Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007)

This is an awful movie. My cousin Eric Schweig is actor who was in this movie and he did not like it. I do not blame him. It did not have a good story line. It is very slow and very depressing.

This horrifying flick seems to do its best in blurring and romanticizing events so much that way things actually happened becomes romanticed and messed. Which is of course the main reason of the movie. Characters doesn't show most anything from real people, the events are of course 'based on actual guideline', but there's just that something(a lot) which doesn't fit in (too much uncorrectness to mention). Somehow, the Indian characters seem more white that they should (as most are played by Indian) and somehow white characters seem more like bureacrates than actual officers and congressmen. And of course in most conversations them (w.a.s.p.) get the last word. And of course them victims (massacred) weren't saints themselves, and of course them religious movement was actually hoax, and of course all of it happened in more romantic times in distant past. And besides of all these things, the film is actually quite boring.Some credit goes to guidelines in the end of the movie, which at least seem to be correct.

An HBO Films event inspired by Dee Brown's 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 principal players as Senator Dawes(Aidan Quinn)lobbies President Grant(Fred Thompson)into treating the Indians kinder. Senator Dawes would be aided by Charles Eastman(Adam Beach), a young Sioux doctor educated At Dartmouth. The Dawes Commission agenda was to break up the Great Sioux Reservation into individual parcels of land to be awarded to each Indian and still allow a right of way for the railroad to traverse on their former lands. The great chief Sitting Bull(August Schellnberg) would be driven to Canada and then reluctantly return to the reservation, where he would be stripped of his powers and dignity. Elaine Goodale(Anna Paquin)who's secret love of Eastman led her to the reservation to work in improving the lives of the Indians. Great scenery and superbly photographed. Also featured are: Wes Studi, J.K. Simmons, Colm Feorce, Gordon Tootoosis and Eric Schweig.

I'll have to admit that I tried reading Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" on two separate occasions, the last time quite recently, and I found it to be VERY dry. Perhaps that was only in the early going, but I wasn't able to complete it both times. As for the film, I came across it quite by accident at my local library, not being an HBO subscriber. If I had my druthers, I guess I'd side with those reviewers who feel a more complete story could have 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 death knell of a proud warrior people.I recently visited the James Fenimore Cooper Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and at the time, actual Sioux drawings were on exhibit depicting the Battle at Little Big Horn. Watching the aerial view of the attack on screen suddenly put into perspective the circular rendition of an artist's rendering on a full size tee-pee. It was like seeing a painting come to life with a soaring eagle's eye, perhaps devoid of detail, but breathtaking in it's panoramic perspective on the immensity of the battle. Not to mention the hopelessness of Custer's cause.The film can be absolutely depressing at times with it's depiction of outright slaughter, and perhaps even more so once the Sioux tribes are relegated to reservation life. We get to see how the 'Every Man a Chief' designation, though sounding completely egalitarian, works to strip away a proud chief's identity and status within his nation. I'm actually glad that the film didn't explore Sitting Bull's Wild West Show days with Buffalo Bill. Fortunately, he was able to reaffirm his own dignity with the 'one last time' confrontation against Senator Dawes (Aidan Quinn), a legacy that remains standing to this day.Nice performances all around by Aidan Quinn as Senator Dawes, Adam Beach as the conflicted Ohiyesa/Charles Eastman, and August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull. President Grant came and went too quickly for me to recognize Fred Thompson under the beard, a trait he might also suffer as a Presidential contender unless he gets that fire in the belly.