Stuff "poetic license." That's the term to describe when film or television producers take a book, or worse yet, historical facts, and play fast and loose with the truth to suit a lower purpose. In other words, appealing to my peers in middle-class suburbia who are the coveted demographic for said poetically licensed production because they have the damned cash to buy whatever it is they're hawking.
Yep. That's what it's called.
"Poetic license" is coming 'round the mountain once again, this time in HBO's upcoming movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, based on the 1971 book by Dee Brown. To be aired Memorial Day weekend, the film has taken the life of Charles Eastman and seasoned and spiced it to make him McTastier.
And just who is Charles Eastman? Portrayed in the film by Adam Beach, he was the Santee political activist, Dartmouth-educated doctor and cofounder of the Boy Scouts who HBO thought, in their supreme wisdom, wasn't interesting enough even though he was a political activist, Dartmouth-educated doctor and cofounder of the Boy Scouts. Apparently, that wasn't sufficiently palatable, especially to mainstream audiences whose knowledge of Native America is limited to Little Big Horn, casinos and Russell Means.
Thankfully, no references to Russell were added, ditto for casinos probably 'cause the movie is set in the 19th century. So what's left? Huzzah--let's put Charles Eastman at the Battle of the Little Bighorn! So that's what HBO did. Forget the fact that the real Eastman was attending school hundreds of miles away in Nebraska at the time.
This is what y'all call "poetic license."
According to the New York Times, the network carefully considered its decision. Daniel Giat, who adapted Brown's book for the screenplay, recently said to a group of television writers "Everyone felt very strongly that we needed a white character or a part-white, part-Indian character to carry a contemporary white audience through this project."
At least that's the truth.
Of course, apologists tell us that it's the "bigger issue" that's paramount. That "poetic license" is standard practice in adaptations; therefore adding and cutting and fabricating is just dandy and a-okay as long as it remains intellectually honest.
Intellectually honest? Not when you have a real-life person engaging in a major battle he never fought in. Intellectual honesty is when you add dialogue and scenes to flesh out the story but remain faithful to the known facts. That ain't the case here. HBO IS FABRICATING HISTORY TO APPEAL TO WHITE FOLKS.
As Bury My Heart producer Dick Wolf was quoted in the Times article, "It is a dramatization, and we needed a protagonist."
Hey, let me share something with you. As a bona fide white person, I don't need made up history to swallow what actually happened. Believe me, we CAN handle the truth and the time has come for my fellow white folks in the media to acknowledge that.
So please o' please--stop already. This has nothing to do with "poetic license" and even more so, "intellectual honesty." This has everything to do with making the lead Native character a superhero Mr. And Ms. Mid-America could love. Think Little-Spidey-on-the-Prairie.
Not to take "poetic license" here, but I bet that wasn't Dee Brown's intention when he wrote his groundbreaking book 36 years ago. Nevertheless, I'm sure my hunch is helluva lot closer to the truth than Charles Eastman wielding a tomahawk against Custer's Seventh Cavalry along a dusty Montana creek.
Carole Quattro Levine
Comments (1)
Thirty-six years after Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was written, HBO brought the book to television and in so doing
enlightened thousands of people to some shocking aspects of this country’s history. HBO should be commended for making
the effort.
Unfortunately, a portion of the public will never be satisfied with any film about Indians. There are those that will
always find some terrible offense, insult, or inaccuracy in every film that involves Indians. For whatever reason,
these people are determined to detract from the positive aspects of such films.
Not long ago, in an article for this site, Carole Levine criticized Bury My Heart because she assumed the film was going
to feature a white character that would “rescue” the Indians. Her assumption regarding the white character was wrong.
Ms. Levine’s latest pedantic rant expresses outrage at the fact that some fiction was included amongst the historical
facts in the film and she says, “HBO IS FABRICATING HISTORY TO APPEAL TO WHITE FOLKS”.
Yes, HBO has inserted some fiction into the film and that insertion is what separates it from a historical documentary.
Is it that hard to understand that the two mediums have entirely different goals and responsibilities?
A documentary filmmaker may shape our perception of factual events; the director of a fiction film interprets the drama
of the events.
Real life rarely provides all of the elements needed to interpret the drama of events that span 30 years. Thus,
although we see Bury My Heart from the point of view of a real person named Charles Eastman, parts of Mr. Eastman’s life
are fictionalized to help “interpret the drama”.
Ms. Levine is concerned with the film’s fictional placement of Mr. Eastman at the Battle of Little Bighorn. She
believes Mr. Eastman was placed at the Battle to make him a more interesting character and to help the audience “handle
the truth” (whatever that means). Both assumptions are wrong and indicate ignorance of the art of filmmaking.
The character was not inserted at Little Bighorn to enhance Mr. Eastman’s story, to help white people handle any truth,
or to teach mainstream America that Russell Means is not the only Indian. He was simply there because the audience was
watching through his POV and if he wasn’t there the audience couldn’t be there. I know it is more exciting to accuse HBO
of fabricating history for their own commercial gain, but there is no basis for such an accusation.
Mr. Eastman’s presence at Little Bighorn had no more affect on the telling of that historical event than if they had
used the wrong color ponies, shot the scenes in Canada, or cast the entire cavalry with Irishmen.
Had this been “The Charles Eastman Story”, placing the character at Little Bighorn would have misled the audience about
a fact that was important to the main story. But “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” is concerned with exploring “the
tragic impact that the United States' westward expansion had on American Indian culture, and the economic, political and
social pressures that motivated it.” In this film, the details of Eastman’s life are incidental and may be changed as
necessary to help relay the historical facts of the larger picture.
As for Dee Brown’s intentions when he wrote the book, I believe he wanted to describe that era from the Indian point of
view AND to expose as many people as possible to the facts he compiled.
Fun fact: Dee Brown was white.
Posted by Talking Dreams | June 3, 2007 3:11 PM
Posted on June 3, 2007 15:11