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HBO movie adds mixed-race character to cast
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Filed Under: Arts & Entertainment

HBO added a mixed-race Indian to its adaptation of Dee Brown's “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” in order to make the film more palatable to white audiences, The New York Times reports.

The book sold five million copies and has been translated into 17 languages. But its popularity wasn't enough for HBO executives.

“Everyone felt very strongly that we needed a white character or a part-white, part-Indian character to carry a contemporary white audience through this project,” writer Daniel Giat said at a television group earlier this year, The Times reported.

The new character is based on Charles Eastman, a mixed-raced Dakota man from Minnesota who was educated at Dartmouth College and became a physician and advocate for Indian rights [Wikipedia Bio]. But the film fictionalizes numerous aspects of his life, including the way he met his white wife.

Eastman is played by Adam Beach, a Canadian Native, and the cast includes other Native actors. “This is the first time I’ve seen a film so accurately portray the impact of federal policy on our people,” Jacqueline Johnson, the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, told The Times.

The film premieres Sunday, May 27.

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Classic Book About America’s Indians Gains a Few Flourishes as a Film (The New York Times 5/9)
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Relevant Links:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, HBO - http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart

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