Reel Injun
Encyclopedia
Reel Injun is a 2009 Canadian documentary film
directed by Cree
filmmaker Neil Diamond
, 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 historians, while director Diamond travels across the United States
to visit iconic locations in motion picture as well as American Indian history.
Reel Injun explores many stereotypes about Natives in film, from the Noble savage
to the Drunken Indian. It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody
, who reinvented himself as a Native American on screen. The film also explores Hollywood's practice of using Italian Americans and American Jews
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
.
, 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 in fact "Indians," they all wanted to be the cowboys. Afterwards, when he was old enough to move south to study, he would be questioned by non-Native people about whether his people lived in teepees and rode horses, causing Diamond to realize that their preconceptions about Native people were also derived from movies.
, Zacharias Kunuk
, Clint Eastwood
, Adam Beach
, Jim Jarmusch
, Robbie Robertson
and Russell Means
.
, with Diamond visiting locations across the United States as well as the Canadian North
. In the U.S., he is seen traveling by "rez car," a broken down automobile often used on Indian Reservation
s,as demonstrated in Reel Injun with a sequence from the film Smoke Signals
. Locations visited in the film include the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wounded Knee
, Crow Agency in Montana
as well as Monument Valley
.
, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival
in September 2009, followed by screenings at the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. Reel Injun began a limited release
at cinemas in Toronto
and Vancouver
. 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 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
from June 14 to 20, 2010.
: the Canada Award
for best multicultural
program, Best Direction in a Documentary Program and Best Visual Research. It received a Peabody Award
for best electronic media in March 2011.
and the National Film Board of Canada
.
Directed by
Neil Diamond,
Catherine Bainbridge,
Jeremiah Hayes.
Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Catherine Bainbridge,
Neil Diamond, Jeremiah Hayes.
Film Editing by
Jeremiah Hayes.
Produced by
Catherine Bainbridge, executive producer,
Catherine Bainbridge, producer,
Ravida Din, executive producer: NFB,
Christina Fon, executive producer,
Christina Fon, producer,
Linda Ludwick, executive producer,
Linda Ludwick, producer,
Catherine Olsen, executive producer,
Adam Symansky, co-producer,
Ernest Webb, executive producer.
Original Music by
Claude Castonguay and
Mona Laviolette.
Cinematography by
Edith Labbe.
Sound Department;
Lynn Trepanier, sound.
Other crew;
Elizabeth Klinck, visual researcher
Michelle Latimer, additional director
Production Management by
Tony Manolikakis, post-production supervisor.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
directed by Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
filmmaker Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond (filmmaker)
Neil Diamond is a Cree filmmaker based in Montreal, Quebec, born and raised in Waskaganish, Quebec. Working with Rezolution Pictures, Diamond has directed the documentary films Reel Injun, The Last Explorer, One More River, Heavy Metal: A Mining Disaster in Northern Quebec and Cree Spoken Here,...
, Catherine Bainbridge and Jeremiah Hayes, that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film
Portrayal of Native Americans in film
The portrayal of Native Americans in film has been contentious, raising allegations of racism. Traditionally, the Native American archetype has been that of a violent, uncivilized villain, juxtaposed next to the archetypal hero: the virtuous, white Anglo-Saxon settler...
. Reel Injun is illustrated with excerpts from classic and contemporary portrayals of Native people in Hollywood movies and interviews with filmmakers, actors and film historians, while director Diamond travels across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to visit iconic locations in motion picture as well as American Indian history.
Reel Injun explores many stereotypes about Natives in film, from the Noble savage
Noble savage
The term noble savage , expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider , and refers to the literary stock character of the same...
to the Drunken Indian. It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody
Iron Eyes Cody
Iron Eyes Cody was an American actor. He frequently portrayed American Indians in Hollywood films. In 1995, Cody was honored by the American Indian community for his work publicizing the plight of Native Americans, including his acting in films...
, who reinvented himself as a Native American on screen. The film also explores Hollywood's practice of using Italian Americans and American Jews
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
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
Gibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense...
.
Conception
The film was inspired, in part, by Diamond's own experiences as a child in Waskaganish, QuebecWaskaganish, Quebec
Waskaganish is a Cree village of about 2000 people at the mouth of the Rupert River on the south-east shore of James Bay in the Eeyou Istchee territory in Northern Quebec, Canada...
, 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 in fact "Indians," they all wanted to be the cowboys. Afterwards, when he was old enough to move south to study, he would be questioned by non-Native people about whether his people lived in teepees and rode horses, causing Diamond to realize that their preconceptions about Native people were also derived from movies.
Interviews
Interview subjects include Sacheen LittlefeatherSacheen Littlefeather
Sacheen Littlefeather is a Native American activist who donned Apache dress and presented a speech on behalf of actor Marlon Brando, for his performance in The Godfather, when he boycotted the 45th Academy Awards ceremony on March 27, 1973, in protest of the treatment of Native Americans by the...
, Zacharias Kunuk
Zacharias Kunuk
Zacharias Kunuk, is a Canadian Inuk producer and director most notable for his film Atanarjuat, the first Canadian dramatic feature film produced completely in Inuktitut...
, Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
, Adam Beach
Adam Beach
Adam Ruebin Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux actor.He is best known for his roles as Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger, Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt, Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yazzie in Windtalkers, Dr...
, Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
, Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
and Russell Means
Russell Means
Russell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
.
Locations
The documentary is partly structured as a road movieRoad movie
A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or characters leave home to travel from place to place. They usually leave home to escape their current lives.-History:...
, with Diamond visiting locations across the United States as well as the Canadian North
Canadian North
Canadian North Inc. is an airline based in the Northwest Tower in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. It operates scheduled passenger services to major communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Southern gateways include Edmonton and Ottawa...
. In the U.S., he is seen traveling by "rez car," a broken down automobile often used on Indian Reservation
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
s,as demonstrated in Reel Injun with a sequence from the film Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals (film)
Smoke Signals is an independent film directed and co-produced by Chris Eyre and with a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on the short story "This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona" from his book Lone Ranger and Tonto: Fistfight in Heaven. It won several awards and accolades, and was...
. Locations visited in the film include the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee, South Dakota
Wounded Knee is a census-designated place in Shannon County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 382 at the 2010 census....
, Crow Agency in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
as well as Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...
.
Release
In CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
in September 2009, followed by screenings at the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. Reel Injun began a limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
at cinemas in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
. It debuted on television on CBC News Network's The Passionate Eye
The Passionate Eye
The Passionate Eye is a Canadian documentary television series, which airs on CBC News Network.The series presents documentary programming from around the world....
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 festival in March 2009. It aired on November 2, 2010 on the PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
series Independent Lens
Independent Lens
Airing weekly on PBS through ITVS, the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens introduces new drama and documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of Independent Lens have been presented by hosts Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Howard, Maggie...
. It was screened at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
from June 14 to 20, 2010.
Awards
Reel Injun received three awards at the 2010 Gemini Awards2010 Gemini Awards
The 25th Gemini Awards were held on November 13th, 2010 to honour achievements in Canadian television. The ceremony will broadcast on Showcase and Global from the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto. Nominations were announced on August 31. The host will be Cory Monteith...
: the Canada Award
Canada Award
The Canada Award is presented by Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television during its Gemini Awards to honour excellence in "mainstream" English-language television programming that "reflects the racial and cultural diversity of Canada." It was introduced in 1988 as the Multiculturalism Award, and...
for best multicultural
Multiculturalism in Canada
Multiculturalism in Canada was adopted as the official policy of the Canadian government during the prime ministership of Pierre Elliot Trudeau in the 1970s and 1980s. The Canadian government has often been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public...
program, Best Direction in a Documentary Program and Best Visual Research. It received a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
for best electronic media in March 2011.
Production credits
The film is a co-production of Rezolution PicturesRezolution Pictures
Rezolution Pictures is a film and television production company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, focusing primarily on Canadian Aboriginal productions. The company was founded by the husband and wife team of Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge in 2001...
and the National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
.
Directed by
Neil Diamond,
Catherine Bainbridge,
Jeremiah Hayes.
Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Catherine Bainbridge,
Neil Diamond, Jeremiah Hayes.
Film Editing by
Jeremiah Hayes.
Produced by
Catherine Bainbridge, executive producer,
Catherine Bainbridge, producer,
Ravida Din, executive producer: NFB,
Christina Fon, executive producer,
Christina Fon, producer,
Linda Ludwick, executive producer,
Linda Ludwick, producer,
Catherine Olsen, executive producer,
Adam Symansky, co-producer,
Ernest Webb, executive producer.
Original Music by
Claude Castonguay and
Mona Laviolette.
Cinematography by
Edith Labbe.
Sound Department;
Lynn Trepanier, sound.
Other crew;
Elizabeth Klinck, visual researcher
Michelle Latimer, additional director
Production Management by
Tony Manolikakis, post-production supervisor.
External links
- National Film Board of Canada Collections page
- Reel Injun site for Independent LensIndependent LensAiring weekly on PBS through ITVS, the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens introduces new drama and documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of Independent Lens have been presented by hosts Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Howard, Maggie...
on PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....