Browse Items (90 total)

Clint Eastwood presents the Academy Award for Best Picture to The Godfather. In his introduction, Eastwood makes reference to Littlefeather's speech. The transcript of the video is included below:

CE: I don't know if I should present this award on behalf of all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford westerns over the years.

I've seen all five nominated pictures as I'm sure all of you have, and they're all so excellent and so different, I'd have a hard time choosing one without feeling I'd been unfair to the others. And so it occurred to me that as different as they seem - 'go ahead and flip the card man, I'm still here' - they all have something in common. They're all concerned with the human dilemma and our confrontation with fate. Human beings engulfed in a lunatic dictatorship. Men brutalized by their fellow men on a hostile river. Families ripping up their old roots and hoping to plant new ones. And quite different families too who seek to prove that morality can exist within immorality. And finally, a mother, a father, three children , and a dog, who ask only to live in the dignity of which all life is entitled. These are diverse and distinguished pictures, and they are:

Cabaret, an ABC Pictures Production, Allied Artists, Cy Feuer, Producer.

Deliverance, Warner Brothers, produced by John Boorman.

The Emigrants, A.B. Svensk Filmindustri Production, Warner Brothers, Bengt Forslund, producer.

The Godfather, an Albert S. Ruddy production, Paramount, Albert S. Ruddy, producer.

Sounder, a Radnitz/Mattel productions, Twentieth Century Fox, Robert B. Radnitz, producer.

And the winner- and the winner is:

Albert S. Ruddy, Godfather.

AR: Don't fail me now! We were all getting nervous there for a moment. Let me do this quickly in two parts, because I know it's past midnight in New York and some of my relatives want to go to sleep.

There are a number of people I would like to thank, as everyone else would, because they deserve it. Bob Evans, for giving more than any studio head should in time and creativity. Frank Yablans, for having the courage and imagination to sell this film and make my mother rich. Charlie Bluhdorn, for having the courage to finance films, which I guess borders on insanity. And Peter Bart, who was a friend all the way through.

Now last off, there's millions of people who sit out there and people who love film and want to make film that will look at this [holding up the Oscar] and wonder what it's all about. America needs the motion picture business and the motion picture business needs the United States. Good audiences need good films as good films need good audiences. The American dream and what we all want, for me at least, is represented by this [holding up the Oscar]. It's there for everybody if we want to work, dream and try to get it. Thank you very much.

A press release and letter published by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announcing an evening with Sacheen Littlefeather to reconcile and heal from her past mistreatment at the Academy Awards. The letter officially apologizes for her experience at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony, and acknowledges her important role in film history. The content of the letter is included below:

June 18, 2022

Dear Sacheen Littlefeather,

I write to you today a letter that has been a long time coming on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with humble acknowledgment of your experience at the 45th Academy Awards.

As you stood on the Oscars stage in 1973 to not accept the Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando, in recognition of the misrepresentation and mistreatment of Native American people by the film industry, you made a powerful statement that continues to remind us of the necessity of respect and the importance of human dignity.

The abuse you endured because of this statement was unwarranted and unjustified. The emotional burden you have lived through and the cost to your own career in our industry are irreparable. For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged. For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.

We cannot realize the Academy's mission to "inspire imagination and connect the world through cinema" without a commitment to facilitating the broadest representation and inclusion reflective of our diverse global population.

Today, nearly 50 years later, and with the guidance of the Academy’s Indigenous Alliance, we are firm in our commitment to ensuring indigenous voices—the original storytellers—are visible, respected contributors to the global film community. We are dedicated to fostering a more inclusive, respectful industry that leverages a balance of art and activism to be a driving force for progress.

We hope you receive this letter in the spirit of reconciliation and as recognition of your essential role in our journey as an organization. You are forever respectfully engrained in our history.

With warmest regards,

David Rubin
President, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

This is a printed email sent from the email address theoverlord@bc.almaty.kz. He says the address is probably temporary and he has to travel to a town 45 minutes away to use it. He discusses the prices of email and other ways he might be able to access it. His phone isn’t working because someone took his building’s telephone line. He tells them he received their package and asks for money. He writes about teaching, his schedule, students, and his director.

In this letter, he writes about the school he is teaching at. He describes the activities he has his students do, their diversity, his director, and the possibility of getting email set up for the school. He talks about how the water and electricity situation is going and describes how he does his laundry using a Soviet washing machine. He ends the letter by writing about problems his sitemate is having and the Peace Corps’ lack of involvement after stationing volunteers. The other side of this letter is a Peace Corps factsheet from May 1997 that he reused to print the letter on.

This item is an edited interview with Sacheem Littlefeather, reflecting on her role in the 1973 Oscars ceremony. Littlefeather describes why she chose to refuse the Oscar, her relationship with Marlon Brando, and her work as an activist. Though she remarks that she would do it again "in a heartbeat," Littlefeather also notes the racism she faced from the film industry in the aftermath of her activism, and her subsequent surprise when the Academy issued its apology in 2022.

This is a Photograph that student director Marta Kondrati shot of Peter Kenedi getting ready to play Dr. Frankenfurtur in the Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcast of 2024. This was the first time Rocky Horror had been performed since the pandemic. In the back of this photograph, you can see the writing of past shows on the dressing room walls.

This item is a brief newspaper profile of Sacheen Littlefeather, providing an overview of her career and activism, as well as her involvement in Brando’s refusal of the Oscar. The piece identifies her as being "part Apache," and describes her involvement in the Affirmative Image Committee, the National American Indian Council, and the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1970, and quotes part of her televised statement during the Oscars ceremony.

The oldest class I could find taught at St. Olaf involving contact improvisation. Power Play was taught from 2006 to 2016.

He sent this postcard to let his family know his friend will be in Minnesota and she might call his family and they should invite her over for dinner to hear about how he is doing. He ends the message with “I hope you enjoy this Soviet post card.”