While he is best known for his forty-volume study of the customs, dress, and traditions of Native American tribes, Curtis also worked in Hollywood as a cameraman and still photographer on the sets of such films as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments and The Plainsman starring Gary Cooper. At first glance a straightforward documentation of a military encampment under siege, this photograph was actually taken on a Hollywood film set in the 1930s. By drawing on the visual conventions of war reportage, Curtis's film still effectively demonstrates photography's capacity to blur the boundaries between documentary truth and theatrical illusion. [label for Johnson XXVIII]
