The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy
by Chip Richie, Steven R. Heape
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: James Earl Jones, James Garner, Wayne Mitchell, Wes StudiDirector: Chip Richie, Steven R. Heape
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-01
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Rich-Heape Films, Inc.
Movie Reviews of The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy
Movie Review: Trail of Tears
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very well presented documentary of one of our most well known American tragedies, the frced removal of the Cherokees - the trail of tears. Presenter Wes Studi brings to DVD the gripping story shown with real life actors demonstrating how the Cherokees developed not only their culture, but also a society based on the American model complete with a constitution, government, alphabet, ecomony, and everything else a society entails. The film also shows a dark side of American history too many are willing to ignore or gloss over. It shows what happens when one culture desires what another has, and will do whatever it takes to make sure the other culture is displaced. Greed and corruption were the driving force behind the forced removal of natives to Oklahoma.
This film shows what happens when a government, allegedly based on freedom and liberty for all, decides it can remove those who possesss what it wants for its own people. There should be a degree of shame and acceptance for the actions of our forefathers who participated and who drafted the laws that enabled this tragedy to occur. Instead we get morons like William Bennett who write history that glosses over what it refers to as myths.
Indian removal was not limited to the Cherokee. This film touches on some of the other forced removals, the Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, but it could have added the Kickapoo, the Fox, the Sauk, the Wyandots, the Potawatomies, and a dozen other native tribes who had the misfortune of residing east of the Mississippi River between 1830 and 1845. This film also delivers a powerful message that there often is no liberty and justice for all, and men are not created equal. We need to question our Christian beliefs that preach peace on earth and goodwill toward men, but likewise allow for one race to dominate another simply because it can. Towards the end of the film one of the speakers says one legacy of the trail of tears is to make sure it doewsn't happen again. Well, it did happen. Indian removal transition into the west in the second half of the 19th Century, Japanese-Americans were displaced from their homes in the 1940s. The question thus becomes when will it happen again and to what group of people?
But regardless of personal opinions, this is a well done movie. The Trail of Tears comes alive, though for practical reasons the actors couldn't be asked to follow the course of the real trail of tears. What was presented as Indians on the trail is sanitized for both viewing and production reasons. But this doesn't detract from the film's message. It is important to teach this to our children, rather than just showing the imperialistic conquests of a people supposedly favored by God to do his work. This should be shown on network television, but it probably never will be.
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