2. The attitude.
From the promos I got the impression they were really going to dig in and give the total, overall picture from both sides. It was full of some of the finest Indian actors we have now working, like Wes Studi, Sam Beach, and August Schellenberg. Aidan Quinn gave his usual extraordinary performance, but . . .
The attitude - no matter what Hollywood does, they can't seem to get away from portraying a "It was their fault", type of attitude. The scenes of the massacre of the Indian women and children at Wounded Knee were startling and eye opening, but throughout the movie, I never got a feeling of regret or despair over that, or any of the other travesties we committed. The closest I've ever seen of any compassionate nature were in "Dances With Wolves", and even that was a little too H'woodish. I was really looking forward to this movie (although I thought it would be longer and more involved), but it turned out to be just another "Oh Well" story. Granted it happened over a century ago, but it's still going on. I don't know much about the East, but I do know that the Canadian, and our Western Indians are still living under the short end of the stick. Their education is equally as poorly furnished as the ghetto blacks.
I guess the reason I'm so 'silly' about this is I had hoped the show would open a few peoples' eyes, but not from this movie. My problem is always being on the side of the underdog, but it's also why I get so angry about foreign aid and extra troops being sent to Iraq when our own people are living under such degradation.
Anne