Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (Re-packaged/DVD)

I was brought up in the ‘50’s on a staple diet of cowboy and Indian movies, usually in black and white, prominently featuring the innocent white settlers in their wagon trains being attacked for no reason by the “savages.” At the American Indian museum in Santa Fe, NM, one can listen to various American Indians talk about their experiences in schools whose mission it was to “Americanize” them. One Indian wryly noted that he watched these same movies and said: “I was so brainwashed that I was rooting for the cowboys.” Yes, I know – wasn’t that the whole idea?Like others in the ‘60’s, I began to question some of les idées reçues. I even had an in-depth tutorial on American treatment of another ethnic group, the Vietnamese. And I continue to recall the deliberate irony captured in the movie, “Hearts and Minds,” in which an American Indian, Stan Holder, is sitting on a rock outcrop at Placitas, NM, talking about how he was subjected to all the anti-Indian racial slurs in boot camp, but as soon as he got to Vietnam, he started calling the Vietnamese by all the ethnic slurs that we invented for them.I read Dee Brown’s eponymously and brilliantly named history not long after its publication in 1970. Virtually all the information was new to me then. It forever shattered those received ideas from the ‘50’s, on the settlement of the American West.Many of the specifics in the book I had not remembered after half a century. The book and the movie concern primarily the last years of the Sioux tribes before “the rez” takes them over, they are provided with reservations as their home, until something valuable is determined to be there, and then the political leadership in Washington concocts one more “last territorial demand.”The time period of the movie is between 1876 and 1890. The bookends are the decisive Indian victory at Little Big Horn in present-day Montana and the massacre at Wounded Knee creek, in present-day South Dakota. August Schellenberg impressively plays Sitting Bull. The director is Yves Simoneau and the movie was released 2007. It appears to have had the financial support of the Alberta government, with at least parts of the movie filmed in Canada, where Sitting Bull and a band from his tribe fled during this 14-year period, before returning to settle on the rez.I was impressed that this was not simply a negative of the black and white movies of the ‘50’s, with the Indians wearing the White Hats and the American military the Black ones. Right at the beginning, the American military commander reminded the Indian leader that pre-White Man, there was no pastoral Eden. The Sioux had lost in battles to the Chippewa, been forced to move westward as a result, in turn massacring other tribes that lived in the present-day Dakotas.The elements of the clash of these two very different civilizations are well-depicted. There is the father telling his son that the world belongs to the White Man, so it is best to adopt his ways, including his religion. There is a sympathetic US Senator working to be “fair” to the defeated Indian tribes. There is the far-from-sympathetic Indian agent, James McLaughlin. There is accommodation and there is defiance. Indians are made policeman, all the better to control their own. Of course, there is also the enemy that kills far more than those who die in battle: measles, whooping cough and influenza. Just like today. There is the search for a “deus ex machina,” and the Ghost Dance promises the Indians they will be bullet-proof. Just like today, with updated “Ghost Dances” for COVID-19.Finally, the eyes have it. Normally when the eyes truly speak, it involves love making, a la James Joyce’s closing to “Ulysses”: “…and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower…” In this movie the eyes, of several different actors, brilliantly speak, and it has nothing to do with love making, but rather defeat, resignation, defiance. I was overwhelmed. And I wondered how many takes were required to obtain that perfect look or was it possible, all, just on the first take? It is a very impressive movie, worthy of my special rating of 6-stars.

Good movie

Book was good. Kind of hard as there are so many characters to keep up with and plot skips around.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is an excellent movie and very dramatic. I would not recommend it to younger children as it is very graphic, however, I feel that this is what brings the movie out and is more reality based. It took place to begin with at Cedar Creek Valley, Dakota on October 21, 1876 in the Dakota Territory. This place was also known as the Black Hills where there was gold was gold found. The Native Americans and the White men fought over the land because the Native Americans claimed it and the Europeans or the French “white en” want to take it over The fight began and what is known as the, Battle of Little Big Horn, and the white men won and ran the Native American Indians off and they even burnt their teepees down to be mean and cruel to the Native Americans so they would not come back. Some Native Americans were sent off to schools were they were to be taught Christianity and about the Holy Bible. They were forced to be taught about the teachings and were made to take a Christian name from Christian Americans instead of using their Indian names which usually were a sacred name to them. The Native Americans traveled to Canada and the Canadians were so kind to them and allowed the Native Americans to settle on their land and even gave them food and clothing. When the Native Americans began settling down in the different land, the children began getting sick with colds and viruses due to the change in climate and temperature compared to the reservations they were used too and they also caught them from the Canadians. Some of the Native American Indians began to separate and this is where the various tribes came about. When the tribes split they become accustomed to the various religions where they settled. Most became Christians and practiced Christian religions and other kept their Native American faith and continued to believe in the Great Spirits and they also continued to perform Rain Dance Ceremonies and the Ghost Dance. “The Ghost dance was believed to usher in the destruction and rebirth of the world and then the dead ancestors would return.” (The History of Native American Indigenous Religions, 2013) December 29, 1890 was the when the Ghost Dance ended at Wounded Knee due to the American troops killing off all of the Lakota Native Americans. Over all this movie was spectacular and opened my eyes to the way of life as Native Americans. I personally am ¼ Cherokee and sadly I had no idea all this happened. I truly respect the Native Americans as they surely have endured hard times and have had their land, faith, homes, and families yanked right out from under them.(Simoneau, 2007)Works CitedSimoneau, Y. (Director). (2007). Bury My heart at Wounded Knee [Motion Picture].The History of Native American Indigenous Religions. (2013). In Invitation to World Religions (p. 48). Oxford.

Muy contenta. Llegó relativamente rápido (dentro del plazo acordado). Tenía dudas sobre si realmente vendría con audio en español como ponía en la descripción, pero SÍ, viene en español latino. La película es muy bonita, para quien le gusten las de indios un poco históricas.

This movie is not an action flick. This is more of a documentary acted out by a group of very talented people. Painful to watch because it's filled with racism, bigotry and degrading attitudes that can make your stomach turn. Based mainly on events in the United States but it also showed how Canada was also drawn into the politics and stereotypes around aboriginal peoples during that time in history. There's very little lead up to get the viewer up to speed so you need to be watching attentively or you'll miss out. This is not something you'll want your kids to watch, at least I won't be letting my kids watch it. Not because they don't need to know about it but because the emotions are so real and there are some very dramatic events that involve children being shot and killed that I don't want these images in a child's mind. This is the type of movie where a sequel, or prequel could easily be made. There seemed to be so much left unsaid and so many stories left untold.

Sono stati veloci ma il dvd no funziona in italia , peccato che no lo specificano in la descrizione , mi dispiace per il film piu che per i soldi

il a fallu le dézonner , ridicule qu' un tel chef d'euvre ne soit pas dispo en France, au moins pour la culture, c est de l histoire vrai , remarque : vu la décadence de la jeunesse française , comment pourrai on apprécier le cinéma basé sur des faits réels , c'est tellement mieux le cinéma de fiction ultra voilent alors que l histoire est si riche ....

Love it