THUNDERHEART

THUNDERHEART

You can’t truly understand the movie Thunderheart, which came out in 1992, unless you are familiar with the climate on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota from 1972 to 1976 when Dick Wilson was Tribal Council President.  At the time, he was accused of paying family members and supporters with tribal money and suspected of using federal funds from the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) to create a militant band of enforcers named Goons (Guardians of the Oglala Nation) whose primary purpose was to destroy AIM (American Indian Movement,) an organization formed to protect Indians from governmental interference and mistreatment.  Further claims were made that Wilson allowed private companies to mine tribal lands for their natural resources and that he failed to investigate the high incidence of murders, disappearances, and rapes that took place on the reservation during his reign.  After a number of confrontations between the government and AIM,  including the Trail of Broken Treaties in the fall of 1972, which terminated with the Indian occupation of the BIA building, and the 71 day standoff between Indians and the government over possession of Wounded Knee in the winter of 1973, the tension between the parties culminated in June 1975 when two FBI agents, reputedly pursuing a Sioux Indian named Jimmy Eagle for stealing a pair of cowboy boots, and an Indian man, who was staying at the property, were killed at a shoot-out on the Jumping Bull property.  The trials that followed this fire-fight led to Leonard Peltier being found guilty of murdering the agents and sentenced to life in prison.


The movie opens with spirits of the Old Ones performing a Ghost Dance, a ceremony meant to chase the whites away and bring back the buffalo.  As the scene fades, we see a young man driving his red Mustang convertible through city streets.  This is Ray LaVoi (Val Kilmer) on his way to a meeting with FBI Director William Dawes (Fred Thompson).   At the meeting, Ray learns that Dawes wants him to go to the Badlands of South Dakota and convincer the reservation residents to help the FBI capture James Looks Twice, a member of ARM (Aboriginal Rights Movement) who is wanted for murder.  Dawes explains that Ray was chosen for the assignment because of his Sioux heritage.  Ray, who hasn’t been on the reservation since he was a child, reluctantly agrees.


When Ray, wearing Ray Ban sunglasses and sporting a Rolex watch, first arrives in South Dakota, it seems unlikely he will be able to get anyone to give him the time of day.  He doesn’t speak the Lakota’s’ language or understand their culture.  In fact, the Indians, who hate the FBI, nickname him the “Washington Redskin”.  But when tribal elder Grandpa Sam Reaches (Ted Thin Elk), tells members that Ray’s blood was passed down from Thunderheart, a great warrior who fought at Wounded Knee, the Indians, notably tribal policeman Walter Crow Horse (Graham Greene) and college-educated ARM representative, Maggie Eagle (Sheila Tousey), begin to trust him.  Maggie and Ray encounter each other a few times and they start to open up.  He tells her about his father, a mixed blood who drank himself to death, and she voices her suspicion that Milton is getting kickbacks from a company that is secretly mining Uranium and poisoning the reservation’s water supply in the process.  


As Ray witnesses the way the Goon Squad abuses people by using roadblocks and drive by shootings, he starts to empathize with the victims.  He has visions of the Old Ones at Wounded Knee and becomes cognizant that chief FBI agent, Frank Coutelle (Frank Ward), or Cooch, is dispassionate toward the Indians, championing Milton’s mistreatment of them, instead.  The tension between Ray and Cooch finally comes to a head at the home of Grandpa Reaches.  Ray is in the middle of a conversation with Jimmy Looks Twice when the Goons, under the orders of Milton and Cooch, fire into the trailer, nearly killing everyone inside.  When the shooting stops, Cooch arrests Jimmy and orders Ray to go back to D.C.   Ray refuses and Milton and Cooch need to decide what to do about  him.  I won’t say more because I don’t want to ruin the ending.  I will only add that the viewer needs to keep in mind that the plot is sympathetic to the AIM perspective.  


Although the place is never named in the film, repeated scenes of the Wounded Knee Memorial hint that the reservation is Pine Ridge because that is where the real memorial is located.  The search for James Looks Twice echoes the pursuit of Jimmy Eagle; the term ARM is very close to the term AIM; there are similarities between Maggie Eagle and Anna Mae Aquash, a core member of AIM; and the behaviors of Jack Milton strongly suggest abuses lodged against the real Dick Wilson.  With the exception of FBI characters, the cast is made up of native Americans: Graham Greene, a famous Indian actor, plays Walter Crow Horde, John Trudell, an American Indian writer and political activist, plays Jimmy Looks Twice; Ted Thin Elk, an Oglala Sioux and lifetime resident of the  Pine Ridge Reservation, plays Grandpa Reaches; and Julius Drum (Corder), an Indian born on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska, plays Richard Yellow Hawk.  The movie is directed by Michael Apted, who has worked in several capacities on many, many television shows and films including Coal Miner’s Daughter and Gorillas in the Mist.  He also wrote the documentary Incident at Oglala about the firefight on the Jumping Bull Property.   If you’ve never seen Thunderheart, I hope you’ll check it out.  If you have seen it, but didn’t know the historical background, I hope you view it again.  And if you have seen it and knew its roots, I hope you’ll revisit it, anyway.  I’ll be back next week with Incident at Oglala, which I believe, also, deserves another glance.  Until then, enjoy a flick…or two.