REEL INJUN | Full Documentary | National Film Board of Canada

[Music] growing up on the reservation the only show in town was movie night in the church [Music] basement raised on Cowboys and Indians we cheered for the Cowboys never realizing we were the Indians [Applause] [Music] Soon we will be gone you are a civilization you world destroyed us but by you are magic we will live forever [Music] [Applause] got to cut your throat get through your head I'm a white man you fool them G you fool them you fool them [Music] [Applause] all you know the only thing more Pathetic than Indians on TV is Indians

watching Indians on TV [Music] I'm an engine a cre who grew up in one of the most isolated native communities on Earth close to the Arctic Circle up here we don't wear feathers or ride horses but because of the movies a lot of the world still thinks we do I'm on a journey to make sense of how Hollywood's fantasy about Indians influen the world even natives like me you got to look like a warrior you got to look like you just came back from killing a buffalo but our tribe never hunted Buffalo we were fishermen

but the myth of the Fearless stoic Warrior lives [Music] on we'll never be able to change the Fantasy of who and what aliens are that fantasy will always be there will be always be on cover of Novel saying Cheyenne Warrior [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm only three and a half years [Music] old I'm off to Hollywood 4,000 M through the American West in the reservation Indians vehicle of choice the res [Music] car a res car is probably like a piece of luggage or something to other people and you kind of keep it together with tape and

with string and uh you know I have all sorts of people telling me Oh yeah I know that story about driving backwards cuz we actually did it I had a res car and you know ignition didn't work so we had like a screwdriver in the uh ignition and you know all sorts of stuff nobody said to me that they had a Car with three wheels yet but that would be a res car [Music] these are the American Great Plains the setting for most of Hollywood's Indian stories I'm headed west to the sacred Black Hills once

the domain of Chief Sitting Bull and the legendary tashunka otherwise known as Crazy Horse tashunka which does not mean Crazy Horse tashunka means his horses are Spirited he was a great horse trainer and all his horses had Spirit you could just see them prancing you I've always wanted to ride a horse on the open Plains I finally feel like a real Indian this is where Crazy Horse outmaneuvered kuster at the Battle of the Little Big Horn ever since Hollywood has been telling that story over and over again turning the battle into Legend and Crazy Horse

an icon why you dir Mor old Crazy Horse the to Legend has it he killed [Music] kuster there's a Romanticism in the glory to Little Big Horn we defeated kuster and all listen at all at that emotional level but you know within 15 years our leader Crazy Horse was dead sitting bll was dead you and we were HED [Music] Up Pine Ridge is the poorest Indian reservation in North America these are the descendants of Crazy [Music] Horse their Lota Chief is a direct descendant of Chief redcloud who fought alongside Crazy [Music] Horse so this is

where it happened this where it happened right here this where chap Crazy Horse Was imprisoned here after surrendering here to troops Crazy Horse was stabbed in the back so I was think this is sacred ground to me where our ancestors used to walk where you used to camp and live here to Native people what you do Crazy Horse is a mystical Warrior just like in the movies it was a continuation of the idea That natives were really great warriors that they were just incredibly skilled at Warfare almost Unstoppable [Music] really I say Neil you know

I'm really glad that you're doing this for once somebody's taken the time to uh let the to tell the to tell the real story of Crazy Horse as he says in his song whenever you look see the Black Hills remember me that is our homeland our sacred Grounds [Music] carved out of the Sacred Black Hills is Crazy Horse Memorial when complete it will be the largest statue to a human anywhere there will be a 44t stone feather on the back of his head and will be carved from 11 pieces of stone an ironic tribute to

a man who it is said refused to have his image captured most experts agree that every Photo of him is a fake who was Crazy [Music] Horse not who was Crazy Horse who is Crazy [Music] Horse who he is is he's an idea he's an embodiment of the human Spirit he's an embodiment of what can be done when you're centered and balanced within yourself as a human being when you have a relationship to the spiritual reality That you are a part of see to me he's an embodiment of that gentlemen shortly there will be a

[Music] [Music] blast good Crow damn it's nice doing a TV shot maybe a couple more I'll be able to get in the movies someday and uh maybe change some of the movie cliches you know you see every day in the movies where the settlers come in gets the Indian loaded And wants his resources you know say engine which way does this road go Road stay you [Applause] go you don't understand someday we want to live together and love one another like brothers and sisters we cannot love the white eyes it is painful to kiss for

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] tongue zigzagging my way through the American Heartland I'm hoping to make sense of the world's enduring love affair with the Hollywood Indie in the movies we're often portrayed as spiritual Noble and free this image has captured the world's [Music] imagination this fascination with everything native begins with the very first explorers They encounter hundreds of Nations rich and diverse cultures languages and beliefs the world is hooked Native Americans were among the first subjects for films Thomas Edison shot Silence about Native Americans This is in the late 1800s Thomas Edison unveiled his kinoscope

in Time Square and it was a penny machine that uh played the Laguna Pueblo ceremonies and dances and those were the very first moving Images there were more than a hundred silence made involving Native Americans uh very much because this part of American history of course was really still ongoing at the time that Cinema was really being [Music] born with populations dwindling most natives are confined to [Music] reservations then as film is being invented the seventh Cavalry in Revenge For Little Big Horn opens fire on the last free community of natives 300 men women and

children are killed at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation [Music] that is a genocide that occurred and the culture wanted to perpetuate the idea that these people are now mythological you know they don't even really exist they're like [Music] Dinosaurs the reason that Indians were projected so heavily into movies was the Romance of the tragedy Greek Roman tragedy the Western as a form is a very open form it's a very pure kind of American metaphor a kind of frame within which you can write or say all kinds of things I think that the cinema

was created to film First Nations at the beginning they were really Pioneer when they went West with the first movie Camera if you look at the iron or John for film the promotion they did from that film they are telling you that the crew was living like the Pioneers you know that they were going through the same experience I read that in early Cinema they used to get extras in the cowboy movies that were real Indians and they'd pay them with tobacco and fire water and they even used to have armed guards to make sure

these people didn't get up to Any treachery on the set you know [Music] hey you got bruis excellent and it is taking over the Le they're going to this SE Follow by m timber in the movies all natives are Supreme Horsemen at one with their horse but most of us can't even ride to go back perhaps that myth was born here with the grow people of Montana [Applause] yeah you got him the crow are renowned writers throughout North America it's like they were born on a horse the crows they love horses without a horse it's

like losing a mom or a family member when a horse dies some people cry [Music] there is a spiritual connection between The Crow and the [Music] Horse because the horse come along and he saved a lot of people like me you know from whatever [Music] [Applause] it heals you it makes you think about something not yourself but even though you became like this with him you know he was still something that you could open your hand to and let go something you gave Away fed up with seeing only white guys riding in the movies Rod

became one of Hollywood's top stun men I'm TR you take you to the next level no longer am I just how you know now I can drive a low rider and shoot you with a Uzi you can wrap me up in a turban and that could be your worst nightmare he now trains young natives in the secrets of his craft hey come in come in t come in toward me come in Toward me now go stay there stay there wooo come in you see some good in some of these kids she going want to bring

it out and I'm trying to give that back because I can because I want to 3 [Music] hours hoping to keep got got Sun from his I don't just take in any body if you Can't ride your horse anywhere you want get your hands out to your side and still being in control that's horsemanship such a I'll put you on the edge I want you to feel my excitement my you know I want you to feel that take the hit man take the hit if you don't teach them they're never going to learn and I

take that in life you know if I don't tell people about Indians they're going to think we're all drunks you know we're going to think we all can ride bear back [Music] throughout the silent era the Indian becomes not only a hero but a Hollywood star the output of the silent Arrow was tremendous people in the silent days were going to movies every week so much was being produced so was a natural for Native American perspectives to be viewed the Betrayal of native people on Screen has changed dramatically since the silent era they were a

very popular character character Native American people directing and acting in films and they were bringing their viewpoints to the table too and those were being listened to everything was wide open it was really exciting times one of the most authentic films of its time featuring real native actors is the silent enemy The Silent enemy refers to starvation it's what is occurring to Native people who are being encroached on and how are they Conquering the silent enemy of starvation in the beginning of the film it talks about the demise of American Indian people and you're talking

about a film in the 1930s when the population of American Indian people had dipped to around 250,000 so the idea of the vanishing American was probably very real in people's mind so here we have this Chance to capture the Indians before they vanish and what better way to capture them than on film the most famous Indian of this era and star of the silent enemy is Chief Buffalo child long Lance Buffalo child long Lance in the movie becomes the Ultimate Warrior the Mystic Warrior the one who's going to help his people but long Lance lived

his whole life with a dark secret he disguised his tracial background Indian black and white and Promoted a new image of who he was so he changed his name to Long Lance so he took off from there what made him the darling of the cocktail set is that he would show up his hair slick back dark skin in his beautiful tuxedo and everybody's looking for the Indian to appear and they don't see this very sophisticated man in a tuxedo when it came out that he was part black of course he was shunned and nobody wanted

to invite him to any of Their um Chic cocktail parties he ended up at a a benefactor home in California and ended up committing suicide because it was going to be revealed about his true heritage [Music] I was luckily enough to grow up in a time when native people were the cool thing to be and I would remember going to parties where white people would come to me and want to touch my hair and would describe themselves getting an Indian name from an elder at some ceremony somewhere that they had managed to attend and it

was always you know Dakota ah choosing your animal name first you choose your animal which is your spirit the animal most like I Am The Wolverine I Am The [Music] Wolverine scattered throughout North America are summer camps like these keeping Hollywood's notion of the noble Savage alive and well [Music] this is the event of the summer tribal games a time when boys become Indian Braves at War what is interesting is that with all the bad images of the Indians so many people want to be Indians all the mythological apparel that the cinema put around the

Indians putting it in this magic land everybody wants to be There and one of the way to be there was to become Indian David Tyner comes all the way from Austria I am here because I'm a counselor in Camp Nom I was chosen as a tribe leader as well for the Sue tribe which was a great great surprise for me and a great honor to the suks Warriors never fear defe Su the my knowledge is not great about Natives I mean basically it's from like two or three movies that I would have watched but through

these movies I just got the whole mentality of the natives gave me a very positive perspective like the unity the family the unity this how they hold together like Brotherhood I wonder if any of these kids have ever met a native person or if they're image of us comes only from the movies I hope I don't disappoint [Music] Them on one side I like the peaceful image of the natives but if necessary the warrior image I'd say it's very brutal the natives had brutal times but I think it was not if it was necessary [Applause]

[Applause] [Applause] go we we we 3 [Music] [Laughter] [Music] oh no no don't in the 1930s the Indian is transformed into a brutal Savage an America struggling through the Great Depression needs a new brand of hero there were number of Hollywood films that came out in the early 1930s that followed in the steps of the silent enemy and the Indians were the stars of these movies what are you going do with That but the interesting thing about that whole cycle they just bombed at the box office Americans are not that interested in them for the

most part in that decade we're looking at films where it's the Savage it's the attacking Marauders Savages that's my wife y K my Squall yes but she's she's Savage see seor she's a little bit Savage I think people lined up in droves Americans love westerns it's in our Blood stage coach is the iconic Western it's the Western that all others were really modeled uh after and it's one of the most damaging movies for native people in history you have white Society inside a stage coach and they are besieged on all sides by native people by

the wild of [Music] America those that are stopping progress those that are backwards those that are vicious and [Music] bloodthirsty Stage Coach summed up and gave the opinion of native people for decades to the populace in the US that's how they thought of us and it's because of John Ford that they thought of us like that and that native people may have even thought of themselves you push them up daisies oh very interesting that's when we developed the sort of Tonto speak that now I think is Most associated with the portrayal of Aboriginal people on

screen but some films instead of using a native language well they just ran English backwards listen for the satanic messages and as for the Indians they're usually white guys in red face white people playing native roles I love it because it's funny all the big stars played natives she can chew on my Maris anytime she wants to white guys playing Indians You know Chuck Connor as jono that's like Adam Sandler as Malcolm X you know kind like I remember once we were on a set the director says do I want a real they I said

I want a up front I want to see the real thing we couldn't find one native women on the other hand are pretty much absent in the western I knew I could count on feminine curiosity except of course for the Indian princess Epitomized by Bahamas why is this woman the Disney Pocahontas such a profound image a Mythic image for American people what about children who know nothing about Native society and they see this young woman who has this one shoulder skimpy dress that she's wearing and she has Meo or raccoon that she communes with well

the reality of Pocahontas is that at the time of the contact with John Smith in this event it since she was about 9 Years old so we imbue in her all of the wrong Notions of what we want to see in a mythical princess and she becomes the embodiment not of native Society she becomes an embodiment of American society of American [Music] desire native men are reduced to a mere caricature Richard Lamont one of Hollywood's biggest costume designers knows firsthand about how Hollywood Dresses up Indians yeah finger necklace I don't know what show it was

but I'm sure somebody saw that in a research you know yeah where they used body parts or whatever his trophies you know made a necklace if you look at the movies in the 30s Native Americans I want to say much like African-Americans were sort of props rather than try to make them look Regional everybody was identifiable so they weren't interested in explaining the tribes they said well they're Indians andelo this Indian's no Indian if he's no Indian why is he wearing a chicken for a hat so to keep things simple every Indian becomes a Plains

Indian wearing the headdress buck skin and the headband that's not a headband is it yeah it probably is a headband headand yeah and it's probably just like the ones we were talking about uh the ones that never existed headbands are an interesting thing certainly certain Americans Native American tribes did use Headbands and wear headbands but the planes engion usually not but when you're working on a western and you have stunt people and they're going to fall off horse you need to keep their wigs on and that's the best way to do it so Hollywood started

putting headbands on ples Indians and then it just got to be a thing where you saw it in every movie headband with an elastic back something you'd never find on a native this is actually while probably not calculated Is an ingenious Act of colonialism you're essentially robbing nations of an identity and grouping them into [Music] one and the Western force is all Indians to live in the deserts of the [Music] Southwest John Ford shot so many movies here that tourists come by the thousands to experience the iconic American [Music] West and to pick up a

momento of America's greatest Indian fighter [Music] right got the grain yes sir yes sir John Wayne is an icon of American Cinema one of the great action heroes in history his actions which are remarkably violent uh seem excused actually that this is the exact appropriate behavior one would have in the Searchers John Wayne literally uncovers a grave with an Indian person a dead Indian person in It why don't you finish the [Music] job and shoots him in the face ain't got no eyes he can't enter the spirit land has to wander forever between the wins

you get it Reverend come on blankthe head he embodied the idea of the Unstoppable American that the true American wasn't native Native Americans were the ones that stopped Real Americans from settling their own Country [Music] I found two Navajo Elders who were extras in some of John Ford's films Effie and James Etna were teenage sweethearts when they met on set they're seeing these films for the very first [Music] time James can remember how many of the Navajo actors would go off script in some scenes jok around in their Language no one ever bothered to translate

what was said until now if I do not return General quate will find you and you will be dead and all your people what then no he is not a fool you are what after playing the bonehead Savage for so many years the Navajo get their sweet revenge [Music] [Music] right next door to the Navajo is a place Where anybody can be a cowboy for a day people out here on vacation come on out and have a good time even an engine like me here they worship one man his Swagger is screen Legend his name

The Duke John Wayne never did a bad movie okay partner you got it all right and now worth a little cowboy room I got to do a wee we uhhuh everybody's always fantasized about an age when individuals were very strong the lone guy traveling across the Wide landscape and dealing with all the elements everything from rattlesnakes to who knows [Music] what there's always this kind of John Wayne guy that is sort of the moral standard that represents America and and its moral values so it's a big hunky white guy that's not real smart but going

to do the right thing and he's going to drive the Indians away and Marry the school M and walk off into the sunset had to go too far Mr PES like to sneak up and pick off Strays I'd like to thank you for the use of your Mustang lady and apologize for the spur marks on that dashboard uhhuh who's the quickest draw here who's the quickest I would say maybe Wendy Bill Wy Bill where's Wendy bill that little fell right over I'd like to challenge Wendy bill you bring It on cowboy Oh gun's stuck in

here oh it's stuck all right let you okay on on four 1 2 3 four whatever number you want four as a kid I didn't realize it was me bug's bunny was killing off on screen one little two little three little four little five little six little engines uh-oh sorry that one was a half breed yes sir I'd sure love to kill me [Music] In [Music] Thea when we were kids we used to play Cowboys and Indians I was always Gary Cooper [Applause] those images do shape people's opinions and I think they put it at

odds a bit for me you know when you're kids and you're trying to play Cowboys and Indians and if you're an Indian kid well doesn't that mean you're going to lose All the [Music] time when we watch the Indians getting slaughtered at the end of every movie well my brother would refuse to watch it every time that bugle went off and the charge started my brother he was year and a half younger than me he'd go like this and he wouldn't look he wouldn't watch Wind come out of those theaters after the Cavalry had rescued

the white people and all of a sudden we' hear There's those Indians and we' start fighting we had to fight them white kids every Saturday we knew he was going to get in a fight [Music] I'm here to find out how Native kids today would react to the kinds of westerns I saw growing up [Music] so what you understand I want you to listen real carefully and find out what They're talking about okay the film is little big man where an Indian Massacre was made graphic and real for the very first time and I am

the so white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn Little Big Horn was not representative of uh encounters between whites and Indians Mr Krab uh you see the uh near genocide of the Indian the near what near genocide it means extermination [Music] [Music] shoot the Indian opponent [Music] see when they got off the boat they didn't recognize us they said who are you and we said we're the people we're the human beings and they said oh Indians cuz they didn't recognize what it meant to be a human being I'm a human being this is

the name of my Tribe this is the name of my people but I'm a human [Music] being but then the predatory mentality shows up and starts calling us Indians and committing genocide against us as an as as a as a as a vehicle of erasing the memory of being a human being [Music] so they used War textbooks history books and when film came along they used [Music] Film you go in our own communities how many of us are fighting to protect our identity of being an Indian and and 600 years ago that word Indian that

sound was never made on this hemisphere that sound that noise was never ever made ever we're trying to protect that as an identity see so it affects all of us it's reached the point evolutionarily speaking we're starting to not recognize ourselves as human beings we're too busy trying to protect the idea of a Native American or an Indian but we're not Indians and we're not Native Americans we're older than both Concepts we're the people we're the human beings thank you for making me a human being makes my heart say a world without human beings has

no Center [Music] to I always like the best part of any movie is when you heard oh I love [Music] That they're not Indian within miles from here you know I just love that and I think long ago when we had that we were never stressed out cuz you see old pictures of Indians we were never fat we weren't diabetic heart problems cuz we had problems we had you know we didn't need Dr Phil so I say we should bring that back you know you get somebody from the IRS come [Music] over there is one

face that has become an American American icon for all that is good about Native people Hollywood's most famous Indian actor ironized Cody AR ni Cody was a very interesting character all in all he was probably involved in close to 100 westerns and now Another Kind comes this one wants go he was very much the Plains Indian with the War Bonnet the paint he fit the image of what people thought American Indian should be so he became a symbol an icon for American Indians in this country and all over the world some people have a deep

abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this [Music] country and some people don't people start pollution people can stop it but ironized like many Heroes had a secret identity he was actually born Oscar dorti around 1904 in Louisiana his parents were immigrants from Sicily and southern Italy back then at the turn of the century in Louisiana Italians were not welcome there was a lynching by the Irish against the Italians so he grew up amongst all sorts of prejudice against Italians he always loved American Indians very much and wanted to be part of them

even though he was Sicilian so he took on another identity he always wanted to be in Pictures so he eventually joined Hollywood that's ironized behind James Kagney waiting to be spray painted Indian red behind the camera he was very much involved his wife was Native American he had the whole image in his real life as well as in Hollywood why is as you are Sitting Bull put on the war paint so when the camera stopped he kept his identity and he became what his image was he really believed it and he lived it and he

Breathed it you used the bow and arrow you were pretty good with that I understand de uh deil used you and all of his pictures I did all of his stuff when the shooting with the bow and arrow into the bodies and things like that I hunt with a bow and arrow the older he got the more he believed it I remember visiting his house and at that time it was after his stroke his whole house was just full of photographs with celebrities of himself as an Indian and He had a number of videos going

simultaneously I counted about seven where he would be playing his own movies constantly all the time he believed he was what he saw on the screen [Music] ironized Cody died on January 4th 1999 today I'm meeting the eldest of his two adopted Sons Robert Tree Cody Robert Cody hello yes how are you Neil Neil yes good morning [Music] There he [Music] is that scene cracks me up where he gets mad to this day robertt celebrates his father as native he was a man with a good heart he raised us to know the Indian way of

life through our dancing and songs and in language too [Music] but like I said I will always stick to my guns I will defend my father's honor I will always defend that I lived with this man that this man was a great man that my father was of Indian people [Music] in the' 60s everything is turned on its head the Western goes out of style and the hippies become [Music] Indians the' 60s man my daughter said well how come you listen to people they were named the groups were Vanilla Fudge cream Strawberry Alarm Clock when

we had The munchies for 15 years that's why and we always tolerated them too because they always had the best smoke so you had to put up you know like I was like hippie man you know like I was like Indian you know in the previous life Cherokee People Cherokee so proud to live so proud how would you die I've come to San Francisco birthplace of the hip it's during the summer of love that The Indian is at his grooviest sashen little feather was there so Pate Ashbury brings back a lot of memories a lot

of people have stolen the street signs over the year so it must have cost them a fortune to uh keep replacing them my first visit to hate ashberry uh here was in 1966 people were dancing in the streets some of them were nude sashen was raised native but when She moved to ha Asbury people's reactions to the way she dressed surprised her people asked me what are you are you a hippie and I said no I'm an Indian what's a hippie so I went to a place where the hippies lived to see what a hippie

look like and I said I don't look like [Music] that I did some modeling at that time and they put me in these outfits [Music] Really people emulated the American Indian as a free spirit and and they always said oh my great grandmother is a Cherokee princess one of the ways you could honor native people was to dress like a native person so you have this you know extension of the headband and Native people were saying well we we actually don't dress like that they also created this fictionalized notion of native Society and it was

supported by the films they were seeing they don't understand us so we do the best we can at least we stay alive are you alive they were in a way from trying to imitate us but in another way they were trying to remember who they were every human being is a descendant of a tribe so these white people they're the descendants of tribes there was a time in their ancestry when they wore feathers all right and they wore beads And shells there was a time in their ancestry all right before this colonizing mentality came and

did to them to turn them into the white people they are and then it came and did it to us the very same thing that happened to us happened to them let's Bother you lieutenant just human compassion General I know who I'm fighting I'm not sure I understand why it's emblematic of one of the ways that people in the 60s Hollywood particularly Were now trying to deal with their own legacy which I think at this point was sort of hard to deny and they were coming to some sort of reconciliation about it bloodthirsty Savages on

the loose killing violating beautiful white women it's not news anymore we're going to take a different T from now on we're going to grieve for the noble Red Man Native American people became a great allegorical tool to stand in for virtually any oppressed people Savages Animales so you had Native Americans really standing in for the Civil Rights Movement which was what was going on at the [Applause] time the promis land it was a moment when Native Americans began to assert themselves more politically and more forcefully it was more than 5 months ago that a determined

band of American Indians seized Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay in their own demonstration for a better life today they're still there this is a country where all men are created equal and it's the land of the free and the home of Truth and Justice and liberty for all but we want to know why that doesn't apply to us from the time I went to Alcatraz I had been out of the non-native world for 6 years trying to find a place and there was just no place that really that I felt like I Fit so

an elra happen we ought to be treated as as human beings we ought to be looked upon with respect as equals the main accomplishment is that it rekindled the spirit of the people people the spirit that is the people it was diminishing because Indians were ashamed because just the hostility of the non-native communities around native communities and in its own way the hostility of the media through the film Because these are subtle hostilities if they're not blatant H hostilities so so something was diminishing the spirit and I think that this activist period of time rekindled

the spirit that presented a new opportunity to see native people in a different light and you began to see filmmakers portray native people in a completely different manner when policemen break the law then there isn't any law just a fight for survival Billy Jack was sort of an Action hero he was really representative of something we saw emerge in the 70s which was a native style hero who would use physical violence to enact Justice I'm going to take this right foot and I'm going to W you on that side of your face and you want

to know something there's not a damn thing you're going to be able to do about it really kill that Indian son of a [ __ ] felt a little vengeance in this or something the right kind of Vengeance now I'm an engine remember and we're sneaky we know how to strike silently in the dark you couldn't help but just root for this guy and what he stood for Indian [Music] bastard in that one character you have embodied pretty much all of 70's angst and anger that one could in America you worked with King didn't you

yes where is He dad and where's Bob and Jack Kennedy dead not dead their brains blown out so he would come back and fight off Injustice using his feet and fists through Kung Fu and in one of the most amusing character traits would remove his shoe and sock before kicking the heck out of someone [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] The Indians start to fight back not just in the movies but in real life as well this is Wounded Knee for me and many natives it's sacred ground what happened here in 1973 would change the image of

natives in Hollywood Forever it all started when the American Indian movement faced off against the FBI inside Wounded Knee the Indians are prepared they have weapons and Molotov cocktails to handle the armored vehicle which federal agents have moved into [Music] position the American government fought a war against us from the tanks that they used at Wounded Knee to the way they Ed the FBI as paramilitary and National Guards we were fighting for our lives our death casualty went quite hard we've Our Lives as something meaningful in the course of history and Indian Affairs has been

changed we're prepared to die we were in Wounded Knee surrounded by the military might of the United States of America their field of fire it was very precise the feds had snipers and and automatic I mean they had 50 calibers boy they were they met business help would come from the most unexpected Source Hollywood I was sitting at home one day and I got a phone call from Marlon Brando he was up for an award for best actor for The Godfather and he asked me would I go up And represent him at the Academy Awards

he said this would be an opportunity to EXP explain to people about The Stereotype of Native Americans in film and also because of the Indian occupation at Wounded KN in South Dakota when we're inside wounded me they're shooting at us every day and night and there's quite a few people inside watching in the Trading Post the Academy Awards now arriving the ceremony was due to start about 6:00 in the Evening that's when they rolled out the red carpet and I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia but there was a man and he was the

producer of the whole show and he took that speech away from me and he warned me very sternly I'll give you 60 seconds or less and if you go over that 60 seconds I'll have you arrested I'll have you put in handcuffs Marlon brundo and The Godfather accepting the award for Marlon Brando and The Godfather Miss Justin Little Feather all of a sudden we get a call they start yelling hey there's an Indian and so I rushed in there saw iing a little better just get to the microphone and she starts making a speech I'm

representing Marlon Brando this evening and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently because of time but I will be Glad to share with the Press afterwards that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award and the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry excuse [Music] me there was a round of confusion in the the whole audience everybody's mouths flung open everybody was in Chaos and also with recent happenings at Wounded naath I beg at this

time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will in the future our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando [Applause] and it was really an experience for me being lied about in the media people saying that I was an Indian people saying that I rented my dress it was a Very tough time there were many death threats at that time but it was to personally discredit her and at the same time discredit the message that she was trying to deliver about the

depiction of native people people in film but she was also talking about the atrocities against native people that were continuing we don't believe we're going to get out of there alive and the morale is down low and Marlon Brando and sashen Little Feather totally uplifted Our Lives [Music] maybe Mar brand we'll be there by the fire we'll sit and talk about Hollywood and the good things there for hire like the astone and the first t [Applause] Maron I just have a dream that someday I will get into the movies right and then I will win

an Academy Award then I'll refuse it because of the mistreatment of marlin brandle thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you will Samson and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of those great performances that is completely memorable raise your hands up up that's it that's it up all the way up everyone Talks about Nicholson but you couldn't have that movie without will Samson he's the stoic Indian who really is silent for the movie but there's something about the way he portrays them it has a dignity Juicy Fruit will you Sly son of a [ __ ]

Chief God can you hear me too he you B I'll be God damn ches and they all they all think you're You're deaf and dumb Jesus Christ you full of G you fool them you fool them all there was a beginning to see an ownership over these very stereotypes so suddenly the fact that will Samson plays the stoic Indian and the way he did in that movie in some ways reclaims that that character for our people it's it says we I will take it within me and I will own it and I will give it

a Grace the character in Cuckoo's Nest started out as the stereotypical Indian and it Rose to a level of Humanity as the picture unfolds he has to become the symbol of freedom for America really [Music] grandfather you didn't see any soldiers in your dream and that means that that they can't see you now you think so yes yes what else did your dream mean I never been invisible before what we Began to see in a film like say little big man was an attempt to portray ainal people as non stereotypes or at least attempt to

flesh out the characters that they could portray on screens well cut off it doesn't matter we're invisible it played a lot with satire and sending up a lot of the stereotypes and was also home to an absolutely brilliant performance by Chief Dan George who played the Elder in the film with a Sly comic wit that I'm not sure We'd ever seen take care of my son here see that he doesn't go crazy now La Josie Wales Eastwood in the film Encounters this native man played by Chief Dan George and he's hilarious in the movie GL

you stopped me when you did I might have killed her oh I noticed that yeah most of the humor in the film so that's what attracted me to the script in the first place is that the Indians were treated as people with all different kinds of shadings I guess you Were right I ain't that old after all he was an elder but he wasn't pseudo wise you know he wasn't the cliche of the wise tribal leader he was kind of a guy who was a drift just like Josie whales was I'm getting better sneaking up

on you like this only an Indian can do something like this only an Indian could do something like that he was the key that brought that Warmth and authenticity of who native people really are because he had that sense of humor see one of the things that I think is a very vital part in our community what has kept us alive is humor our ability to laugh at just you know it gets ugly sometimes and our ability to laugh at the ugly couple of horses far off moving fast I don't hear nothing got to be

n to know those things humor it's the thread that we weave our Lives around as native people because the humor has saved us great spirit and humor that's what saved us comedy the ability to make light throughout this was one of his great great skills and it's Clint Eastward at his violent best and yet in the middle of that film there's Chief Dan George undoing a lot of the problems that had been done before him in a single role usually have problems doing my Act you know cuz I uh know a lot of you White

people never seen an Indian do standup comedy before you know like proong you probably thought that Indians never had a sense of humor you know we never thought you were too funny [Music] [Applause] [Music] either in the80s the western goes out of style it wasn't until the '90s the the Indian comes back big the 9s began as a decade with the Iconic movie that started it all Dances with Wolves it was a box office hit it picked up several Oscars including best picture and people lined up in droves because it was a western and a

very good one at that the natives were fleshed out as characters allowed to be seen as more complete people they weren't just Warriors they weren't just peace for you there so it is a very sensitive and sympathetic approach it doesn't erase The fact that at its core the film is not a native movie it is still a movie made from the outside of us and is about us and is meant to be sympathetic towards us but um it isn't us it's a story about a white guy and Indians are the TNA but it gets promoted

as being about Native people or Indians but it's not really we're just backdrop I thought okay here's a guy with a mullet and he convenient finds a a a white woman in the Indian camp and when they show her Portrayal in it was well she Liv with these native people she would have been well groomed and dressed like them they had her dress like Wilma Flintstone with mud on her and disheveled and lost and then to treat my nation like we don't know how to fight shoot the gun we the lot who are responsible the

First Nation to ever militarily defeat the United States of America on the field of battle and Lawrence of the Plains has to teach us How to fight T T the D but it's a brilliant performance by Graham green I think that beginning with that performance that Graham green becomes Legend I had to learn Lota I work eight hours a day on until I was fluent in what I was saying I can't even speak my own language the only language I speak is English and not very well he expanded what it was meant to be a

native on Screen and for us to see ourselves is very empowering and to see ourselves presented in the way Graham green did it is especially empowering in many ways I think that performance is what has informed so many of the films that have followed with the huge success of Dances with Wolves playing Indian meant box office hits for Hollywood and its Stars scenes stories and roles were designed to cash in on the new popularity being Indian was lucrative And cool again that's all I ever heard half how I learned to hate the world oddly enough

this Resurgence of the western bankrolls the birth of independent native Cinema and for the first time I hear my own language in the movies even the leaders of the American Indian movement Russell Means and John trudell go Hollywood cast in films like thunderhart for a Touch of native Street Credit you resist it all gets real simple real fast you know subject resisted subject is dead get it the government wiped out the political Movement by the 80s what is emerging out of that is a cultural artistic voice and I see it coming there's more native filmmakers

songwriters and so out of all that native creativity that's Coming out see we will find our voice it's a good day to be indigenous it's 45° in the sun it's 8:00 a.m. Indian time smoke signals was another of the films that came right at the end of the 9s that started the Golden Age of V original cinema this was a movie made by a native guy Chris a starring native people and not about what occurred 120 years ago it was a movie about nativeness now and that was a big breakthrough you're leaving the res and

You're going into a whole different country cousin but it's the United States damn right it is that's as foreign as it gets hope you two got your vaccinations maybe all we need is a good laugh maybe that's all we need as a people is a good laugh and I think Evan Adams you know was really the center of that nobody can help us no Superman no Batman no Wonder Woman not even Charles Bronson man I was Watching Evan perform and I said Evan what are you doing I well what are you playing because I could

never place it he had this Indian humor and goodness to him and he kept it the whole time we were shooting I said to Evan I said no what's going on what are you doing here you know and he told me he was playing his grandma [Music] after crisscrossing North America I Finally arrive [Applause] [Music] Hollywood living in the Hollywood Hills is one of today's most successful native actors Adam Beach the perception of who we are in Hollywood that has a lot of respect because they are still fascinated with who we are as a culture

as a people throughout history and stories they tell through film which is Great because it really teaches a lot of people that you know we have something to offer to the world in his starring role in Clint eastwoods Flags of Our Fathers Adam Beach puts a human face to The Stereotype of the drunken idiot tear down Ira help them them Ira Hayes was consumed by alcohol I myself I can't even attempt to drink one in a crowd because there's another drunk Indian I've always called myself a child Of an alcoholic so throughout that film when

you watch it that's me it's not acting Jesus Christ he's drunk goddamn Indians Adam I know he's very conscious of the of the problems in the community of alcoholism and been on the reservations and done work in this area and made him play it very well think I could see my mom before they ship me off think they do that here's a human being shedding human emotion no stereotypes no no stoic Indian it's just A young boy that wants to see his mom who lost a lot in his friends [Music] [Music] I'm at the end

of my quest back up north in the high Arctic community of iglulik after traveling across America the answers were here all [Music] along it's an unlikely place to give birth to a film that has revolutionized native Cinema and gone on to win at the Can film festival Aton arat the fast runner captures one of the inu's most cherished Legends and brings it to the world ad an arat to me was that point where Cinema was being altered to tell our stories our way and gone were the stereotypes of passed really in that one movie that

there's none of that nonsense it's a gloriously sexy film set in the Arctic wow I've never seen anything like this before this is so pure in its soul I Always say that that's the most Indian movie ever made it's much more Indian than smoke signals smoke signals was made for Indian people but certainly for the over culture when you get a movie like the fast runner you're watching this movie and you're saying to yourself This is an inside [Music] job outside of town in his hunting cabin I meet the director of the fast runner Zacharias

kuna I ask him why he makes films I see it as talking back and we picked up the camera to start recording our own history the stories that we used to hear when we were children what do we believe and why we are here as his Elders pass on so does their knowledge Zach is in a Race Against Time I had a problem I went into a romantic scene where two people are Kissing French necking but France neing is not our culture and so we're making this story I'm sitting down with the elders asking them

how did you get married what is in it kiss like that's what we've been using the camera for how much trouble they went through to get us here to capture it now because 10 years down the road most of the elders will be gone the most compelling moment of his film is when the fast runner Runs the enemy arrives and with laners try to kill everybody Under the Tent and you have blood all over so you have a metaphoric Nance when out of this blood patch this be man arrive and ran freely in the sun

that's the new Cinema that's the image of the new Aboriginal in North America you have a native guy running across the ice naked through the water in the snow and as a director I'm sitting there and I'm Saying that's not an actor cuz an actor wouldn't do that atar unak who plays AR he knows the story he knows that he's going to have to run naked across the ice in this movie that's the iconic image there might be all kind of other things we can change in this film but we can't change [Music] that we

had a props genius make up fake feet the fake feet tore up right away Running on ice is not smooth it's uh very abrasive so you got to film that maybe 50 times the actor was so committed responsible to the requirement of his role which is an iconic legend in his culture that he was willing to do things that you know most people even if they were willing to do maybe couldn't [Applause] [Music] do a new age of native Cinema is born These films revolutionize the native image for the world those movies the movies made

in the north are incredibly special and they are progress they're they're finally an aage inal Cinema that isn't someone else's The Gaze is [Music] ours but at the same time you have a whole Aboriginal cinematic movement springing up all over the world where you have filmmakers in New Zealand Filmmakers in Australia and filmmakers in North America and South America making truly abigal movies you don't always have to make great representations of native people we're not asking for that we're not asking to be you know Nobles or righteous or good all the time we're asking to

be human Indians aren't dead we're here we're we got something to say we got something To [Applause] play to see it come in my lifetime is very empowering for a culture we can't describe the importance now they'll be described years from now by critics far probably more important than me they will talk about I think what those movies meant [Music] we're creative Natives and we and we're like the Energizer Bunny the mightiest Nation in the world try to exterminate us anglicize us christianize us americanize us but we just keep going and going and I think

that Energizer Bunny must be Indian he's got that little water drum he plays and I always say next time you have a p while have the the Energizer Bunny lead the grand entry and after a few rounds and we can get together and eat him because we never waste anything we share everything and uh it's all right I don't mind Laughs in the show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] You [Music]