HBO: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Premiers May 27th

[Louis]

Premieres May 27th

HBO Films teams with executive producers Dick Wolf ("Law & Order") and Tom Thayer to present a feature adaptation of Dee Brown's 1971 nonfiction best-seller Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Told primarily through the eyes of three characters Charles Eastman (Adam Beach), Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg) and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) - the film explores the United States' obsession with its manifest destiny, detailing the economic, political and social pressures that underpinned the opening of the American West in the latter part of the 19th Century, and the tragic and permanent impact this expansion had on American Indian culture. Also starring J.K. Simmons, Colm Feore and Wes Studi, with Fred Thompson and Anna Paquin.

Based on the book by Dee Brown (a great read BTW). The book is one of the first to have been written that didn't portray indians as "savages" and showed how they were massacred by the government and the settlers.

Can't wait for this movie to premier. I'm a member of one of the tribe's that had people murdered on this day.

Here's a brief explanation of Wounded Knee...

The Wounded Knee Massacre was the last major armed conflict between the Dakota Sioux and the United States, subsequently described as a "massacre" by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.[1]

On December 29, 1890, five hundred troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece capable of rapid fire), surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) and Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota)[2] with orders to escort them to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. The commander of the 7th had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding and placed his men in too close proximity to the Lakota, alarming them. Shooting broke out near the end of the disarmament, and accounts differ regarding who fired first and why.

By the time it was over, 25 troopers and 300 Lakota Sioux lay dead, including men, women, and children.[2] Many of the dead soldiers are believed to have been the victims of "friendly fire" as the shooting took place at point blank range in chaotic conditions, and most of the Lakota had previously been unarmed.[3] Around 150 Lakota are believed to have fled the chaos, of which many likely died from exposure.

 

[Mulli]

I am looking forward to this show, but I am also preparing for it to be heart-wrenching. Sorry for the pun.

 

[Louis]

The "making of" airs tonight on HBO.

 

[Bada0Bing]

Don't forget to set the DVR.

 

[Chaplin]

I saw this a couple weeks ago on the big screen. It's actually pretty good with a great score.

 

[Louis]

Airs tonight on HBO!

 

[Louis]

I was actually pretty disappointed with the film. It was very slow and boring for me. The movie didn't seem to exhibit the passion reflected in the book by Dee Brown.

Though Aidan Quinn and Adam Beach's performances were top notch.

Here is a brief backstory on the ending credits...

Now, the issue is whether tribal sacred lands taken in the nineteenth century can be bought and sold in the twenty-first. After a century of struggle to file claims in court against the illegality of the 1868 treaty, the Indian Claims Commission, the Court of Claims, and finally the Supreme Court in 1980 recognized the 8 Lakota Nations' rights to the part of the Black Hills specified in the1868 treaty. But instead of ordering the government to return the land, the Claims Commission awarded a financial sum equal to the land’s value in 1877 plus interest. This sum now totals $570 million—a considerable amount but still much smaller than the value of the natural resources which have been extracted from the Black Hills, estimated at $4 billion. The Lakota have refused to accept the money on the grounds that one cannot buy and sell sacred land. Says Johnson Holy Rock, a Lakota elder and former chairman of the Oglala Sioux, “We don't think of the air and water in terms of dollars and cents.” Two political plans in the 1980s (one spearheaded by Senator Bill Bradley) to return 1.3 million acres of federal land in the Black Hills were defeated by the South Dakota congressional delegation, including Senator Tom Daschle.

http://www.sacredland.org/historical_sites_pages/black_hills.html

I'm not sure if the money decided by the court to be "fair" has gained interest or not.

But I've always been a little disappointed that the tribes continue to hold out.

The historical account of what happened is tragic and there is no doubt the treaties should not have been broken...

But the money can do those 8 tribes (including mine) great things. One of those tribes is known as the poorest of all indian tribes in America. Substance abuse is unbelievably high and unemployment remains embarassingly ludicrous.

 

[Ryanwb]

The reviews I have read in magazines about this were pretty brutal

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Yeah, it wasn't very good.