Monday, December 15, 2014

December 15 - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Today’s movie is a historical dram with a scene that happens on December 15. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE      

Ohiyesa, a young Lakota Sioux boy survives the Battle of Little Big Horn. Afterwards, Rep. Charles Dawes presses Pres. Grant to continue Indian assimilation policies, as opposed to the military solution favored by Gen. Phil Sheridan. His Sioux father sends Ohiyesa, who is one-quarter Caucasian, east to school. In 1877 a treaty is signed with the Sioux led by Red Cloud that adjusted the boundaries of the Great Sioux reservation. Sitting Bull declines signing the treaty and after a loss at Cedar Creek to the US army removes his band to Canada. Ohiyesa studies to become a doctor and meets Ellen Goodale, telling her how he selected the name of Charles Eastman. The Dawes Act is passed which divides up the reservation into individual tracts, with any remainder to be sold to Whites at 50¢ an acre, but Red Cloud opposes this. Both Charles Eastman and Ellen Goodale come to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he as a doctor, she as a teacher. Sitting Bull returns from Canada and surrenders at Standing Rock Reservation. The Ghost Dancer movement, which promises the return of the ancestors and the buffalo and the disappearance of the Whites, starts among the Sioux. Dawes returns with a new offer for the excess lands of $1.25 an acre, but now Sitting Bull opposes this, in part because the vote to approve the land deal is to be by a non-secret ballot. When Sitting Bull begins to support the Ghost Dance movement, his arrest is ordered. On December 15, 1890 [1:45:46 to 1:54:29] Sitting Bull is killed while being arrested. Charles Eastman and Ellen treat the victims after the army massacres the Sioux Ghost Dancers.  Charles Eastman fails as a doctor and eventually becomes involved in a project to give each Sioux a name, so a parcel of land can be assigned to them, fulfilling Dawes’s dream of assimilation.

Sitting Bull by Bill Yenne (Westholme Publishing, Yardly, Pa., 2008) at page 270 gives his death date

Producers - Tom Thayer and Dick Wolf

Awards - The movie won the Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Outstanding Cinematography for a Miniseries or Movie, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special, Outstanding Makeup for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special (Non-prosthetic), Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special and the Outstanding Single Camera Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or Movie Emmys. It was also nominated for the Outstanding Art Direction for a Miniseries or Movie, Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special, Outstanding Costumes for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special, Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special, Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special, Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special (Original Dramatic Score), Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie, (Aidan Quinn), Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie, (Schellenberg),Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, (Paquin), and Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special Emmys at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Director - Yves Simoneau

Screenplay - Daniel Giat

Runtime – 2 hours 12 minutes

Released – May 27, 2007

Starring -

Adam Beach as Charles Eastman
Anna Paquin as Elaine Goodale
Chevez Ezaneh as Ohiyesa / young Charles Eastman
August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull
Aidan Quinn as Senator Henry L. Dawes
Colm Feore as General William Tecumseh Sherman
Fred Thompson as President Ulysses S. Grant
Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse as One Bull
Brian Stollery as Bishop Whipple
Shaun Johnston as Col. Nelson A. Miles
Gordon Tootoosis as Red Cloud
Billy Merasty as Young Man Afraid Of His Horses
Morris Birdyellowhead as American Horse
Eddie Spears as Chasing Crane
Sean Wei Mah as Bull Head
Eric Schweig as Gall
Jimmy Herman as Yellow Bird
Patrick St. Esprit as Major James Walsh
J.K. Simmons as James McLaughlin
Wes Studi as Wovoka/Jack Wilson
Marty Atonini as Col. James W. Forsyth
Lee Tergesen as Daniel F. Royer

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2014.





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