Reel Injun (2010) on Netflix
NR20101h 26mDocumentaryHistory
A Cree filmmaker drives across the United States by rez car, visiting Monument Valley and Wounded Knee. He explores how movies have portrayed Native Americans from the silent era onward.
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- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.5/101,805 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Reel Injun looks at how cinema has depicted Native American peoples, from silent film to the present. A Cree filmmaker travels the United States in a rez car, a broken-down automobile common on Indian reserves, and visits the Black Hills, Wounded Knee, Monument Valley and the Crow Agency in Montana. He speaks with actors, filmmakers, film historians and critics. Excerpts from classic and contemporary movies show how screen images changed, from the noble savage image to the drunken Indian stereotype. The documentary examines Hollywood's practice of casting Italian American and Jewish actors as Indians, and Native performers who made jokes in their own languages on screen while directors believed they were speaking gibberish. It also considers films made by Native peoples about their own experiences.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Reel Injun (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Reel Injun grew out of director Neil Diamond's childhood in Waskaganish, Quebec, where he and other Native children played cowboys and Indians after Westerns screened in their remote community. Later, non-Native people kept asking him whether his people lived in teepees and rode horses, making him realize such preconceptions came from movies.
