Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Movie Review
The Story Speaks Louder Than This Film
BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is a somber retelling of the events leading up to the massacre at (what is now) the Wounded Knee Memorial. But this isn't a documentary. This is a made-for-TV fictional retelling, and it is the "made-for-Telly" flake that makes this important American event lose some of its composure.
The entire production flags because of the TV aspect, many of the film shots losing their affect either because of lack of attention to detail or funds (or probably both). Either way this could've been an extreme visual recollection for most viewers but instead it lacks the depth I would've liked to accept seen.
Regardless, in that location are some stellar appearances and acting within information technology. Baronial Schellenberg every bit Sitting Bull undeniably has the most touch on. Recent moving-picture show viewers volition probably remember him from his portrayal as Powhatan in THE NEW WORLD. The contrast between the character in The New World and here in Wounded Knee shouldn't be lost, either. Without Powhatan and Pocahontas, the white settlers at Jamestown would've perished within the first few winters. And now, in Wounded Human knee, it is the white human being who destroys what is left of Native American life; a terribly stark (and bloody) reality.
The other notables are Adam Beach (FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS) as Charles Eastman, and Aidan Quinn equally Senator Henry Dawes. They spend a lot of time together on moving-picture show and they played confronting/off each other uncommonly well. Charles beingness the "new wave" Indian who melds into the white human being's manner of life until exposed to reservation life at Pine Ridge. Henry Dawes seeing himself as "The Great White Savior Of The Indians" by passing legislation that loops a few nooses around the necks of the Plains Indians' manner of life without even realizing information technology.
But other actors have niggling to offer. Anna Paquin (10-MEN) as Charles' white dearest interest (and eventual wife) is seen too infrequently so the relationship between the two has niggling impact. She does a adept task of acting just the script stymied any possibility of real success. From hither the interim dips into the drab and boring. I have to give mention to Senator Fred Thompson (currently a Republican runner for the U.South. Presidency) who plays President Ulysses South. Grant. We see maybe four frames of film with him in it and then he's gone. This surprised me profoundly since it was Grant'due south administration that doomed Native Americans past rounding them up and placing them on reservations.
Despite my misgivings about the script, cinematography and acting, this is a vital story that needs to be told, and it isn't something that is unremarkably taught in grade school or higher. Europeans (united states of america) conquered this country and its people, and pushed them into holding pens where they, to this day, await justice for our multiple treaty violations and massacres of their men, women and children (I volition say that the scenes depicting large-caliber burglarize bullets ripping through young kids was filmed well and was equally hard to picket).
Then the story gives this film a higher rating than anything inside it, which is unfortunate, as this terrible moment in American history needs to be remembered just as much as Germany needs to remember its holocaust.
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Powerful Drama
It's no secret that movies mix a lot of fiction with the facts. This film seems to have rubbed both history buffs and fans of the volume the wrong way, but I thought information technology was a compelling, evocative film nevertheless.
Starting off where most movies terminate, at a CGI created overhead shot of The Little Large Horn (!), this instead focuses on the final years of the Unions war against the Indian nations, culminating in the massacre at Wounded Knee.
There's a actually great role for Adam Beach, as a young Souix doctor, who's father turned his back on the native ways and sent him to live amongst whites at a young age, stripping him of his identity.
August Schellenberg is excellent hither as Sitting Balderdash, who'south determination and pride stokes the anger of the powers that be, including Aiden Quinn, a sympathetic but patronizing Senator who has taken it upon himself to lead the Indians on a path to "civilization".
Anyone who watched the myriad Cavalry pictures and Little Large Horn epics should come across this and find out how the whole sad story ends.
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"So nosotros will accept a fight."
Warning: Spoilers
I'll have to admit that I tried reading Dee Brown's "Coffin My Heart at Wounded Knee" on two separate occasions, the concluding time quite recently, and I found it to be VERY dry. Perhaps that was merely in the early going, but I wasn't able to complete it both times. As for the motion picture, I came across it quite by accident at my local library, not existence an HBO subscriber. If I had my druthers, I guess I'd side with those reviewers who feel a more consummate story could take been told using a mini-series format. However given the medium, it's a compelling film that highlights the plight of the Native American Indian in the dying days of the Old West, and with it, the expiry knell of a proud warrior people.
I recently visited the James Fenimore Cooper Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and at the fourth dimension, actual Sioux drawings were on exhibit depicting the Battle at Lilliputian Big Horn. Watching the aerial view of the assail on screen all of a sudden put into perspective the circular rendition of an artist's rendering on a full size tee-pee. Information technology was like seeing a painting come to life with a soaring eagle's eye, mayhap devoid of detail, but scenic in it's panoramic perspective on the immensity of the battle. Non to mention the hopelessness of Custer's cause.
The motion-picture show can exist absolutely depressing at times with it'southward depiction of outright slaughter, and mayhap even more than so once the Sioux tribes are relegated to reservation life. Nosotros get to meet how the 'Every Man a Chief' designation, though sounding completely egalitarian, works to strip away a proud principal's identity and status within his nation. I'm actually glad that the film didn't explore Sitting Balderdash's Wild West Show days with Buffalo Bill. Fortunately, he was able to reaffirm his own dignity with the 'i last time' confrontation confronting Senator Dawes (Aidan Quinn), a legacy that remains continuing to this twenty-four hours.
Overnice performances all around by Aidan Quinn as Senator Dawes, Adam Beach as the conflicted Ohiyesa/Charles Eastman, and Baronial Schellenberg every bit Sitting Bull. President Grant came and went too speedily for me to recognize Fred Thompson nether the beard, a trait he might also endure as a Presidential contender unless he gets that burn down in the belly.
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Wounded Knee joint but without the Centre
Warning: Spoilers
This well intentioned flick did not capture the spirit of Dee Brown's book, alas.
Focusing the story largely effectually the admirable Lakota md, Charles Eastman and his White wife tries to give an emotional center to Chocolate-brown's sprawling narrative simply the characters of Sitting Bull and Scarlet Cloud come off every bit petty more than than an elaboration of the famous "Noble Redman meets Litter" commercial of the 70'south. Superficial, blatantly sentimental and ultimately, not all that stirring----although I loved the aerial cinematic dance of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
HBO would accept been better off following the narrative structure of the book---a compelling and heartrending documentation of the woes, duplicity and failures of communication over several hundred years that ultimately achieved the virtually genocide of the native peoples of America by the turn of the 20th Century.
Perchance a miniseries could have achieved this.
Ultimately, this HBO production had little heart to bury.
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Must they suit to the extent of their own extinction!
The trail of tears that lead to the massacre at Wounded Knee on Dec 29, 1890 started in the Summer of 1876 at the Niggling Big Horn. It was in that location where Gen. George Armstrong Custer and over 250 men under his control was slaughtered to the last man, the only survivor of Custer'due south troop being a calvary horse chosen Comanche, by the fired up Sioux Indians.
Wanting revenge for what turned out to exist the worst defeat that the US Calvary suffered in the Indian Wars the "Corking White Male parent" President Ulysses S. Grant, Fred Thompson, sent a much bigger military detachment headed by, as he's called past the Sioux, Gen.Bear-Glaze to put a final end to the Dakota Indian uprising. Confronting Master Sitting Bull, August Schellenberg, and his some 3 thousand warriors at Ceder Valley Creek Gen. Bear-Coat had no trouble dispersing the Sioux onslaught mowing downwards hundreds of Sitting Bull's men with volleys of rifle and cannon fire.
Dispersed and on the brink of starvation Sitting Balderdash's rival Master Carmine Cloud, Gordon Tootoosis, was forced to sign away his peoples rights to where they became wards of the state living off the kindness and clemency of the hated White Man. Sitting Bull wanting none of this took his followers to Canada where subsequently suffering through a number of harsh Canadian Winters, far worse and so whatever of the winters in the Dakota Territories, later came back hat in hand accepting the unthinkable: living under the White Man'southward both rule and law. It was the deception and manipulation by the US Regime in trying to force Sitting Bull and his people to sign abroad their bequeathed lands that somewhen lead to the wild and hysterical events that atomic number 82 to Wounded Articulatio genus.
The story of "Bury My Middle at Wounded Knee" is told to us through the personal observations of Charles Eastman, Adam Beach, formerly known by his Sioux Indian name of Ohiyesa. Eastman was an 18 year old at the boxing of Little Big Horn where he earned his warrior'south plumage in killing a horse soldier of Gen. Custer's 7th Calvary in the fighting. At present grown up and earning a medical degree Eastman merely wants to help his fellow Sioux in preventing a number of mortiferous outbreaks of disease that hit his former dwelling the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Together with his white European wife the old Elaine Goodale, Anna Paguin, Eastman worked around the clock trying to save what he could of the many Sioux Indians who were dying by the hundreds of both hunger and disease. With Eastman'southward good friend Massachusetts Senator Henry Drew, Alden Quinn,trying to become his people to come to some agreement with the US Authorities in becoming farmers instead of nomads, which the Sioux were for countless centuries, tensions soon reached a breaking bespeak.
It was when out of sheer agony the Sioux adopted the ancient Indian Ghost Trip the light fantastic toe, which was merely ceremonial and cipher else, that the The states Ground forces was dispatched to put an end to what the Federal Authorities dorsum in Washington D.C perceived to exist another potential Piffling Big Horn. With tempers flaring on both sides after Main Sitting Bull was murdered by the reservations Sioux police it was just a matter of fourth dimension for the lid, that both Eastman and Senator Drew tried to keep on, blew off and the results was the massacre at Wounded Genu. The last major boxing between the U.s.a. military and American Indians in the long and bloody The states/Indian Wars of the 1800's.
Pretty accurate film about how the American Indians were treated and how they had their state which they never really claimed to own, the thought of a person owning a piece of land was unknown to them, from right under noses. Despite the many losses they suffered at the hands of the The states War machine the Sioux never relinquished their merits to the Blackness Hills, which they considered their sacred and holy grounds. Technically and legally even now, some 118 years afterwards the Wounded Knee massacre, the celebrated Blackness Hills are in the hands of the Sioux tribes still living in that location.
P.S Charles Eastman aka Ohiyesa was to write dozens of books and articles about his people the Sioux Indians equally well every bit practise medicine at the Pine Ridge, too as other, Indian reservation until he passed abroad on January eight, 1939 at the age of 80. Eastman among his many accomplishments in the service of his people was likewise the co-founder of the American Boy Scouts that improved and enriched the lives of American youths white blackness yellow and Native American Indian akin.
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First-class moving picture...non given enough credit.
Alarm: Spoilers
The simply reason I am giving this movie an "8" is because I can run across why some people might be confused. Othewise, I cannot understand so much negativity towards this movie.
I volition acknowledge that I may accept a slight advantage based on being raised by a female parent who knows her Indian history and in particular, her Lakota history. I accept too been to the area around Pino Ridge several times, then envisioning it wasn't difficult.
Without being able to practice a iv or 5 hour production, I retrieve they did an outstanding job of showing the plight of the Native people and their struggle to exist under unfair and harsh conditions. Information technology was rather evidently to me and not colored over for the sake of the film. Showing the reality of Sitting Bull equally a leader, every bit a man, every bit a captive was eloquent and very real to me.
Aidan Quinn was splendid in portraying a Christian homo who honestly felt he was doing the right matter, but operating without a full agreement of what was being taken for the people he thought he was helping. Adam Beach did a groovy chore of playing a fellow disillusioned by the world he was forced into and saddened by what was happening to his people.
Some of the best moments of the film seemed elementary outwardly, but were in fact then powerful that I cried. When Charles has his braids cut before going off to schoolhouse, I felt and so sad at that office of his culture beingness stripped from him. When the Indian men are lined up at Charles's window, asking for cod liver oil for the alcohol content, and when Sitting Bull arrives at the bureau and is told that he no better than whatever other human being in that location, those are some powerful moments. In fact, at that place were and then many, I cannot count. Mayhap my favorite was the conversation betwixt Gall and Sitting Bull in which Gall basically tells Sitting Balderdash that he has sold out and how much information technology has injure him because of his view of him as a human being who would never give up.
The only issues I could even mention about the movie is that at times information technology was hard to know who was who. Information technology took me until the 2d time of watching to realize who was Gall and who was American Horse.
Watching all of the extras and commentary on this film gave me even more of an appreciation for what was attempting to exist told in this film.
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Uneven, incomplete, and dull depiction of the story
Very slow moving movie, which detracted greatly from the story it should accept been telling. If you haven't read the book, or knew nothing of the history of this story, you would be completely lost.
The cast was great, and the acting was practiced. Information technology is not the actors error that the direction and editing was terrible. I had loftier hopes that the story telling would exist straight forward, of a relatively well-documented outcome, based on the well known book.
The championship is misleading; it is non Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, it is a small excerpt combined with some other story I was not familiar with. The ending of the picture show is actually mangled, combining color with black and white for dramatic effect, only it just doesn't work, especially when it never even shows the event depicted in the title.
Watch it for good acting, skilful music, not bad camera work, merely don't await to be educated, or entertained. The atrocities committed upon this Indian nation deserves a better rendition and remembrance, than presented hither.
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What a Letdown
Alert: Spoilers
I remember reading Dee Brown's book when I was virtually twelve, and being stunned past how powerful and moving it was. So when I saw that HBO was making a pic of Bury My Heart, I was thrilled.
And and so I really watched it.
Why they chose to take such a complex story and cram information technology into a 2 60 minutes movie is across me -- they certainly could have made information technology a miniseries, a la Band of Brothers, or something. All the centre and soul of Chocolate-brown's book is lost in this picture show.
And I know Adam Beach is a pop role player if yous're casting a movie that calls for young, good looking Native American guys, simply he only has ii facial expressions: happy or snarly, and that's it. Even Aidan Quinn, whom I normally admire, was totally wooden in this. The magnificent Wes Studi was horribly underused; he appears for about 60 seconds of moving-picture show.
Such a shame that an amazing story had to exist turned into a disappointing production.
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Expect, we need to own upwards to what we did to the Indians.
Does "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" become overboard on trying to humanize its subjects (or making them palatable to a Goggle box audience)? Whether or not it does is abreast the point. The indicate hither is that we white people have to own upward to our genocide against the Indians and theft of their land. Fifty-fifty if it takes a less-than-masterful motion-picture show like this one, something needs to remind us of that. The movie focuses specifically on a Sioux (Adam Embankment) who takes the proper name Charles Eastman and studies medicine, but upon seeing what the white people's westward expansion does to his people tries to go Sen. Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) to mind.
I recommend it simply because it shows what happened to the Indians. I repeat: nosotros white people need to admit what we did and offset atoning for it. Too starring J.Chiliad. Simmons, Wes Studi, August Schellenberg and Anna Paquin.
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An HBO flop
Everything and anybody involved in this production was presented in such a way as to exist a cliché, an unfortunate stereotype of the real events and people this show was based upon. It's actually deplorable considering I would have expected so much more than from HBO. In past programs they have done such an splendid job of portraying an era, Rome being one very constructive example. And it even more than of a shame because the book this fabric is based upon was so thoroughly unique. I read "Coffin My Heart At Wounded Knee" the summer of the year it was published. I was a senior in high school on my way to college and I was really taken aback by it's powerful and intense telling of those years in American history.
The book left such an impression on me. I felt so angry and mistrustful toward the traditional telling of history, or our "not" telling of history that I spend a great deal of time talking with my relatives and grandparents well-nigh their call back of native people they had known and worked with.
My paternal grandparents were from Topeka Kansas and my uncle had worked for a number of years at the Bureau Of Land Management, which had reservations as ane of it's concern. My uncle somewhen told me the reason he left, was he just couldn't deal with the wretchedness of the whole affair. He said the health of the Indians was appalling and that the money they were supposed to exist getting never got to whom it should. Information technology finally depressed him so much he transferred to some other expanse of government. I always remembered my grandfather, who was non a wealthy homo, donated much money to what he used to call "The Indian Missions". They were always sending him Christian paraphernalia as thank yous, which he kept in special alcoves and shelves in his bedroom. To my child's mind they were magnificently beautiful... virtually of them were plastic and many lit up in the dark. I used to slumber in that room when we visited in the summers. He always had a special place in his center for the mission people, and since he was a really kind and generous human being, I realized they must be too. In those days Indians were yet outsiders and while my own family may have thought otherwise, many of the people who lived in that part of the state regarded anyone who was not white as sub-human being. I never got to ask my grandparents about the Indians because they were dead by the time I read this book and got curious.
Anyway, that is all a tangent story. The fact remains that this production falls mode brusque of the base material and is an HBO bomb every bit far every bit I'm concerned. Maybe they should have made it a full fledged mini series and explored the richness of the characters further, particularly the Ghost Dancer, because information technology'due south a gripping story well worth big attention.
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Awesome movie...
I have never read the unabridged book. But the picture show, equally far as I'1000 concerned is outstanding. I actually thought information technology was going to be zero but gun touting action and a lot of fluff, simply the movie does well in showing the accuracies in most of the accounts that happened or would have happened. The movie does a skilful job showing a more than sympathetic side to some of the Americans who actually cared for the Indian'southward and their interests. Merely it was also true in showing the ignorance on both sides and lack of agreement what truly needs to exist done to reach peace. Another good matter that I loved nigh this movie was that is showed a more than internal/personal conflict with the characters, something rarely run into in Indian based movies or historically ones at that. Overall information technology is an awesome movie that I think, if shown in some of my history classes, would make that discipline a lot more interesting. Anyone waiting to come across the John Adams movie?
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Bury the Truth of Wounded Knee
Alarm: Spoilers
The Wounded Knee Massacre (aka The Battle at Wounded Knee Creek) was the last major armed conflict of what Americans term the "Indian Wars" of the late nineteenth century. Movie opens with a recreation of soldiers taking pictures of "Big Human foot in Death," one of the disturbing bodily pictures in the book, taken on the Wounded Knee battlefield in 1890.
When I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee over a decade ago, I would never accept believed that White America would have the gall to turn it into a film – and if it was made into a film, it would be diluted every bit a trail of tears… The latter has come to laissez passer.
Screenwriter Daniel Giat and director Yves Simoneau deliver a motion-picture show equally watery as any American beer. Though it is supposedly a tribute to the dogged spirit of the Native Americans, it is all the same another White-Perspective slur-fest that dishonors that wild race with every bigoted frame. How could whatever movie on Earth convey the inhuman horrors of Custer's men playing soccer with the heads of Native American children? The movie opens with Full general Custer's gruesome defeat at Little Big Horn in 1876 by combined Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Native Americans – but we don't see the heads that were just a part of the reason why the slaughter was inevitable and well-deserved. The picture show ends with the grisly massacre of Lakota Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee in 1890. Almost as if the "Indians" got their just desserts for killing them nice soldier boys.
I residual my case.
(By the way, "Indians" is the White Optics' name for the Native American races. The Native peoples refer to themselves either as Native Americans or their tribe name. When the Natives in this moving-picture show call themselves Indians and so offhandedly, nosotros realize the film-makers did all their enquiry on Wikipedia.) It was non bad enough to impale off the Native Americans 150 years agone, now a movie is made nearly that inhuman era – not to honor the Natives, merely to MAKE MONEY for HBO; to pretend a spirituality, tolerance and political correctness mod Americans have not the depth to comprehend.
Earlier we continue, permit united states establish that Dee Brown's 1970 book is a disturbing, idea-provoking, well-researched masterpiece; a towering indictment of frontier America of the 1800s; a history lesson from the people who lived it, not the ones who re-wrote it. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a volume that scarred the self-aggrandizing perspective of a nation; recounting Native Americans' extermination at the hands of the White Optics and their cleaved promises, cowardly massacres and bloody betrayals; every single treaty between the two factions dishonored by the scoundrels who claimed birthright to a country that they knew was not theirs.
Though this gutless filmic re-imagining of Brown'southward book tries difficult to be compelling, it is only a thin marketing gimmick for whatever Native American fever was doing the rounds in Hollywood at the fourth dimension.
The actors do what they can with the clichéd characters they're assigned: Aidan Quinn as the Skilful White Homo, empowered to carve up land and herd the Native Americans out; the majestic Wes Studi, an old-school agitator; August Schellenberg perfectly cast equally Sitting Bull, "the greatest living Indian"; Eric Schweig doing his Steven Segal impersonation; the magnificent Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers), ane stride closer to some kind of interim laurels; Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse (evocative proper noun, no? – he played the young Smiles A Lot in Dances With Wolves) is Sitting Balderdash'southward son; and playing the president better than he e'er could in real life, Fred Thompson as Ulysses S. Grant.
At first, the White Eyes' grasping at real estate looks similar provincialism and ignorance of dissimilar cultures ("I still believe that setting the Indians on the form to civilization best serves him") merely the Illegal Aliens (i.due east. American settlers) knew full well that they wanted the State under the PRETENSE of doing a proficient human action for the Natives – doublespeaking it as mendaciously every bit that Neat Earth Terrorist of the 2000s, George W. Bush-league ("We're spreading republic (so we're killing them for their free energy resources)"). Of class, this proud, iron-skinned people, their faces etched like rocks of ages, knew better - and also knew inherent grand truths that their White Eyes scourges could never grasp: that the Country belongs to no one, that we are all a Function OF the state. Unfortunately, there is something stronger than pride – genocide.
Not all the stupidities in this movie are the film-makers' or the early settlers' fault, though. We easily criticize the film for all the Natives conveniently speaking English in current American colloquial and ooga-booga accent, which simply screams "Made For Idiot box," but other silliness tin be attributed to the Native Americans and their own bogus "spirituality": Wes Studi preaches that if they all practice The Dance they will live forever.. uh, ooookay. And I know a modernistic Native friend who still fasts for a week and nails himself to a tree every Tree-Nailing Season so swears he has "visions" – of COURSE you lot have visions! Y'all're hallucinating from food deprivation and claret loss!
Our only hope is that viewers of this vapid HBO motion-picture show volition be encouraged to read Dark-brown'south book and perform true-hearted enquiry into the buried heritage that the White Optics are notwithstanding working so hard to pretend to forget.
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Very good film.
Warning: Spoilers
I believed this film to be quite authentic throughout with 1 blemish. The final major scene ... the one of the actual massacre. The film portrays it as starting "past an accidental shot" by one of the villagers holding a gun. I believe that to exist wrong! The fact is that the soldiers just went right in there to shoot and impale! Not 1 mention was made of this in the picture. There was NO prelude, if you lot volition, to the mass murders because correct after Sitting Bull was shot and killed the soldiers/police went straight to the village to murder all his supporters. It was Sitting Bull who rose up again with his Lakota ppl in defiance of the whites because he even so felt there was still a chance to salvage the old ways. So, right afterwards Sitting Bull was shot, the soldiers weren't satisfied. And so they proceeded to that hamlet so that they could have killed more Lakota!! The massacre DID Non start by an accidental belch as it'southward portrayed in the film! You noticed that shortly after the head commander told Charles Eastman that they "did not burn down the first shot, I swear by the almighty God" ... those were the words right afterward he helped murder the Lakota. So not only did he assistance murder them but he also lied to Eastman! This picture is a classic portrayal of murder, treachery and deceit by the whites as is Always the instance! And Dawes was Not a friend of Eastman'due south! Dawes merely USED HIM to get what he wanted and what every white man wanted .... Lakota land, resources and wealth, that's all!! At that place was no such thing every bit "friendship" between whites and Native ppl in those days! If there was, it was usually the white person simply wanting to utilise and abuse him/her, commonly for state, coin, resource; you know, the usual shebang.
Only... ANYWAYS... this was still a smashing flick to spotter for those interested in Native history and I would strongly recommend you lot watch it.
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Congrats, HBO
Having but spent the by 18 months studying Native American philosophy and having just returned from a week at Cherokee, learning the language and culture up close, I can say this film does help express the complex and heart-rending story of the relationship between the invaders and the conquered in our years 1870-1890.
For those who take been disquisitional of the film (on this site), I should note from a White Woman'southward point of view, this is well-nigh all that Whites tin absorb of the "full" story and emotions as a first contact. Yes, more can be told and should be told. Simply it's a start.
Perchance this is the beginning of a revival of compassion and cantankerous-cultural understanding.
In 1775, Dragging Canoe, a Cherokee, said, "We are not yet conquered." It has taken 200 years. Allow'due south hope he was correct.
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A big disappointment
The merely reason I'm giving this pic three stars is because of the casting and the acting. Both were well done. The movie, however, is a disappointment.
I first read Dee Brown'southward volume, Bury My Centre at Wounded Knee, when I was 10 years old and institute out that I was role Cherokee. It struck a cord with me that continues to resonate today, 30 some years afterwards. Expecting a long overdue moving-picture show that would capture the eloquent and heart-breaking words and stories of the book, I was disappointed to find the movie barely resembled the book at all. Every bit a college lecturer who frequently refers to the book in my classes, I am quite familiar with its contents. The picture show version was barely recognizable.
Indian heroes such as Sitting Bull and Blood-red Cloud come across as arrogant and foolish in this movie. They are not characters that we can understand with; in fact, no ane in this motion-picture show is. While the story of Charles Eastman is worth telling, it is not part of the book and is sloppily woven into the storyline of the Sioux resistance at the Battle of the Little Bighorn to the massacre at Wounded Human knee. That the Wounded Knee massacre should be told in flashbacks rather than as direct activeness is bloodcurdling.
And then much has been left out of this motion-picture show that it does nothing more than than commit a not bad injustice to both the volume and the people whose stories are being told. Hasn't America taken enough abroad from the Indian? Must another Hollywood flick strip Indian people of yet another aspect of their culture, namely their stories, their history, and their heroes? In this flick, it does all three.
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Exceptionaly good.
Alert: Spoilers
An HBO Films event inspired past Dee Dark-brown'due south bestseller. A true epic that begins with the aftermath of the Sioux massacre of General Custer and his men at Little Big Horn. Featured are the struggles of three master players as Senator Dawes(Aidan Quinn)lobbies President Grant(Fred Thompson)into treating the Indians kinder. Senator Dawes would exist aided by Charles Eastman(Adam Beach), a young Sioux doctor educated At Dartmouth. The Dawes Committee agenda was to break upward the Great Sioux Reservation into individual parcels of land to be awarded to each Indian and nonetheless allow a right of mode for the railroad to traverse on their former lands. The great chief Sitting Bull(Baronial Schellnberg) would be driven to Canada and then reluctantly return to the reservation, where he would exist stripped of his powers and dignity. Elaine Goodale(Anna Paquin)who'southward secret dear of Eastman led her to the reservation to piece of work in improving the lives of the Indians. Great scenery and superbly photographed. As well featured are: Wes Studi, J.Chiliad. Simmons, Colm Feorce, Gordon Tootoosis and Eric Schweig.
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Clumsy treatment of a fascinating story
When the regime of America's European settlers defeated the indigenous population, they didn't direct massacre or enslave them (at least, not in every case). The signed a treaty with the defeated Sioux that granted them land, and when they wanted some of this back, offered to pay for it. Senator Henry Dawes, architect of this deal, saw himself as a neat friend on the Indians (as opposed to those who considered them sub-man); he was offering them civilization. All the same, anthropologist Marvin Harris has suggested that the process of civilisation is not so much progress every bit a necessary adaptation to shortages of natural resources, specially land, and the truth of this is credible when considering the Sioux; regardless of whether civilization was truly in their interests, information technology was necessary to release their land to those who wished to exploit it. 'Bury My Center At Wounded Knee' tells the story of this period, and the truth is grim and fascinating; only unfortunately, this is heavy-handed stuff, whose sympathies are always apparent, and marred by wooden acting and lumbering dialogue. In identify of naturalism, nearly every scene seems especially constructed to demonstrate a specific point of the history; and bizarrely, the story's natural climax is told, not as it happens, but in flashback, squandering the dramatic tension that should have been apparent. Yet in spite of its clumsiness, the film left me wanting to know more of the existent history; in that at least information technology succeeds.
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Essentially the sequel to 1991's "Son of the Morning Star"
Released to HBO in 2007, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Genu" is a historical Western based on several capacity of Dee Dark-brown'due south book of the same proper noun and details the last days of the Sioux Nation, culminating in the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee. Adam Beach plays Charles Eastman, a Dakota youth who is encouraged by his Christianized father to caput east and become a doctor. During his stint equally medico at Pino Ridge Reservation he meets and marries, Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin). Eastman teams-up with Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) to legally help the Native Americans. This includes the Dawes Human activity, which would ensure that every Indian family would own 160 acres of land. Inside this framework the story of Sitting Balderdash (August Schellenberg) is told, including his expiry. Wes Studi appears briefly as Wovoka, a Northern Paiute spiritual leader and creator of the Ghost Trip the light fantastic. His messianic movement inspired the Natives, promising an end of their suffering under white rule.
Every moving picture based on history mixes fact with fiction equally filmmakers try to overcome the challenge of morphing circuitous real-life events into palatable movie theatre. So let's get the falsities out of the manner: Charles Eastman never lived in the Native village almost the Boxing of the Little Bighorn every bit young dauntless Ohiyesa; Sitting Bull surrendered at Ft. Buford, non Standing Stone; lastly, Charles Eastman was not Dawes' associate in developing the Dawes Act.
With that out of the way, what I like nearly this movie is how balanced it is equally it shows both sides of the story. Here the Indians aren't portrayed every bit super-virtuous with nigh-Messianic powers (except for Wovoka, which is understandable) nor are the whites frothing with evil to massacre the Natives. This balance is perfectly portrayed in the splendid parley sequence between Sitting Bull and Col. Nelson Miles (Shaun Johnston) where honest and intense positions are shared. For instance, Miles argues that N America was anything but a peaceful paradise before Europeans arrived and that the Lakota Sioux conquered other tribes to acquire "their" land in the Black Hills. The Europeans were simply a confederation of several white "tribes" from across the great sea and were merely doing the same thing that Sitting Bull's tribe did – acquiring land from conquered peoples.
Speaking of Sitting Balderdash, he's one of the virtually interesting and enigmatic Native characters seen in cinema. And it'south a noteworthy operation by Schellenberg.
The Wovoka sequence is another highlight where Wovoka (Studi) brings his prophecy and message of the Ghost Trip the light fantastic to the Black Hills Natives. He articulates his message in a hypnotizing manner accompanied by the sign language of the plains Indians. The irony is that, while Wovoka'southward vision inspires the Lakota and information technology replaces their suffering with promise & happiness, it only ends in death.
Two great sequences occur in the final act: The accurately-depicted haunting decease of Sitting Bull, which took place on Dec 15, 1890, at Standing Rock Reservation; and the titular massacre at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine River Reservation two weeks after. Col. James Forsyth (Marty Antonini) says to Eastman, "We didn't burn first. I swear to Almighty God, we did not fire first," which is verified by history: Tensions mounted in the confrontation every bit Yellow Bird started to perform the Ghost Dance, informing the Sioux that their "ghost shirts" were bulletproof. Known troublemaker Black Coyote seemed to unintentionally trigger the massacre past refusing to give up his rifle; some say he was deafened and didn't embrace the order. When two soldiers seized Black Coyote from behind, his rifle was discharged during the struggle. While this was happening, Yellow Bird threw dust in the air and several Lakota braves with concealed weapons threw aside their blankets and fired their rifles at the troops. The firing then became indiscriminate and the massacre entailed.
While "Bury My Heart at Wounded Human knee" is a telly production, its quality is as practiced or meliorate than many theatrical pictures. As my title blurb says, it's basically the sequel to 1991's "Son of the Morning Star": That movie ended with Custer's last stand whereas "Wounded Knee" begins with information technology. Furthermore, they're both televisions productions with the same grueling-realistic tone. Another proficient comparison is 1975's "I Will Fight No More Forever." Information technology's besides not far off in style and approach to movies similar "Unforgiven" (1992), "Wyatt Earp" (1994) and "Open up Range" (2003). If you lot're a fan of these types of Westerns be certain to check out "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."
The moving-picture show runs 133 minutes and was shot outside of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
GRADE: B+
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HBO dropped the ball on this one
I'm rarely if e'er disappointed past any movies HBO makes, but I was disappointed enough with wasting two hours on this ane that I felt compelled to say something. Anyone looking for a moving account of a profoundly tragic and shameful event in American history ought to keep looking. Don't get me started...
OK, fine! If I came into this flick with no understanding of how the US Authorities screwed the Sioux out of their land (and this was the case), I still have no idea how, when, where, or why this happened. Which land? Why was it so precious to them? Why did the U.s. want it? What were the specifics of the homestead program we tried to impose? Why didn't the Sioux just take the money? The movie just throws you into the centre of their numerous town-hall sessions and expects yous to know what'due south going on. The movie did nothing to capture the stark beauty of that land, the spirituality of the civilization, didn't go far plenty back to show y'all what they were missing, what they were trying to regain. It would accept been nice to see a real buffalo hunt to recognize what a pathetic sham the reservation buffalo-chase simulator was. The Sioux are just shown to exist a bunch of stubborn, troublesome, raggedy refugees, so the sympathy only isn't there.
How does Adam Beach keep getting work? I realize there's probably a scarcity of Native American actors out there, but this guy's the centre of your story and he'due south got the emotional range of a light switch. He was awful in WINDTALKERS and he'south awful here. Yous tin really sense how lost he is playing off Anna Paquin and Aidan Quinn.
What the heck was with those little photo-montage-transition thingies? The movie was slow plenty without the managing director throwing those pictures in at that place to aid bring it to a screeching halt multiple times. It's as if he was just trying to give a shout-out to the makeup people and casting agents: "Ooooh, expect how we made this guy look similar THAT guy! Yay for us!" If anything, it but helped embalm his story even more past tying information technology to the past with semi-relevant old tintypes instead of making it live and exhale. Whatever else he was going for, I missed information technology.
Finally, nosotros come up to the climax(?) of the piece, the massacre itself, which is just recounted in a flashback, with no build-upward, no clear nuts-and-bolts demonstration of the hate-whitey all-night rave parties thrown by the fed-up Sioux, and no clear motivation supplied by the men who sent in the soldiers. I'd have to sentry information technology over again, but they didn't fifty-fifty say how many people on both sides bought the farm, and it was an extremely bloody affair. If they were trying to nowadays the whole story through the eyes of the doctor, I would have understood a dorsum-handed recounting since he wasn't at the creek, but the movie switched narratives multiple times, so the directing and editing and even storytelling decisions don't build any tension at all. Y'all could have had a Native American version of DO THE RIGHT Thing hither and you lot BLEW IT!!! I minute, everyone's huddled in blankets complaining most crummy treaties, and the next BAM!!! Expressionless, frozen Sioux.
What happened at Wounded Articulatio genus is the crowning nightmare in a catalog of infamies done to our Native American brothers. I wanted to be angry afterwards watching this, mayhap fifty-fifty choked up a fleck. No dice. Perhaps the most affecting moment in the movie is a closing championship proverb the Sioux have never to this appointment taken a dime for the Black Hills, implying that they're still doin' the Ghost Dance, waiting for Whitey to destroy himself (won't be long) so they can just move back in. When a closing title is the most compelling thing in your film, you're in trouble.
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Not highly memorable, but informative.
Looking through the reviews, in that location seem to be lots of people complaining that this wasn't a $100million 5 role epic with nigh of the dialogue in Sioux. Still, HBO should exist congratulated for simply making this picture.
The movie could be all-time described as informative, about events that probably few people know annihilation nigh. It covers quite a lot of territory, and renders it digestible.
The moving-picture show has the usual TV syle camera methods. The acting is a little wooden, and parts are clichéd. Information technology also tries to include the events, the legal matters, and personal stories, which is always difficult, merely succeeds to a reasonable degree. There's a story near a young Sioux man and his white married woman threaded in, probably to stop the picture show simply being about the Sioux and white bureaucrats and soldiers. But this is the price of getting an audience.
Non highly memorable, but informative and interesting. Pretty good, by the standards of television movies of the time. Who knows, perchance past 2100 in that location will be a picture show about how the US conquered/stole half of Mexico too.
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A practiced story about another American abomination
There is no dubiousness that the three greatest Travesties in the history of America are the treatment of the Native Americans, the treatment of the Mexicans, and the treatment of the Blacks. All 3 were absolute abominations on the soul of America. And absolute proof of the evil that lurks in the eye of the many white men. I've always considered white men to be the most dangerous people on the Globe. And I still consider them to exist that. And I say that as a white homo, who has a very limited amount of pride, based on the travesties we've committed over the centuries.
Certain, we've accomplished a lot. But at what cost? This was a good picture. It was a good depiction of just some other travesty that we've committed. And the cowards that were responsible. As a corking Indian Warrior once said, courage is very like shooting fish in a barrel at a distance.
Embankment is excellent as usual. Quinn plays a highly flawed man with practiced intentions, only someone who does not really sympathise the deficiencies of the souls of the lowlife politicians he is surrounded past.
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Excellent.
I have no thought whether this is historically authentic, or, if I were a member of (Canada'south) First Nations, to embrace or be offended by this portrayal of the time period, which, though the story of one Americanized Indian, is (given the title) really near the plight of America'due south first peoples and obviously told from a 21st Century perspective. Unlike Clint Eastwood'south "Letters from Iwo Jima", it is truly a "white man's" perception. Simply, similar Eastwood's "Outlaw Josey Wales", I was happy to embrace the intended sympathy for the characters. As a Canadian, I was likewise proud to see Adam Beach and Canada's Prairies correspond an American history lesson. And, I must mention that, in addition to excellent cinematography, writing,and direction, what really made the pic for me was the soundtrack by George South. Clinton. Whether yous have no interest in the story of this time period, or are finishing a Doctorate in Anthropology, I believe that y'all will be touched deeply in viewing this film.
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A reduction
Ric-7 21 September 2013
I recently found this flick in searching for Dee Dark-brown'south book at the local public library. I recall reading the book when it start came out, decades agone, and I was fascinated--a history volume that I could not put downward, just similar The Exorcist (the book) when I first read it. Dee Chocolate-brown'south book was too a horror story, and the major horror was that it was real.
So knowing absolutely nothing about the movie, I borrowed it, thinking that information technology would be substantially a documentary. Was I wrong! I should have only checked out the book and read it once again. Historic atrocities can only be properly dramatized past extraordinarily gifted filmmakers. Anything else is a reduction. Only maybe information technology is meliorate if someone stumbles upon the Native American genocide done upward every bit a popcorn moving picture, than never to accept any thought at all.
The NY Times review complained of some rather obvious analogies to Iraq and Afghanistan. That further illustrates the reduction--would anyone cartel utilise the Holocaust equally an analogy for annihilation else? I don't fault the product, which was polished and accomplished. But HBO should take passed on this.
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The Sioux Massacre at Wounded Genu
On December xv, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.
On December 29, the U. S. Army's 7th Cavalry surrounded a ring of Ghost Dancers under Big Pes, a Lakota Sioux master, almost Wounded Genu Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between a Sioux man and a U. Southward. soldier and a shot was fired, although it'due south unclear from which side. A cruel massacre followed, in which it'due south estimated 150 Sioux were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), virtually half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
This is the historical event that "Bury My Middle at Wounded Genu" leads upwards to.
The movie begins in 1876 with General Custer being defeated past Sitting Bull at Lilliputian Large Horn. That was a temporary victory for the Native American tribe, because eventually they would be driven from their land.
"Bury My Heart" focuses on Ohiyesa aka Charles Eastman (Adam Beach). He was a Sioux who went to American universities to become a md. He was a success story in the optics of many whites because he was a symbol of successful absorption. He became a project and protege of Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn), a man who wanted to negotiate a ways to essentially defraud the Sioux of their land. The skillful Christian white folks were always good at dressing atrocity up as civility and then hypocritically pointing out the boorishness of others.
"Bury My Eye" was a back and along between indigenous people and the U. S. regime. Whether it was with guns, words, or "treaties" at that place was a constant tug-o-war which Native Americans were steadily losing.
I would've loved to see this same movie with a bigger budget and improve product. There were veteran actors in it such as Aidan Quinn and J. Thousand. Simmons, and a familiar face from "Ten-Men" in Anna Paquin. I wouldn't even change the cast. The story was there, the cast was there, as were the intentions, it just lacked the coin to make it the production information technology deserved to be.
HBO Max.
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This is an atrocious pic.
This is an awful movie. My cousin Eric Schweig is histrion who was in this movie and he did not like it. I do not blame him. It did non have a expert story line. Information technology is very slow and very depressing.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0821638/reviews
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