Reel Injun Sparknotes

In the documentary, Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian, directed by Neil Diamond, he investigates the progression of how cinema has portrayed the Native American. They begin with the early classic films that first were made up until recent times. The image of the Indian has been portrayed in several ways and films had typically created misleading depictions of the Indians. What was created in these films are often stereotypical and what many people today believe to be true. Throughout the documentary, we see many themes being presented and these are themes of how the image of Native Americans were viewed as the “bad guys” during some early films and how they evolved to show how they were really just human beings. Through this

Diamond mentions, “In the movies, we’re often portrayed as spiritual, noble, and free. This image has captured the world’s imagination” (11:06). The first type of film that was created was the silent films that involved Native Americans. The culture at the time had portrayed the Indians as warriors and that since the culture had been stripped away by the reservations, they seemed as though they were not real people.

The next section titled, “The Noble Injun”, continues with the era of the silent films. These were extremely popular at the time with Native American people creating and acting in the films for a more authentic images of the Natives. This was an attempt to capture the American Indians before they were completely gone. Diamond states, “One of the most authentic films of its time, featuring real Native actors, is The Silent Enemy” (19:50). This film in particular was a very true representation of what was happening to the American Indians and how the population was

This goes hand-in-hand with the next part titled, “A Good Injun…is a Dead Injun”. This section is now showing the battles between the cowboys and the Indians. Every movie would end with the Indians losing and the cowboys winning. One film in the documentary was shown to children at the Crow Agency School. Diamond says, “The film is Little Big Man, where and Indian massacre was made graphic and real for the very first time” (40:40). He visited to see the reactions of the children from the times that he had grew up