The HBO film is based on the 1970 best-seller by the same name from Dee Brown and tells the story of the Sioux Indian from the time of the Battle at the Little Bighorn in 1876 to the Wounded Knee Massacre in December 1890.
August Schellenberg plays Sitting Bull, the last holdout among the Sioux chiefs. Rather than subject his followers to reservation life, he leads them into Canada where the harsh winters prove as deadly an enemy as the U.S. cavalry.
Chevez Ezaneh plays Ohiyesa. As a young boy, he earned a feather for bravery at the Little Big Horn. But his father enrolls him in school, convinced there will be no future for an Indian outside the way of the white man.
Ohiyesa excels at his studies, is forced to take a white name (Charles Eastman) and winds up heading East to attend college, where he studies to become a doctor and is held up as an example of how successful an Indian can be in the white man’s world if given a chance.
He also befriends Sen. Henry Dawes (Aiden Quinn) and poet Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin). He falls in love with the poet and helps Dawes push a plan that would assign each reservation Indian 160 acres of land and allow the government to sell off the excess portion of the reservation to white settlers.
All four wind up back on the reservation.
Sitting Bull finally gives in to the inevitable, though he remains defiant of U.S. authority and scowls at the hunting his former braves now do — shooting down their government allotted beef in a fenced-in corral.
Eastman heads back to the reservation only to be shocked at the conditions there, the toll disease is taking on the Sioux and their general despair with life on the reservation.
Elaine becomes superintendent of Indian schools, joins Eastman in his efforts to lobby for better conditions on the reservation and winds up becoming his wife.
Dawes continues to push his plan for individual homesteads for each Indian family, though he faces opposition from Sitting Bull and, eventually, from Eastman as well, setting the stage for one last conflict between the whites and the Sioux.
Review:
The film won an Emmy for best television movie or miniseries from 2007 and earned Emmy nominations for Quinn, Paquin and Schellenberg.
As Sitting Bull, Schellenberg has the best part and several memorable scenes. One of those comes when he arrives at the reservation and marches into the superintendent’s office, pretending to have a letter from back East promising him a grand home and permission not to farm. He’s told he’s no longer a chief and will be treated the same as every other reservation Indian.
Unfortunately, Ezaneh has the most prominent role, and it comes off as much more contrived. Especially near the end when he’s given a job assigning names to the reservation Indians who are reluctant to take one.
As for the Wounded Knee Massacre, it’s shown in flashback, after the wounded are arriving back at the reservation. The film offers a better depiction of the engagement between Sitting Bull’s braves and Gen. Nelson Miles’ troops in the aftermath of The Little Big Horn.
Directed by:
Yves Simoneau
Cast:
Chevez Ezaneh … Ohiyesa / Charles Eastman
August Schellenberg … Sitting Bull
Anna Paquin … Elaine Goodale
Aidan Quinn … Henry Dawes
Duane Howard … Uncle
Colm Feore .. Gen. Sherman
Fred Dalton Thompson … President Grant
Nathan Chasing Horse … One Bull
Wayne Charles Baker … Jacob
Brian Stollery … Bishop Whipple
Shaun Johnston … Col. Nelson Miles
Gordon Tootoosis … Chief Red Cloud
Billy Merasty … Young Man Afraid
Morris Birdyellowhead … American Horse
Eddie Spears … Chasing Crane
Eric Schweig … Gall
Wes Studi … Wovoka / Jack Wilson
Runtime: 133 min.
Memorable lines:
Gen. Sherman: “I’ll say it til my tongue bleeds, if we’re ever to claim what we bought from the French and whooped the Mexicans for, it’s gonna mean killing Indians.”
Sitting Bull: “I have had my say with you.”
Col. Miles: “And I have had my say with you.”
Sitting Bull: “Then we will have a fight.”
Col. Miles: “So be it.”
Ohiyesa’s father, convincing his son to attend school back East: “The earth belongs to the white man. There is no future outside his world. You must go.”
Sitting Bull to Senator Dawes: “You would have us cut off our balls and end our race right here on a patch of land on which nothing can live. And that will not happen. I have spoken.”
Cavalry commander: “We didn’t fire first. I swear to almighty God, we didn’t fire first.”
Red Cloud: “Blue coat, you whites use many weapons against us. Do not have such a bad heart about it. We have always feared your guns the least.”
){kind=link}