Movies
The following are but a few movies that
our committee feels are beneficial, educational, and well
made.
The Spirit of Crazy Horse
"The heart of everything that is." These are the words
which the Sioux Indians use to describe their ancestral
homeland, the Black Hills of South Dakota. Those million
acres form the spiritual core of the Sioux culture, and
it's a land they have struggled to reclaim for a
century. "The Spirit of Crazy Horse" is an eye-opening
vision of their quest, which has shaped the lives and
destiny of the Sioux for six generations. It is a tale
recounted by Milo Yellow Hair, a full blood Oglala
Sioux, whose great-grandfather fought General Custer at
the Little Big Horn. While the story echoes with famous
names like Wounded Knee - the last major Indian
slaughter a century ago - this is more than a tale of
long lost wars.
The Spirit of Crazy Horse
reveals the modern Sioux struggle to regain their
heritage, and how places like Wounded Knee became sites
for a fight that continues still. The program carries us
through the militant confrontations of the early 1960's
and 1970's, the explosive results of 100 years of
confinement on Indian reservations. The Spirit of
Crazy Horse takes us past the clichés about the
problems of life on the reservation, and puts the issues
in a meaningful context of Indian culture. By
investigating the simmering conflict of recent decades,
The Spirit of Crazy Horse also offers a
clear perspective on the crucial choices that lie ahead.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Black
Hills were stolen from the Sioux, the fight for the
return of the land rages on. In the shadow of Mount
Rushmore, the Sioux version of their sacred homeland
still thrives, and The Spirit of Crazy Horse
is a moving portrait of those hopes and aspirations. In
the face of hard choices, the descendants of the famous
warrior Crazy Horse carry his spirit on.
500
Nations
Hosted by Kevin Costner, 500 NATIONS, directed by Jack
Leustig, explores the history of the indigenous peoples
of North and Central America, from pre-Colombian times
through the period of European contact and colonization,
to the closing of the frontier in 1890. 500 NATIONS
utilizes historical texts, eyewitness accounts,
pictorial sources and computer graphic reconstructions
to explore the magnificent civilizations that flourished
prior to contact with Western civilization, and to tell
the dramatic ongoing story of the Native American
nations.
Thunderheart
Actor
Robert De Niro started a
production company to make films just like this one:
stories which were unpopular with the establishment
and which are unlikely to make a big splash at the
box-office. Even so, this is a first-class
production, and the filmmakers were the first to
receive permission to film on the Pine Ridge (Sioux)
Reservation in South Dakota, likely due to director
Michael Apted's having previously
made an accurate and sensitive documentary about
Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier's case,
Incident at Oglala. The film did
exactly as well as expected at the box-office but
has since assumed greater importance as one of the
tiny number of "mainstream" movies which faithfully
and respectfully illuminate Native American issues.
In the story, loosely based on the earlier
documentary, Ray Levoi (Val
Kilmer) is an ambitious
up-and-coming FBI agent in the 1970s with great
career prospects. The one thing he will not tolerate
is any reference to his half-Indian heritage. As far
as he is concerned, his loyalties and culture
identify him with the government and his white
mother. He is extremely touchy about anything to do
with his father, who was an alcoholic full-blooded
Sioux. However, the FBI wants to take advantage of
his half-Indian blood to mend fences in a
politically sensitive murder investigation, and it
sends him exactly where he doesn't want to go.
Further, he is widely advertised as being Indian,
though he knows virtually nothing about his heritage
and has renounced it to the best of his ability.
Once on the reservation, he becomes deeply involved
in a truly messy state of affairs and is drawn into
situations where he is forced to confront his
background, native spirituality, and the duplicity
of the government and its allies within the tribe.
Despite his consistent prickliness about his
heritage, his heart is in the right place, and the
reservation's sheriff (Graham
Greene) and a wise spiritual elder
(Chief
Ted Thin Elk) patiently lead their
unwilling FBI pupil on a soul-wrenching wild goose
chase which paradoxically takes him straight to the
heart of the matter.
Little Big Man
Recounting how the West was won through the eyes of a
white man raised as a Native American,
Arthur Penn's 1970 adaptation of
Thomas Berger's satirical novel was a comic yet stinging
allegory about the bloody results of American
imperialism. As a misguided 20th-century historian
listens, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin
Hoffman) narrates the story of being
the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. White
orphan Crabb was adopted by the Cheyenne, renamed
"Little Big Man," and raised in the ways of the "Human
Beings" by paternal mentor Old Lodge Skins (Chief
Dan George), accepting non-conformity
and living peacefully with nature. Violently thrust
into the white world, Jack meets a righteous preacher (Thayer
David) and his wife (Faye Dunaway),
tries to be a gunfighter under the tutelage of Wild Bill
Hickock (Jeff
Corey), and gets married. Returned to
the Cheyenne by chance, Jack prefers life as a Human
Being. The carnage wreaked by the white man in the
Washita massacre and the lethal fallout from the
egomania of General George A. Custer (Richard
Mulligan) at Little Big Horn, however,
show Crabb the horrific implications of Old Lodge Skins'
sage observation, "There is an endless supply of White
Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human
Beings."
Son of the Morning Star
This 1991 made for
television movie, which chronicles the life and times of
George Armstrong Custer following the Civil War, is
available on video cassette. It was originally shown on
one of the networks in two parts. Some critics claim it
was television's answer to
Dances With Wolves
but the same could be said about any well-done film
portraying the conflict between the army and the
Indians. The movie was based on Evan S. Connell's best
seller Son of the Morning Star and other
historical sources. The title comes from the Crow Indian
name for Custer, "Son of the morning star who attacks at
dawn." (Note:
A big screen version has been announced for 2007,
directed by
Oliver Stone.)
Windtalkers
Joe
Enders, a decorated Marine who is by-the-book to a
fault, is just coming back on duty (by cheating on his
medical tests). "Ox" Anderson, much greener, is also
getting the same new task: Protect the Navajo
codetalkers (Ben Yahzee and Charles Whitehorse,
respectively). While Enders is initially frustrated with
his assignment, his respect grows as the codetalkers
prove their worth in the brutal battle to take Saipan.
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
is the story of Lt. John Dunbar, whose exploration of
the Western frontier becomes mirrored in a search for
his own identity. It begins dramatically with the badly
wounded Dunbar choosing death rather than allowing the
amputation of his foot. He charges the Confederate lines
and so, unwittingly, becomes a hero.
Allowed to
choose his posting, Dunbar opts for the frontier. His
increasing loneliness drives him to seek solace with the
neighboring Indian tribe. Gradually he is accepted as a
member of the tribe, which in the America of the Civil
War (1861-64) is seen as desertion. In order to spare
the tribe any more retribution from the army, he leaves
with his wife, Stands with a Fist, for the wilderness.
The War That Made
America
The French
and Indian War pitted French forces for almost a decade
against the British, yet few Americans realize its
historic contribution to the revolutionary fervor which
swept the continent in 1776. Actor Graham Greene, an
Oneida Indian whose ancestors fought in the war,
narrates this gripping four-part documentary series.
Episodes include "A Country Between," "Unlikely Allies,"
"Turning the Tide," and "Unintended Consequences."
The Last of the
Mohicans
Based on the 1826 novel of the same name by
James Fenimore Cooper,
this movie is a sweeping historical drama
set during the eighteenth century
French and Indian War.
Two themes permeate Cooper's frontier adventures: his
love of nature, and his respect for the North American
indigenous people. The movie stays true to these ideals
through its use of cinematography, characterisation, and
plot. The story is one of ordinary people caught up in
extraordinary events. Hawkeye (Daniel
Day-Lewis),
a white orphan, has been raised by Mohicans. Together
with his Mohican father and brother, he makes a living
as a fur trapper on the frontier. He and his family try
to avoid becoming involved in the war that is engulfing
them, but after rescuing a British Colonel's daughter (Madeleine
Stowe),
her sister, and a British officer
from a Huron war party, they are left with little
choice. What follows is an absorbing adventure/romance
movie, which like Cooper's novels, is characterized by
thrilling Indian attacks, well developed adventurous
characters, the beautiful wilderness of the North
American continent, and an insight into Native American
culture and eighteenth century Frontier life.
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