The bigger problem is that they're also drawn out, perhaps to approximate the pace of life at the time but possibly to help fill that 90-minute box. And some of the Colonial sequences do have the feel of Welcome to Historic Plymouth!
The fourth film is about Geronimo, the last of the Native American resistance fighters, who was considered a counterproductive hothead by some of his own tribe. (His father-in-law Cochise got higher marks in wisdom.) "Geronimo" is livelier than its predecessors, not just because of the subject matter -- talented rebel warrior plays cat and mouse with the authorities -- but also for the abundant photographic material, which brings the past alive more vividly than the most carefully costumed 21st-century actors ever could.
The fifth film, "Wounded Knee," is a straightforward documentary about the 1973 "occupation" of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by local Oglala Lakota and members of the American Indian Movement, who previously had occupied Mt. Rushmore and the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington ("Americans like to think that American-Indian history is something in the past," says Russell Means, who was there.)
They were quickly surrounded by FBI agents, U.S. marshals and the private "goon squad" of the man the protest was about, corrupt tribal Chairman Dick Wilson. Two Indians died (and a marshal was paralyzed) before it was over, after 71 days, and Wilson remained in place afterward. But you can see exhilaration in the earlier footage -- an Indian version of the generational shifts taking place elsewhere in the country -- as the protesters lay claim to forgotten roots and to new possibilities.
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robert.lloyd@latimes.com
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'American Experience: We Shall Remain'
Where: KCET
When: 9 tonight
Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)
