portait it truly tells us a lot about his stature in his society.
Johnny Depp in 'Lone Ramger'
Then I saw this picture! The art director has obviously taken a massive inspiration from this portrait, unsurprisingly, as they've basically copied the exact image!
It isn't as strong an image. I think this is mainly due to the makeup- but also because the crow looks dead on his head! It looks full of life, at one, with the man in the painting above. The spirit is killed in this picture, perhaps the crow represented free spirit.
I don't know why the makeup artist wanted to create a caked on look like this?
I think it would have benefited with a thin application of a white foundation with heavy contouring to show strong cheekbones and a strong nose then a powdery look on top with the black so it's SOFT! And maybe make it look like the character applied the paint himself, as they would have done back then.
Johnny has quite harsh black kohl lined eyes here but in fact, the huntsman had very soft eyes. I think they missed the point of this. Imagine if the huntsman in the picture had black eyes- this would make him look harsh, abrasive even slightly mean looking.
The soft brown eyes in the painting shows a softer side of him to me. He has a harsh exterior because he has to have, to survive. The eyes are almost always the focus point and it's important to get this right. The softer side shows he's vulnerable, that he feels the same emotions you do.
I respect Johnny utmost for always looking past just the image of his character. He always goes the extra mile to take his own interpretation. He states...
"[I] looked at the face of this warrior and thought: 'That's it.' The stripes down the face and across the eyes … it seemed to me like you could almost see the separate sections of the individual, if you know what I mean. There's this very wise quarter, a very tortured and hurt section, an angry and rageful section, and a very understanding and unique side. I saw these parts, almost like dissecting a brain, these slivers of the individual.""I thought: Tonto's got a bird on his head. It's his spirit guide in a way. It's dead to others, but it's not dead to him. It's very much alive." Johnny Depp
On Set
