Word: mountain
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This reasonably heartfelt political documentary concerns the Battle Mountain Indian colony, part of the Western Shoshone Tribe in Nevada, and its resistance to being abused and cheated by the U.S. Government. The Indians say that they have ownership rights to over 24 million acres of land in Nevada, according to a treaty signed in 1863. The U.S. says they do not, but has offered to make some sort of settlement for the land anyhow. If the Indians cool down and keep quiet, the Government will pay them a little over a dollar for each acre-exactly what the land...
Broken Treaty at Battle Mountain is manifestly sympathetic to the Indians who call themselves traditionals and refer to other, "sellout" Indians as "Apples"-that is, red on the outside, all white just below the skin. The movie has something urgent to say, but its theme and the situation it portrays are so tragically familiar that much of their impact is vitiated. Despite Robert Redford's narration, Broken Treaty at Battle Mountain is also a shambles, manufactured with the kind of earnest clumsiness that gives documentaries a bad name...
...film inadvertently reinforces a sense of resignation, even of hopelessness. The Battle Mountain Indians are right to fight. But when someone from Washington heatedly informs them that "the Federal Government has the right to take land from whoever it wants to," it seems clear that the Indians are not only up against injustice, but officially sanctioned piracy as well...
Unrivaled Adroitness. By contrast, the radical leaders got only one ministerial post: Opera Composer Yu Hui-yung (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy) was named Minister of Culture. None of the leading members of the leftist faction, like Mao's flamboyant wife Chiang Ching or her ally Yao Wenyuan, moved upward in either the government or the party...
Many people do, in fact. At upper Michigan's Indian Head Mountain ski resort, where business is expected to be up 5% over its best previous year, General Manager Paul Karow ruminates: "We sit around and try to figure this out. Either our skiers refuse to believe the economy, or they have a doomsday syndrome: they think that they'll be in the breadlines next year." Meanwhile, on snowy slopes and silver beaches, middle-class Americans are engaging in the pursuit of happiness more passionately than ever...