A movie that I just watched the other day was “Legends of the Fall,” about three brothers and their father living in the Rocky Mountains in Montana. How this movie ties into our class is not through the main characters, but through the Native Americans who lived with the four men as their help.
Colonel Ludlow lives on a huge plot of land in Montana, where he is raising his three sons: Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. The boys grow up and enlist in the army to fight in World War I, against their father’s wishes. Samuel, the youngest, ends up getting killed and Tristan and Alfred grow apart. Samuel’s fiancé was staying in Montana with their father until they returned, but when Samuel did not come back, his fiancé Susanna moves onto be with Tristan. Tristan struggles with the loss of his brother and ends up leaving for several years and journeys around America to find himself. He later returns to find Susanna has gone off to marry the other brother Alfred. The main narrator is One Stab, a Native American who lives on the farm with the Ludlows. One Stab is like family to the Ludlows and helps with the work on the farm. Then there are Decker and Pet. Decker is American and Pet is Native American, they are married and have one daughter, Isabel. Decker and One Stab both help on the farm with the Ludlows, while Pet and Isabel help around the house and cook. Tristan ends up falling in love with Isabel and the two marry and have two children together before Isabel is tragically killed by a crooked cop who is trying to scare Tristan away from the bootlegging business.
This movie showed that the Native Americans and the white Americans can co-exist and live in harmony together, and even end up having families with one another. There was also a scene in the movie where all the men were out at a local bar, and the bartender would not serve One Stab a beer. Tristan, being the crazy impulsive guy that he was, hopped over the bar and beat up the bartender who was a lot bigger than him. Tristan then forced the bartender to pour One Stab a beer. These two different races in this movie proved that they could live happy lives together and help one another, so why was this not the case everywhere else? Most people of this time refused to co-exist with other races. The Anglo Americans viewed themselves as the superior race and that all others should be treated less humanly than them.
I thought this was a really good movie and ties into Zinn’s chapter one, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress. Since Columbus came to America, the Native Americans of the land have been displaced and slaughtered. But this was their land first; Anglo Americans just took over because they believed in manifest destiny, that they were more qualified and better at being in charge of the country, that things should be done their way. This movie showed that both races could live with, start a family with, and work with each other peacefully.
2 comments:
You wrote “Decker is American and Pet is Native American”. Are you saying Pet is not an American? To you, are only Whites really the Americans but not any American Indians, African Americans, etc.? Do you realize how offensive it is to American Indians for you to say that Pet is “not an American” when her ancestors were here long before Decker’s ancestors came from Europe? Or did you mean that Decker was Caucasian? That’s different from being an American, you know. Words matter.
When you wrote about Chief Illiniwek in a later post, you discount the issue. It may surprise you that American Indians are typically treated horribly by White fans if they get the courage to request that their race not be used for a racial sports nickname. They often wind up leaving town because they are made to feel so unwelcome. It seems that Whites and American Indians can live together peacefully as long as the American Indians are willing to let Whites use them as a sports symbol. But American Indians better not challenge the “tradition” of institutional racism.
I love this movie so much, so touching. Montana is very pretty. We went there in the fall. Stormy and snowy. Have to see it sometime in the spring or summer. Love the actors and Bradd Pitt is really nice looking with long hair. LOL!
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