Reel Injun (2009) Reviews

• A Provocative History of Hollywood's Portrayal of Native Americans

  JustCuriosity2010-03-18

  Reel Injun is a compelling and insightful film about the history of Hollywood's stereotyping of Native Americans. While it may be trying to cover too much in presenting the entire history of Native Americans in film from the silent era to the present (and thus skips over much in its broad sweep), it is nevertheless highly informative and provocative. I suspect that even the most of the film junkies here at SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX learned quite a bit about a topic that has rarely been treated systematically. The use of small stories about the characters and humorous antidotes is excellent. In exploring the film portrayals of Native Americans Reel Injun also reflects on how the broader culture and the Native peoples have come to view themselves. Even our portrayal of all the specific tribes as the stereotypical feather-laden plains "Injun" was a form of cultural warfare. The evolution of their image in more recent films reflects the gradual changes that have occurred in our culture as it has become increasingly multicultural and open-minded. This film could certainly be used as a powerful educational tool to educate students about how we have historically not only committed genocide against Native Peoples, but used film to portray the victims of American colonial expansion as the violent aggressors.

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• It has some wonderful points to make but sometimes uses bad film interpretation to make a few of these points.

  MartinHafer2011-11-28

  It's important that you understand that this film IS directed by Neil Diamond. However, it is NOT the Neil Diamond that middle-aged ladies love to listen to but just someone with the same name. Do NOT approach the singer and congratulate him on this movie--he'll probably think you are a nut! This film is about the depictions of Native Americans in film and the stereotypes that you'll see in them. The film has some wonderful facts that really are interesting. It also has a really, really good point to make--that too often, they are treated as a monolithic group and not as people. Both the ridiculously noble as well as the crazed, blood-thirsty killer image are one-dimensional and really miss the mark. The film does a GREAT job in pointing this out and featured tones of wonderful interviews and clips of films with positive depictions. While I heartily recommend the film, I do have one big gripe with it. While it does not destroy the overall message at all, I really disliked how the film unfairly maligned John Ford and John Wayne by making a very broad over-generalization. While there was SOME truth that Wayne popularized killing 'Indians' in film, he and Ford did NOT create this myth of the evil native. In fact, several times Ford and Wayne made films that said the exact opposite. Yet, oddly, the film used one of these wonderfully sympathetic films to try to prove its case--a situation where the film makers either really did NOT see the film or they deliberately misrepresented it. They showed many clips from "The Searchers" and pointed out that Wayne was popularizing the evil Indian myth. This is the exact opposite of the meaning of this film. Wayne plays a man who is crazed--who is obsessed with killing these people. And, he is clearly BAD and the film condemns him for this!!! Also, other examples where Wayne and Ford made the natives real sympathetic people are also ignored in the film--a great example being "Fort Apache"--where Wayne argues with his commanding officer--insisting that the natives be treated with respect and honesty. To me, their anti-Ford/anti-Wayne argument is SOMETIME correct (such as in "Stagecoach") and sometimes not---and is, oddly, a case of stereotyping. Next time, think through your film analysis better--it would have made this a perfect or near-perfect documentary. Instead, it can detract from the film when the viewer is savvy concerning these films.

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• Often hilarious...

  poe4262014-06-10

  REEL INJUN does Injustice justice: we see early examples of White Men in Blackface, in Black and White- and then White Men in Redface, in Color(ed?)... I always get a big kick out of seeing actors who clearly AREN'T "American Indians" (which is an oxymoron) pompously spouting ridiculous dialogue. The translations shown in REEL INJUN are hilarious. I never knew that "Iron Eyes" Cody was Sicilian; a bit of a revelation, that. That he took the Part to Heart was touching: you can be who- or what- you WANT to be in this life. The juxtaposition of Reel Injuns with Real World Injuns brought the mixed message(s) home quite clearly (one can't look at the horrific photos of the original Massacre at Wounded Knee and NOT understand the dichotomous yawning chasm between Reality and Reel "reality"). My favorite line in the movie was delivered by the young comic: A group of White Men ride up to an "American Indian" and say, "Where road go?" The "Amerind" replies: "Road STAY. YOU go." I heard somewhere that The Emancipation proclamation, which freed slaves of African descent, didn't apply to Native Americans: it was still legal to own Indian slaves...

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• Truly WATCHABLE and educational film.

  jltaylor1752011-10-02

  I learned a TON from this film. I started watching it thinking I had a good handle on just how terrible Hollywood has been to the cause of First Nations education, but I was wrong. From the revelation of a SURPRISING number of Hollywood actors who are still alive and have played First Nations peoples in their careers to the surprisingly obvious (how did I not realize this?!) fact that nearly all portrayals of First Nations Peoples on film are of the Plains People - feathered war bonnets and all! There is truly so much that is positive that I could say about this film, but the most important of which is the fact that it has been funded, produced and released to the wider public at TIFF and various other means (I myself watched it on television, yaay!) and it is largely the work of First Nations artists and community. I hope that funding continues so that further quality works like this can be released! Truly a revelation!

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• A cliché of a cliché with limited credibility

  NanoFrog2011-07-17

  I am an Ojibwe American Indian. In the first place, including Rusell Means in this film proves how absolutely uninformed the film maker really is. Means has been universally discredited as a gangster and killer by the broad American Indian community...there could be no more offensive presence in a film about American Indians. Otherwise the film is a terribly overworked cliché of itself and shows serious problems that are designed to fit the writer's agenda but does not tell an accurate story. There is so little good and correct information available on American Indians that many film-makers, including this one, just make things up. Modern people often feel so guilty and sympathetic, if they feel anything at all, about the American Indian, that a film like this will get good reviews just because it confirms the paranoid tendencies of the new world order. Had the improperly focused writer and film-maker chosen to tell a more positive and honest story, this film could have had some value. As it is, it tells a somewhat true story in such a paranoid and selective way that it, too, has become another part of the problem.

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