''Reel Injun'' is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

filmmakers

Neil Diamond Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling musicians of all time. He has written and ...

, Catherine Bainbridge, and Jeremiah Hayes that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film. ''Reel Injun'' is illustrated with excerpts from classic and contemporary portrayals of Native people in Hollywood movies and interviews with filmmakers, actors and

film historian The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art, visual art form created using history of film technology, film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. Th ...

s, while director Diamond travels across the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to visit iconic locations in motion picture as well as American Indian history. ''Reel Injun'' explores the various stereotypes about Natives in film, from the

noble savage In Western anthropology, Western philosophy, philosophy, and European literature, literature, the Myth of the Noble savage refers to a stock character who is uncorrupted by civilization. As such, the "noble" savage symbolizes the innate goodness a ...

to the drunken Indian. It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian American who reinvented himself as a Native American on screen. The film also explores Hollywood's practice of using

Italian Americans Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

and

American Jews American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% id ...

to portray Indians in the movies and reveals how some Native American actors made jokes in their native tongue on screen when the director thought they were simply speaking

gibberish Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsid ...

Conception

The film was inspired, in part, by Neil Diamond's own experiences as a child in Waskaganish, Quebec, where he and other Native children would play cowboys and Indians after local screenings of Westerns in their remote community. Diamond remembers that although the children were Indians, they all wanted to be

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

s. When Diamond was older, he would be questioned by non-Native people about whether his people lived in teepees and rode horses, causing him to realize that their preconceptions about Native people were also derived from movies.

Interviews

Interview subjects include Sacheen Littlefeather, Zacharias Kunuk,

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...

, Adam Beach,

Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch ( ; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and musician. He has been a major proponent of independent film, independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films such as ''Stranger Than Paradise'' ...

Robbie Robertson Jaime Royal Robertson (July 5, 1943 – August 9, 2023) was a Canadian musician of Indigenous and Jewish ancestry. He was the lead guitarist for Bob Dylan's backing band in the mid-late 1960s and early-mid 1970s. Robertson was also the ...

, Russell Means,

Wes Studi Wesley Studi (; born December 17, 1947) is a Native American (Cherokee Nation) actor and film producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and awards throughout his career, particularly for his portrayal of Native Americans in film. In 2019, he ...

, and scholars Angela Aleiss and

Melinda Micco Melinda Beth Coker Micco (December 21, 1947 – December 5, 2021) was an American filmmaker, scholar, activist, and educator. She was a professor of ethnic studies at Mills College, and the first Native American woman to earn tenure at Mills. E ...

, and film critic Jesse Wente.

Locations

The documentary is partly structured as a

road movie A road movie is a film genre, genre of film in which the main characters leave home on a road trip, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. Road movies often depict travel in the hinterlands, with the films exploring the the ...

, with Diamond visiting locations across the United States as well as the Canadian North. In the U.S., he is traveling by " rez car," a broken down automobile often used on

Indian Reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...

s, as demonstrated in ''Reel Injun'' with a sequence from the film '' Smoke Signals''. Locations visited include the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wounded Knee, Camp Nominigue, the Crow Agency in

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

as well as Monument Valley.

Release

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, the film had its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

in September 2009, followed by screenings at the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. ''Reel Injun'' began a

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

at theaters in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

and

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

; it debuted on television on CBC News Network's '' The Passionate Eye'' series on March 28, 2010. Reel Injun had its local Montreal premiere at the International Festival of Films on Art, followed by a commercial run at the Cinema du Parc. In the United States, the film premiered at the

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

festival in March 2009. It aired on November 2, 2010 on the PBS series '' Independent Lens''. It was screened at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

from June 14 to 20, 2010.

Awards

''Reel Injun'' received three awards at the 2010 Gemini Awards: the Canada Award for best

multicultural Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''ethnic'' or cultural pluralism in which various e ...

program, Best Direction in a Documentary Program and Elizabeth Klinck and Laura Blaney won for Best Visual Research. It received a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

for best electronic media in May 2011.70th Annual Peabody Awards
May 2011.

Credits

* Directed by

, Catherine Bainbridge, Jeremiah Hayes * Written by

, Catherine Bainbridge, Jeremiah Hayes * Cast: Adam Beach,

, Chris Eyre, Charlie Hill,

, Sacheen Littlefeather, Russell Means, and John Trudell. * Also featuring Angela Aleiss (author/film historian), Effie and James Atene (

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

elders who were extras in John Ford films), Andre Dudemaine (

Innu The Innu/Ilnu ('man, person'), formerly called Montagnais (French for ' mountain people'; ), are the Indigenous Canadians who inhabit northeastern Labrador in present-day Newfoundland and Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to ...

film historian), David Kiehn (silent film historian), Zacharias Kunuk, Richard Lamotte ("one of Hollywood's biggest costume designers"), Melinda Micco (Seminole film historian),

(Mohawk recording artist), Rod Rondeaux (Crow stuntman),

(Cherokee actor), and Jesse Wente (Ojibwe film critic). * Produced by Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick, Adam Symansky. * Executive Producers: Catherine Bainbridge, Ravida Din, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick, Catherine Olsen, Ernest Webb * Original Music: Claude Castonguay, Mona Laviolette * Cinematography: Edith Labbe * Editor: Jeremiah Hayes * Post-production supervisor: Tony Manolikakis * Sound: Lynn Trepanier * Visual research: Elizabeth Klinck

The renaissance of Native cinema

The documentary mentions the following movies as being part of the "Renaissance of Native cinema"—that is, movies by Native peoples about Native experiences, that "portray Native people as human beings" and depict Native cultures in an authentic way: * '' Smoke Signals'', 1998 * '' Dance Me Outside'', 1994 * ''Flags of Our Fathers'', 2006 * ''Atanarjuat'' ''-- The Fast Runner'', 2001 -- "A film that has revolutionized Native cinema," and "the most Indian movie ever made." (see 1:18) * '' Whale Rider'', 2002—New Zealand * '' Once Were Warriors'', 1994—New Zealand * '' Skins'', 2002 * '' Ten Canoes'', 2006—Australia * ''Rabbit Proof Fence'', 2002—Australia Also worth mentioning is a silent film from 1930, '' The Silent Enemy'' (a reference to starvation), which this documentary calls "one of the most authentic films of its time, featuring real Native actors" (discussed 19 minutes into this documentary). In this documentary, silent film historian David Kiehn explains that, during the era of silent films, there was a great number of "Native American people directing and acting in films, and they were bringing their viewpoints to the table too. And those were being listened to". But then, according to this documentary, " the 1930s, he Hollywood portrayal ofthe Indian was transformed into a brutal savage". Film historian Angela Aleiss explains that " ere were a number of films that came out in the early 1930s that followed in the steps of '' The Silent Enemy'', and the Indians were the stars of these movies, but... they just bombed at the box office. Americans erenot that interested in them". The documentary asserts that "America, struggling through the Great Depression, eededa new brand of hero". Movies like ''

Stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

'', which pitted cowboys against Indians and portrayed Native Americans as "vicious and bloodthirsty", became the Hollywood image of Indians until the 1970s.

Native actors and performers

In addition to members of the cast (mentioned above), this documentary mentions the following Native actors and performers who helped to change the way Native peoples are portrayed: * Charlie Hill—an Oneida-

comedian * Will Sampson—a Muscogee (Creek) actor who played "Chief Bromden" in '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975) and "Ten Bears" in '' The Outlaw Josey Wales'' (1976) * Chief Dan George—a Tsleil-Waututh actor and chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation who played "Old Lodge Skins" in '' Little Big Man'' (1970) and "Lone Watie" in '' The Outlaw Josey Wales'' (1976), and many other roles in other films *

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

—an Oneida actor who played "Kicking Bird" in '' Dances With Wolves'' (1990) and "Mogie Yellow Lodge" in '' Skins'' (2002), as well as other roles in many other films * Adam Beach—a

Saulteaux The Saulteaux (pronounced , or in imitation of the French pronunciation , also written Salteaux, Saulteau and Ojibwa ethnonyms, other variants), otherwise known as the Plains Ojibwe, are a First Nations in Canada, First Nations band governm ...

actor who played "Frank Fencepost" in '' Dance Me Outside'' (1994), "Victor" in '' Smoke Signals'' (1998), and "Ira Hayes" in '' Flags of Our Fathers'' (2006), among many other films * Evan Adams—a

Coast Salish The Coast Salish peoples are a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak on ...

actor who plays "Thomas Builds-the-Fire" in '' Smoke Signals'' (1998), among other films * Natar Ungalaaq—an

Inuk Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labr ...

actor who played "Atanarjuat" in ''Atanarjuat'' -- The Fast Runner (2001), among other roles in other films * Rod Rondeaux—a

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly, a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not linked scientifically to any certain trait but is rathe ...

stuntman Plus: * Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance—a tri-racial actor who played Baluk in '' The Silent Enemy'' (1930) * Iron Eyes Cody—an Italian-American actor cast as Native American in many films and was the iconic American Indian shedding a tear in the famous " Keep America Beautiful" anti-litter public service advertisement on television in the late 1960s and 1970s.

References

External links

* * *
''Reel Injun''
site for Independent Lens on PBS
''Reel Injun''
at the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

National Film Board of Canada Collections page
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