SXSW Film

Reel Injun

Documentary, SX Global
D: Neil Diamond; with Clint Eastwood, Sacheen Littlefeather, John Trudell

The surprising thing about filmmaker Neil Diamond's film is how funny it is. Perhaps it's because the stereotypes of Native Americans as they've been depicted in film are so ridiculous in retrospect. Or, it could be part of that Native American humor, as several of the interviewees in the film note, as a way to cope with the mostly tragic consequences of their forefathers' contact with European explorers. Either way, viewers will find themselves chuckling as much as shaking their heads. Using hundreds of clips from silent to contemporary cinema, Diamond provides a deft, first-person look at the image of Native Americans over time – from the noble savage to the "groovy Indian" – painstakingly mapping out how these images directly affected the treatment of Native American people offscreen. There is much to laugh at but also sobering reminders of how a picture can be so much more than a thousand words.

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Thursday, March 18, 1:30pm, Lamar 3