Reel Injun

Name: Reel Injun
Director: Neil Diamond
Released: 2010

2010

Synopsis

The evolution of the depiction of Native Americans in film, from the silent era until today, featuring clips from hundreds of movies and candid interviews with famous directors, writers and actors, Native and non-Native: how their image on the screen transforms the way to understand their history and culture.

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Recommendations

80
Boxoffice Magazine
There are gaps here and there, but it provides a fascinating introduction to a corner of film history that has gotten too little attention.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Entertaining and informative documentary on how native people have been portrayed on-screen over the years and how these portrayals have shaped native self-perception and non-native prejudice.
75
New York Post
Examines in entertaining detail the way Hollywood has treated North American natives going as far back as the days of silent flicks.
75
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The documentary ends on a hopeful note, as Indians themselves have taken control of their image.
70
The New York Times
Absorbing and amusing for as long as it looks back at those Hollywood westerns, recounting their sins against American Indians.
60
Time Out
The first-person sections, however, couldn’t be more clumsy or grating, and every time Diamond’s tone-deaf narration starts repeating the obvious, you can feel an eye-opening history lesson turning into a quirky, orbs-glazing travelogue.
60
Variety
The tone of Reel Injun is respectfully serious, though well short of angry, while focusing on how the stereotypical depictions of marauding redskins affected the self-images of Native Americans.
40
Village Voice
Combining a road trip from his native Arctic reservation to Los Angeles with an archival cinematic survey, Diamond's treatment of each is perfunctory to the point of inutility.