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Crazy Horse
The legendary Native American chieftain refuses to go with his people peacefully to the reservation and starts a rebellion.
Release : | 1996 |
Rating : | 6.3 |
Studio : | Turner Pictures, Von Zerneck Sertner Films, |
Crew : | Director of Photography, Stunts, |
Cast : | Michael Greyeyes Ned Beatty John Finn Peter Horton Zahn McClarnon |
Genre : | Drama Action Western War |
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Surprisingly incoherent and boring
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
This film is about an Indian hero, a Native American leader and chief. His name is Crazy Horse; he is honored by his people and tribal members as a brave warrior. In his early age, he presented his excellent abilities that he kills a buffalo. When he was 16 years old, he was named by Crazy Horse which was his father's name. Then, he became an Oglala Lakota leader. In this film, he fights with the US Federal government which invades their territories and wants to explore gold from this soil. As a tribal chief, he took up arms against invaders and wins a lot of campaigns. At this time, he received a lot of respects and supports; however, he got jealous from his tribal person------Red Cloud. Red Cloud framed-up Crazy Horse. On the morning of September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse was arrested and killed outside the adjutant's office. Our textbook also mentioned about the rugged individual and macho hero. I find some similarities between movies and books. They all tell about a hero and some hero characters. For many years, the frontier experience was romanticized in popular movies and television show that featured cowboy heroes fighting Indian villains.(From our book described)This movie, however, focuses on the American Indians, stands on their aspects and shows that what tragedy is bringing to Native Indians. White people invade their land and killed thousands of Native Indians. What's more, they broke many promises. What they mentioned about are their benefits. From this movie, Crazy Horse, a tribal leader, has some rugged individual characters, like brave, self-reliant and intelligent. The macho hero, always feel lonely because they will think about big problems and make a big decision; maybe no one could help him. Crazy Horse always feels lonely too much because he worried about his people. What he could do is avoiding what happened to them and protect them from invasions. Crazy Horse has his faith that they could live alike their ancestors. I love this movie very much. His spirit is more or less admired by us. What he pursued is freedom. What he always concerned are his people. We can learn a lot of personal qualities from this. In our lives, we also face a lot of difficulties or enemies; we should be brave to solve them instead of escaping. Crazy Horse is very intelligent, he uses of tactics to vanquish white people in many major wars. He could use fully of advantages of terrains to win the whole war. What's more, besides its attractive plot, its music or scenes are all fine. So it is a perfect film.
Though entertaining and well acted, the script doesn't follow Sandoz's biography. Sandoz who traveled more than any other researcher in Ogalala country compiled much of her biography from descendants and other community members who carry stories of Crazy Horse. According to Sandoz The Strange Crazy Horse a political critic - opposing three primary features of Ogalala society: 1) the idea of paying for brides with horses (dowry); 2) the idea that community acknowledgment and recognition are synonymous with an individuals' spiritual or metaphysical (for lack of better words) standing 3) the idea that there are a fixed number of formal ways in which to seek knowledge and understanding. Crazy Horse according to Sandoz felt that the influx of Horses had corrupted Oglala society somewhat and made it more (in contemporary terms) - wealth bound and greed ridden. He also she suggests felt that there were in some respects formalized aspects of the society that were too rigid and so conflicted with (in contemporary terms) basic human rights. Sandoz's Crazy Horse in essence supported Oglala culture and society strongly only as a reformer he, by example suggested several small adjustments to the culture so as to make it better.Rather than being unique in this I imagine, he showed up at a time when the West was interested in Native people much like they are interested in Middle Eastern peoples today. War seems to create a sensationalist fascination with the other and so some attention was given his life in the popular media. Many of the biographies seem to contain details that conflict strongly with Sandoz, but no other researcher seems to have spent the same amount of time both in archives and in the communities. She has a pointed, detailed yet equivocal touch and so I trust her account better than any I have seen. This book (as is common) puts the film to shame.
I thought this to be one of Mr. Greyeyes' better films since he was perfectly suited for the role of Crazy Horse. Of course, the supporting cast was very well picked as Native people themselves played the Native roles like the way its supposed to be. I read some of the comments that other members put for this film and I tend to disagree with what these pessimists say. Personally I think this film should have made it to the big screen.. too bad it didn't make it to the big screen. But........ anyways...... I cannot recall how Crazy Horse died in the film since its been a while when I last saw it. In real life, he was only 35 when he was murdered by 3 white policemen who came to arrest him for no known reason. Apparently he was bayoneted in the back by one of these policemen while the other 2 held him so he couldn't free himself. It was truly a sad day in Lakota history when he died. It was also the way he died too that makes this situation even more sad.Well..... however..... this is why I gave this film a 7 out of 10.
This is history? It's one of those revisionist epics where the indians are depicted as goodie-goodies on a weekend scouting trip, have a beauty parlor and a gym in the camp somewhere, don't commit anything that could be viewed as offensive to modern viewers, all whites are evil brutes to a man and Custer is made personally responsible to all things bad that ever happened to the poor indians.Furthermore it's doubtful that any indian tribe ever discussed matters military in terms of front lines and troops or whatever.It's not even good as a old fashioned shoot-'em up adventure movie - it's too dull for that. If you want to see anything serious on the subject, watch "Dances With Wolves" or "Son of the Morning Star" instead.