PBS tells Native American history with power, care
One of the more shameful aspects of non-fiction film making in this nation involves the lack of major projects chronicling the Native American experience.
The lack of historical storytelling about Native Americans is the best evidence I know to support the cynical cultural studies argument that history is merely the stories told by those who won the wars and hold the power.
I fear that We Shall Remain, a five-part series that starts Monday night on PBS, arrives on too fragmented a TV landscape and at a time when viewers are too preoccupied with the current economic crisis to take much notice of any historical epic that demands a major commitment of time.
But give PBS and the American Experience series great praise for trying to make sure that the Native American narrative is told in such a way that it reflects the truth of that experience and finds a home in the nation's consciousness and conscience.
The series runs across five weeks and spans 300 years of history. Tonight's episode, "After the Mayflower," which is directed by Chris Eyre and Cathleen O'Connell (who worked as directors on John and Abigail Adams), re-visits the relationship between the Wampanoag and the earliest English settlers. Part 5, the final episode, brings the story up to the 1970's and the politics of Wounded Knee.
Understand the obstacles to this kind of TV storytelling. While filmmakers can find plenty of illuminating archival footage from 1970s, some of it out-takes from network cameras, the 17th and 18th century parts of the story are harder to tell on TV without using re-creations.
Be warned: This series makes liberal use of re-creation as you will see tonight, and if you philosophically can't abide your history told in such a manner, We Shall Remain is not for you.
I will be happy to debate the use of historical re-creations with any commenters, but I have come to accept and even embrace the use of them for that part of our history where visuals are limited. Nor is it all re-creations. For example, the film wisely makes use of eloquent landscape photography to give a sense of the connection between the land and those who first inhabited.
Among the top cinematographers responsible for some of those landscape images is Allen Moore, the director of photography on such Ken Burns' projects as The Civil War and a professor at Maryland Institute College of Art. (You can read a recent conversation I had with Moore here.)
The other aspect of the re-creations that matters is the commitment by PBS and the producers to historical accuracy and involvement of Native American historians.
The filmmakers did not attempt to tell this history as one straight chronology -- that would have been impossible to do any kind of depth for television. Instead, they focus on five pivotal moments in that history. Besides, tonight's episode from the era of the first Thanksgiving and the finale at Wounded Knee, the film also looks at the life and times of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, the Trail of Tears, and Geronimo.
Five Monday nights is a lot of time to give to any TV series in this era of new media, unlimited on-demand choices, and shortened attention spans. So, maybe PBS won't find a huge audience for this series. But you have to admire public television for making such an impressive effort.
The series premieres at 9 p.m. Monday on MPT-Channel 22 and other PBS stations.
Categories: Documentaries, PBS, TV Review
Comments
I have just watched 1/2 of the first episode of "THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE". I am truley impressed with the production. I have always had an interest in the American Indian and his plight, pehaps it's because I am part cherokee (as distant and remote that part may be). I see great promise in this series, that it may not only give us new insight into the American Indian, but also insight into ourselves as a Nation, and as Christians. We have much to answer for. May the Lord help us do that. This should be manditory viewing for all levels of our educational system.
Posted by: Bob Adams | April 13, 2009 10:49 PM
As an author who has written about Native Americans (i.e., Algonquins) I am thrilled to see this series hit the air. While I haven't watched the first segment I am recording the entire series for viewing when my family is together.
Posted by: Marion Marchetto | April 14, 2009 9:49 AM
Network TV has Everything to fear!
Programing on the big 3 is pretty poor, so I don't think the monday line up will hurt the viewing of this show.
I dissagree with the author's blog, I don't think the ecomonic problems we are facing will hurt the program.
If you watch the program, history recounts the leasons of all that we are now going through. Can we learn from the Native Americans of the past? I know that we can.
Hi Sheryl, Thanks for the comment, and I glad you like the series. Just to be clear, though, I do not think I could have been more supportive of the documentary in trying to get viewers to go out of their way to see it. Z
Posted by: sheryl | April 14, 2009 10:59 AM
It was really, really good…until they got to the part where they did the obligatory, mindless bashing of (all) Christian missionaries, saying things that were ostensibly true but trying to show Christian believers in the worst possible light.
Just once I’d like to see one of these things made by people who aren’t east-coast anti-Christian bigots. Just once I’d like them to acknowledge that MOST American Indians today are STILL Christians BY CHOICE, not because they or their ancestors were forced, coerced, tricked or otherwise lured.
The most telling line (that the writers are bigots) last night was when they were describing the Massachusetts area being overrun by Europeans, and they pointed out that many Indians were joining these communities called “praying towns” set up for Indians who had accepted the Christian message. The narrator (Benjamin Bratt) said “For some reason Indians were still flocking to the praying towns…”, his voice dripping with contempt and bewilderment at the fact.
Not once is the suggestion made that the Christian religion had something to offer American Indians that they found attractive and worth pursuing, to the point of allowing fundamental changes in their own outlook and orientations.
Conversely, there is never full disclosure of the moral state of American Indian communities in their pre-Christian state. It would be impolitic to point out that we would never want our own kids to sexually act out the way many Indians did before conversion to Christianity, and that maybe this was the REAL reason Puritans did not always want to just ‘hang out’ with the local Indians. Nope, it was just racism, pure and simple.
I speak as a member of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Tribe of Nebraska, who also happens to be a practicing Catholic, like many of my ancestors before me.
Posted by: Ben Blackhawk | April 14, 2009 12:55 PM
I missed the first episode and would very much like to see a re-run of it if possible.
Posted by: Anna Norris | April 14, 2009 7:17 PM
Am working on the Mainland of China during the broadcast times and really appreciate the blogs and other commentaries.
We can at least consider and keep re-considering the plight of the previous owners of our real-estate. They suffered much more than foreclosure.
Thanks, Bifford
Posted by: Bifford Debs, M.D. | April 19, 2009 10:57 PM