"Cultural Work Is Our Survival": Gary Farmer Fights Hard Against Forgetting.

• Author: D'Ambrosio, Antonino
• Position: Interview

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

And I was left to wander the earth alone.

I am Nobody.

--"Nobody"(Gary Farmer) in Dead Man

The problems never change. Nor the people.

--Philbert Bono (Gary Farmer) in Powwow Highway

A ctor, musician, publisher, ublic radio pioneer, and activist Gary Farmer fights hard against forgetting. It's the struggle that defines his entire life.

"If you see my autograph, I sign my name with a big circle and a cross," he says. "That cross came, and we knew it would be 500 years of oppression, but they forgot their teachings that all man, all races, stand inside that circle and all these people have a song, a story, and a dance to share, and some of us have lost that."

Farmer speaks powerfully about the tragic loss of the "human story." As a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) born in Ontario's Cayuga Nation, he knows intimately how devastating that loss can be to the future of a people. One way that Farmer tries to flip the story and make it one of progression is through acting. I believe that Farmer is one of the greatest actors of his generation. I offer as evidence his role as Nobody, the Native spiritual guide for Johnny Depp's William Blake in Jim Jarmusch's stunning 1995 film Dead Man . Farmer brought more than two decades of theater, television, documentary, and feature film experience to create one of the most profoundly human characters--not just Native--to ever grace the silver screen.

"Jim called me up one day out of the blue," Farmer recalls. "I was living in rural Ontario with my then-wife [writer Jean Stawarz] on 400 acres that we joked was our own reservation." Jarmusch paid them a visit and stayed a week, spending each day walking through the woods discussing the project with his host. Before the director left, he asked Farmer to read his new script and consider playing the part of Nobody. There were things in the script that Farmer could not agree to do, including playing the part as a drunk. So he altered the character of Nobody. To prepare for the part, Farmer fasted and then, alone, was put atop a mountain by his friend Jimmy Redcloud.

"Something I saw there appeared on the set of Dead Man ," Farmer recalls. "I realized I am dealing with my own death, too."

For Farmer, acting connects him to the ceremonial part of his culture.

"Theater is a ceremony," he says. "You're creating energy. I try to convince Native youth that this is true because they've lost that ceremonial life."

F armer knows of what he speaks. He was only...