Begrabt mein Herz am Wounded Knee

Having just spent the past 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 have been critical of the film (on this site), I should note from a White Woman's point of view, this is about all that Whites can absorb of the "full" story and emotions as a first contact. Yes, more can be told and should be told. But it's a start.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a revival of compassion and cross-cultural understanding.

In 1775, Dragging Canoe, a Cherokee, said, "We are not yet conquered." It has taken 200 years. Let's hope he was right.

The trail of tears that lead to the massacre at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890 started in the Summer of 1876 at the Little Big Horn. It was there where Gen. George Armstrong Custer and over 250 men under his command was slaughtered to the last man, the only survivor of Custer's troop being a calvary horse called Comanche, by the fired up Sioux Indians.

Wanting revenge for what turned out to be the worst defeat that the US Calvary suffered in the Indian Wars the "Great White Father" President Ulysses S. Grant, Fred Thompson, sent a much bigger military detachment headed by, as he's called by the Sioux, Gen.Bear-Coat to put a final end to the Dakota Indian uprising. Confronting Chief Sitting Bull, August Schellenberg, and his some three thousand warriors at Ceder Valley Creek Gen. Bear-Coat had no trouble dispersing the Sioux onslaught mowing down hundreds of Sitting Bull's men with volleys of rifle and cannon fire.

Dispersed and on the brink of starvation Sitting Bull's rival Chief Red Cloud, Gordon Tootoosis, was forced to sign away his peoples rights to where they became wards of the state living off the kindness and charity of the hated White Man. Sitting Bull wanting none of this took his followers to Canada where after suffering through a number of harsh Canadian Winters, far worse then any of the winters in the Dakota Territories, later came back hat in hand accepting the unthinkable: living under the White Man's both rule and law. It was the deception and manipulation by the US Government in trying to force Sitting Bull and his people to sign away their ancestral lands that eventually lead to the wild and hysterical events that lead to Wounded Knee.

The story of "Bury My Heart 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 battle of Little Big Horn where he earned his warrior's feather in killing a horse soldier of Gen. Custer's 7th Calvary in the fighting. Now grown up and earning a medical degree Eastman only wants to help his fellow Sioux in preventing a number of deadly outbreaks of disease that hit his former home the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Together with his white European wife the former 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's good friend Massachusetts Senator Henry Drew, Alden Quinn,trying to get his people to come to some agreement with the US Government in becoming farmers instead of nomads, which the Sioux were for countless centuries, tensions soon reached a breaking point.

It was when out of sheer desperation the Sioux adopted the ancient Indian Ghost Dance, which was only ceremonial and nothing else, that the US Army was dispatched to put an end to what the Federal Government back in Washington D.C perceived to be another potential Little Big Horn. With tempers flaring on both sides after Chief Sitting Bull was murdered by the reservations Sioux police it was only a matter of time for the lid, that both Eastman and Senator Drew tried to keep on, blew off and the results was the massacre at Wounded Knee. The last major battle between the US military and American Indians in the long and bloody US/Indian Wars of the 1800's.

Pretty accurate film about how the American Indians were treated and how they had their land which they never really claimed to own, the idea 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 US Military the Sioux never relinquished their claim to the Black Hills, which they considered their sacred and holy grounds. Technically and legally even now, some 118 years after the Wounded Knee massacre, the historic Black Hills are in the hands of the Sioux tribes still living there.

P.S Charles Eastman aka Ohiyesa was to write dozens of books and articles about his people the Sioux Indians as well as practice medicine at the Pine Ridge, as well as other, Indian reservation until he passed away on January 8, 1939 at the age of 80. Eastman among his many accomplishments in the service of his people was also the co-founder of the American Boy Scouts that improved and enriched the lives of American youths white black yellow and Native American Indian alike.

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-TV" bit 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 impact 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 have seen.

Regardless, there are some stellar appearances and acting within it. August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull undeniably has the most impact. Recent movie viewers will 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 Knee, it is the white man 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 as Senator Henry Dawes. They spend a lot of time together on film and they played against/off each other exceptionally well. Charles being the "new wave" Indian who melds into the white man's way 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' way of life without even realizing it.

But other actors have little to offer. Anna Paquin (X-MEN) as Charles' white love interest (and eventual wife) is seen too infrequently so the relationship between the two has little impact. She does a good job of acting but the script stymied any possibility of real success. From here the acting dips into the drab and boring. I have to give mention to Senator Fred Thompson (currently a Republican runner for the U.S. Presidency) who plays President Ulysses S. Grant. We see maybe four frames of film with him in it and then he's gone. This surprised me greatly since it was Grant's administration that doomed Native Americans by 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 normally taught in grade school or higher. Europeans (us) conquered this land 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 will say that the scenes depicting large-caliber rifle bullets ripping through young kids was filmed well and was equally hard to watch).

So the story gives this film a higher rating than anything within 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.

I've studied the events that lead up to the Wounded knee massacre, and I have to say you have to give a hand to this film. They kept to the books for the most part, and 99% of the film is pretty much exactly what happened in real life. To understand that this happened in the year 1890 sure is disheartening, seeing as when you put it into a broad perspective, that wasn't that long ago. We all take for granted our core values and beliefs, and this film hits close to home. You feel empathy and heartbreak over what only one tribe of American Indians went through, you open your eyes to what happened to all of them as well.

I have never read the entire book. But the movie, as far as I'm concerned is outstanding. I actually thought it was going to be nothing but gun touting action and a lot of fluff, but the movie does well in showing the accuracies in most of the accounts that happened or would have happened. The movie does a good job showing a more sympathetic side to some of the Americans who actually cared for the Indian's and their interests. But it was also true in showing the ignorance on both sides and lack of understanding what truly needs to be done to attain peace. Another good thing that I loved about this movie was that is showed a more internal/personal conflict with the characters, something rarely see in Indian based movies or historically ones at that. Overall it is an awesome movie that I think, if shown in some of my history classes, would make that subject a lot more interesting. Anyone waiting to see the John Adams movie?