Russell Means, the fiery, controversial American Indian activist, is planning to relive the violent 1973 Wounded Knee siege - this time on film, starring, he says, his former "The Last of the Mohicans" co-star Daniel Day-Lewis.
The restaging of the 71-day standoff on the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation in South Dakota is only one of the many film projects Means, 54, has in the fire. Among his other efforts:- A documentary about 20th century American Indian women.
- A hefty co-starring role in Oliver Stone's prison drama, "Natural Born Killers," due later this year.
- A co-starring role opposite John Candy in Carolco Pictures' "Wagons East," currently filming in Durango, Mexico.
- Playing the ghost of athlete Jim Thorpe in the upcoming "Wind Runner," with Margot Kidder.
The Wounded Knee saga, Means says, "will mainly be a courtroom drama, taking it partially from my experience in 1973," referring to the eight-month trial that followed the siege. "Daniel's character would be an amalgamation of all the lawyers who represented Dennis Banks and myself." The $30 million film, he says, will be produced by himself and Nancy Gaelin, whose background is in TV and music production.
Banks and Means led the American Indian Movement's armed seizure of the tiny reservation hamlet in February 1973. While the standoff left a federal marshal paralyzed for life, two young Indians dead and Banks and Means arrested on 10 felony counts, the episode did little to change the plight of those living on the country's reservations. The case against Means and Banks was eventually thrown out on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.
Means hopes his film will serve as a reminder of the living conditions and broken spirit of the country's Indians. "Wounded Knee was the third most photographed event of the 1970s. Only Watergate and the Vietnam War were photographed more," he says. "Nothing definitive has ever really been written about Wounded Knee."
The spot was previously the site of the 1890 massacre where 267 Sioux men, women and children were wiped out by the U.S. cavalry, the last bloodbath of the U.S.-Indian wars.
But Day-Lewis' London attorney, Julian Belfrage, says the actor, currently nominated for an Oscar for "In the Name of the Father," isn't committing to any roles right now.
"Daniel is so exhausted after his last two films he has no plans to consider anything. He just wants to rest," says Belfrage. He did confirm that he wrote Gaelin a letter in 1992 saying Day-Lewis would be interested in the film, depending on contractual availability, choice of director and cast.
Means says he's been pitching the concept around Hollywood, but no script exists yet. He wants Erik Bergen ("The Elephant Man") to pen the screenplay. And he says he's scouting a director and production money. He hopes to begin production next winter.
- Picture this: A troupe of American Indians - played by some known as much for their activism as their acting - fending off fellow warriors to help a bunch of white settlers.
Sound absurd? Well, that's exactly what drew some of Hollywood's more prominent Indian actors to star in Carolco Pictures' off-the-wall late-summer Western comedy, "Wagons East," currently filming in Durango, Mexico. Director Peter Markle's film also stars Candy and Richard Lewis.
The plot: An East Coast surgeon (Lewis) and his family move west in the late 1800s. Without cappuccino and opera, the rugged life spent among sweaty, stinking animals on the dusty plains proves intolerable. So, the neurotic, failed frontiersman packs up his crew and enlists a hapless wagonmaster (Candy) to guide them back east. But the wagonmaster takes a wrong turn and drives them right into the gullet of Indian territory - rough Indian territory.
Enter Means, Rodney A. Grant, Stuart Proud Eagle Grant and Michael Horse, who capture the ragged band of travelers but forfeit their scalping plans, smelling a gold mine of their own: They'll help the settlers return if and only if they promise to ward off any other ambitious whites hoping to strike it rich in the West. The problem is railroad baron J.P. Moreland, who is expecting a major land rush, is worried the naysaying eastbound group will jeopardize the government money he's getting to subsidize his westbound railroad. So he hires the cavalry to thwart the deserters' plans.
Means, who plays the chief in the film, also played the title character Chingachgook in "The Last of the Mohicans." Grant, who plays Big Snake That Makes Women Faint, was the Sioux warrior Wind in His Hair in "Dances With Wolves" and Crazy Horse in the ABC miniseries "Son of the Morning Star." Grant, who portrays White Cloud, had a co-starring role in "Geronimo." And Horse, an actor, musician and renowned silversmith who played Deputy Hawk on David Lynch's offbeat TV series "Twin Peaks," appeared in "Passenger 57."
Considering their resumes, why would this group consider such thin roles in a lightweight comedy? In fact, the humor was the real draw.
"The main problem with films is that everybody always thinks of us as a violent people," says Horse. "We are not. We are spiritual. And when you show someone without a sense of humor or families, which is the way you usually see Indians in movies, then they are without a spiritual base and become subhuman. And when they're subhuman, that justifies showing them anyway you want."
Yet, he concedes, "I'm the meaner Indian in this film. I love what I did in this. I cracked myself up."
Horse plays a Lakota Indian trying to attack the eastbound wagon train. When he sees Big Snake and White Cloud riding with the white travelers, he asks, "What gives? After all, my character went to warrior school with Big Snake."
Horse, who grew up in Tucson, Ariz., is part Zuni, Yaqui and Cree. "We're doing this film because we smell a classic with a hysterical premise."