Group 8: The American West & Native Americans
The Alamo. 2004. Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, Emilio Echevarria. Story of the Texas Revolution. Available on DVD. Reviewers had a problem with “The Alamo” because, as occurs too often, they didn't understand the full story. If you are familiar with early Texas history, you know that the Texas revolution took place in a context of political turmoil if not outright chaos. The question facing Texicans (as they were called) was essentially, “Who's in charge here?” With a group like Stephen Austin, Sam Houston, Juan Seguin, James Bonham, William Barrett Travis, James Bowie, Davy Crockett and many others, none of whom were shy, retiring violets, there was bound to be controversy and disagreement as to how to proceed. I think the movie got that part right, and correctly portrayed the Alamo battle as part of a larger story. If you really are interested, get “Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans” by T.R. Fehrenbach. Fine biographies of Houston, Austin and others also exist.
Broken Arrow. 1950. Apache Leader Cochise deals with white expansion into the Southwest. James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget. This was a groundbreaking film in that it was one of the first to portray Native Americans as something other than grunting savages. Jeff Chandler plays Cochise, a bit of casting that would not be deemed acceptable today, except for the fact that Chandler's ethnicity is not Anglo-Saxon, and therefore his portrayal was somewhat more credible. The story is based upon the true exploits of Tom Jeffords, but his romance with the Indian girl did not happen. Nevertheless, students in my classroom course found the romance and wedding interesting, because it provided insight into Indian culture that otherwise would not have been available. One of my students actually researched the Apache culture and discovered that the wedding ritual and garments portrayed in the film were reasonably accurate. Check out this commentary on the film and background.
Films about the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, probably the most portrayed event in American history of such short duration. Here are a few films about it:
If you want to view more than one and do a comparison, feel free. Hollywood has almost made an industry of Wyatt Earp and the famous gunfight. Much has been written of these men and events—some of that is mythology, some of it myth busting. One textbook I used to use claimed that, “Doc Holliday never killed anybody”; on the other hand, I own a biography that claims that Doc Holliday was tried for murder; thus somebody in authority at least thought he had killed someone. Most of the men and women portrayed in his film were real people, including the the Earp brothers, the Cowboys, the Sheriff, the entertainers and bit players. My sense is that they were all a lot rougher characters, both male and female, than those portrayed in any of these films. But how are we to know for sure? The old West was wild, though not as wild as it has often been portrayed, but also probably much grittier and rougher than most of the Hollywood versions.
Texas. 1994. — The Texas Revolution of 1835-6 based on James Michener's book. Stacey Keach, Patrick Duffy, David Keith. This film provides a lot more background to the Texas story that leads to the Alamo, and shows how hard Stephen Austin worked to try to create a genuine Mexican-American culture that could rise above racism and intolerance. My sense of Austin is that he is one of the most underrated persons in American history; he was a true statesman, a man of peace, who opted for violence only when all other avenues to a peaceful settlement of the differences between the Texicans and the Mexican government had been exhausted. Michener's books are famous for their accuracy, so I assume that the feelings that existed between Houston and Austin as portrayed in the film are genuine. In any case, I think it is fitting that the Texas capital is named for Austin, while its largest and most vigorous city is Houston.
Geronimo. 1993. — The United States cavalry campaign to capture the Chiricahua Apache Chief. Wes Studi, Jason Patric, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Matt Damon. This film is generally regarded as a fair portrayal of the events surrounding the struggle to capture the Apache Chief Geronimo. If you have watched “Broken Arrow,” you have a little additional background on how Geronimo and his followers differed from Indians like Cochise. The story has been somewhat doctored, as is common with Hollywood films, but again, the characters are real, the events were real, and the ending, showing the Indians being trained off to Florida, very accurately portrays the pathos that is so much a part of the Native American story. I visited the prison where Geronimo was held in Florida, and the story told from that perspective is equally tragic.