| Reel Injun | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Neil Diamond Catherine Bainbridge Jeremiah Hayes |
| Produced by | Catherine Bainbridge Christina Fon Linda Ludwick |
| Written by | Screenplay Jeremiah Hayes Catherine Bainbridge |
| Starring | Adam Beach R. Michael David Clint Eastwood |
| Music by | Claude Castonguay Mona Laviolette |
| Cinematography | Edith Labbe |
| Editing by | Jeremiah Hayes |
| Distributed by | Domino Film |
| Release date(s) | 2009 |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
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.[1][2]
Reel Injun explores many stereotypes about Natives in film, from the Noble savage to the Drunken Indian.[3] It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody, who reinvented himself as a Native American on screen.[4] 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.[5]
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The film was inspired, in part, by Diamond's own experiences as a child in Waskaganish, Quebec, 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.[6][7] 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.[3]
Interview subjects include Sacheen Littlefeather, Zacharias Kunuk, Clint Eastwood, Adam Beach, Jim Jarmusch, Robbie Robertson and Russell Means.[2][3][7]
The documentary is partly structured as a road movie, 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 Reservations,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.[1][8]
In Canada, 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.[3] 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.[7]
In the United States, the film premiered at the SXSW festival in March 2009.[9] It aired on November 2, 2010 on the PBS series Independent Lens.[5] It was screened at the Museum of Modern Art from June 14 to 20, 2010.[10]
Reel Injun received three awards at the 2010 Gemini Awards: the Canada Award for best multicultural program, Best Direction in a Documentary Program and Best Visual Research.[11] It received a Peabody Award for best electronic media in March 2011.[12][13]
The film is a co-production of Rezolution Pictures and the National Film Board of Canada.[6][7]
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.
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