Skins is a 2002 American feature film by Chris Eyre and based upon the novel of the same name by Adrian C. Louis. It was filmed on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (renamed the fictional Beaver Creek Indian Reservation in the film), which served as the setting in the novel. Lakota Sioux tribal police officer Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig) struggles to rescue his older, alcoholic brother, Mogie (Graham Greene), a former football star who was wounded in combat three times in Vietnam. Winona LaDuke makes a cameo appearance as Rose Two Buffalo.
Rudy and Mogie Yellow Lodge are Lakota Sioux brothers on the Beaver Creek Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Mogie is unemployed and has a teenage son. Rudy, a police officer, struggles to care for his brother, nephew and the rest of the town through the hands of the law. Mogie resists Rudy's helpful attempts, preferring to drink and joke about the depressed state of their people and town. As a child, Rudy had been bitten by a spider, and Mogie told him it was Iktomi, the trickster spider; this spider re-appears to Rudy early in the film and Rudy's attempts to help begin to wander outside the lines of the law.
When Rudy is sent on a police call to an abandoned house, he finds the bloodied, dead body of a young man who has been kicked to death. Rudy sees someone in the darkness, but the stranger escapes and Rudy trips and falls onto a rock before he can identify his quarry.
Rudy's friend tells him that rocks are very spiritual and Rudy begins to worry that something has gotten into him, turning him vigilante. He sees a teenage boy wearing the same shoes as the figure who ran away from the scene of the murder, and follows him. Rudy overhears the boy talk with a friend about disposing a pair of boots that connects them to the murder. Disguising himself with black paint on his face, Rudy sneaks up on the boys with a baseball bat and viciously beats their kneecaps, announcing himself as the ghost of the boy they murdered. While washing the paint off his face, he again sees Iktomi.
Angered by a news report about a liquor store in the bordering town profiting off of alcoholic Native Americans, Rudy sets out - again with a painted face - and sets the store on fire. Unknown to Rudy, Mogie was on the roof of the building trying to steal some alcohol. Mogie escapes and survives, but is burned and severely scarred. Shocked, Rudy visits a friend to get instructions on how to deal with Iktomi's spirit; a combination of home remedies and a sweat lodge ceremony.
During Mogie’s stay in the hospital, the doctors discover that he is dying, because of his failing liver. After he is released from the hospital, Mogie, his son Herbie, Rudy, and Aunt Helen have dinner, and Mogie brings up American Horse, an Oglala Indian who testified against the 7th Cavalry. This conversation brings up the story of the Wounded Knee Massacre, which Rudy tells to Herbie.
Rudy tells Mogie that he started the fire, and Mogie replies that the one thing he can do to make up for it is blow the nose off of George Washington's face on Mount Rushmore. Rudy calls the idea crazy, and refuses.
Responding to a police call of a man stuck in a trap, Rudy arrives outside a house to find that the victim, now dead, is Mogie's drinking partner. The owners of the house seems to have no remorse for the man's death. When Mogie finds out the story behind his friend's death, he goes to the family's house with a gun, but is dissuaded from using it when a child appears in the room.
Mogie dies of pneumonia shortly after his son's 18th birthday. A letter Mogie wrote before his death asks Rudy to care for his son. Rudy finds out that the liquor store is being rebuilt, and will now be twice as big and have two drive-in windows. He buys a large can of oil-based red paint and drives to Mount Rushmore. He climbs to the top, and standing on the head of George Washington, he ponders whether his plan is stupid, he once again sees Iktomi crawling across the paint can. Seeing this, he makes his tribute to Mogie by throwing the can of paint so that it drips down the side of George Washington's nose, almost like a rivulet of bloody tears. On the drive back, he sees a hitchhiker that looks like Mogie in his youth and laughs.
The Lakota originated from the Great Lakes region where they were called Dakota. After they were pushed west by the Ojibwe People (Chippewa), they became a fixture of the Plains. Following the enormous herds of buffalo for the subsistence, the Lakota were nomadic in nature. Today there are about 70,000 Lakota, 20,500 of whom speak the Lakota language.
Mogie and Rudy are Oglala Lakota as most residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation identify. Pine Ridge, the reservation where Skins takes place is the largest reservation in South Dakota but the poorest reservation in all of the United States, with unemployment at around 80% and 49% of its approximate 28,000 live below the poverty line. These statistics have increased from 2002 when the movie was filmed.
The harsh living condition and high rates of alcoholism and violence of this particular reservation is very apparent in the film. Mogie’s door is falling off of the hinges and every one of Rudy’s police calls involves either intoxication or violence or both. Unfortunately, the fictional film is a very realistic depiction of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Pine Ridge was originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation established by the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868, but after several wars, including the Black Hills War, the reservation was divided into seven reservations, one being Pine Ridge. The Black Hills were very sacred to the Lakota and the conflict between them and the United States originally started because the Lakota did not want mining to happen in the Black Hills, but the U.S. persisted when gold was found there. The Black Hills are mentioned in Skins when Rudy's friend is telling him how sacred rocks are ("like the Black Hills"). On December 29, 1890, while the U.S. 7th Cavalry was moving the Oglala to Pine Ridge, 300 Oglala were murdered and 25 members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed during what has now been named the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Mogie and Rudy tell the story of Wounded Knee over dinner with Herbie and Aunt Helen. “At that time, all Indian religious ceremonies were banned because [white soldiers] were afraid of them” Rudy tells Herbie. It is obvious through Mogie’s anger during the story that the injustice of the Wounded Knee Massacre still haunts him. Through the rest of the film, Mogie’s satirical humor makes it clear that the white man’s power still looms over Pine Ridge through the faces of Mount Rushmore that ironically watch over the reservation, and that he hasn’t forgotten the past.
In more recent history, 1973 was the year that the American Indian Movement (AIM) led the Wounded Knee Incident, resulting in a 71-day stand-off. On February 27, 1973 AIM members and a handful of Pine Ridge residents seized the town of Wounded Knee to bring to light numerous murders, crimes and charges of corruption committed by the Pine Ridge Tribal Council and the Chairman, Richard A. "Dick" Wilson. As a result, FBI agents, the U.S. Marshall's Service, and the National Guard on the other side blockaded all entrances and exits leading to and from Wounded Knee.
After Wounded Knee 1973, the persecution, illegal arrests, prosecutorial misconduct and numerous as-yet-unsolved murders continued against various members of AIM and several residents of Pine Ridge. No action was taken by the federal government, not even a cursory investigation, against Dick Wilson. Wounded Knee 1973 was the culmination of the violence that swarmed the rest of the decade at Pine Ridge, naming it the “murder capitol of the United States” with up to 170 murders to every 100,000 people in 1976. While no reservation in Canada or the United States is without cases of extreme violence, poverty, substance abuse, and hopelessness, Pine Ridge stands alone in the misery index.
Themes
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is depicted in the film in numerous ways, and as such is an exploration on the topic of alcoholism present within Native American culture.[2] On the Pine Ridge Reservation alcoholism is nine times the national average, and life expectancy is nearly half of that in the rest of the country.[3] The liquor-selling border town portrayed in the movie is representative of the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, also known as "little skid row on the prairie".[4] Mogie suffers from alcoholism, as many on the reservation do, and is diagnosed with a terminal liver condition as an effect of his drinking. Skins explores the tragedy and depth of despair caused by alcohol amongst indigenous peoples of North America, and brings the issue to the forefront in its almost brutal depictions of the disease. The lineage of alcoholism is also explored when it is revealed in flashbacks that both Rudy and Mogie were abused by their father, an alcoholic in his own right.
Western expansion and massacre
The theme of western expansion and the devastating effect this had on Native Americans is most prevalent within the setting of the film. The Pine Ridge Reservation is in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, a gigantic monolith of American expansion and the desecration of sacred tribal grounds.[2] America's founding fathers were carved into a mountain sacred to the Sioux, highlighting the lack of respect by Euro-American cultures for Native Americans. This theme becomes especially prevalent in the final scene, which takes place with Mount Rushmore hovering ominously in the background.
Another aspect of western expansion explored in the film is the fact that the location of the Wounded Knee Massacre is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The mention of the massacre and the honoring of the members of the 7th Cavalry with Congressional Medals of Honor is a not so subtle dig at the suffering Native Americans experienced at the hands of Euro-Americans during their western expansion.
Justice for Native Americans
Another theme explored is that of the white justice for indigenous Americans. The policies of the American government towards indigenous peoples are explored via Rudy becoming a vigilante and pursuing his own idea of justice. The anger that Rudy feels towards businesses selling liquor when welfare checks are released, by taking advantage of the alcoholism present on the reservation leads to him burning down one of these businesses.
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, Skins has an approval rating of 59% based on 58 critics' reviews. The site’s critics consensus reads, "Though at times melodramatic, Skins’ harsh depiction of life on the reservation is an eye-opener."[5]Metacritic has an aggregate score for the film of 57 out of 100 based on 19 reviews.[6]
Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, citing, "To see this movie is to understand why the faces on Mount Rushmore are so painful and galling to the first Americans. The movie's final scene is haunting."[7] Mark Holcomb of The Village Voice was more critical: "Like his popular 1998 debut, Smoke Signals, Chris Eyre's follow-up, Skins, is a humorless slice of family melodrama that functions as cut-rate ethnography."[8]
2003, PRISM Award in the Theatrical Feature Film category[10]
Related Research Articles
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The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, involving nearly three hundred Lakota people shot and killed by soldiers of the United States Army. The massacre, part of what the U.S. military called the Pine Ridge Campaign, occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside approached Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them five miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns. The Army was catering to the anxiety of settlers who called the conflict the Messiah War and were worried the Ghost Dance signified a potentially dangerous Sioux resurgence. Historian Jeffrey Ostler wrote in 2004, "Wounded Knee was not made up of a series of discrete unconnected events. Instead, from the disarming to the burial of the dead, it consisted of a series of acts held together by an underlying logic of racist domination."
Red Cloud was a leader of the Oglala Lakota from 1865 to 1909. He was one of the most capable Native American opponents whom the United States Army faced in the western territories. He led the Lakota to victory over the United States during Red Cloud's War, establishing the Lakota as the only nation to defeat the United States on American soil. The largest action of the war was the 1866 Fetterman Fight, with 81 US soldiers killed; it was the worst military defeat suffered by the US Army on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn 10 years later.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion of it extending into Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was created by the Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border. It consists of 3,468.85 sq mi (8,984 km2) of land area and is one of the largest reservations in the United States.
Whiteclay is a census-designated place in Sheridan County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 10 at the 2010 census.
Russell Charles Means [wə̃blɪ ohitika] was an Oglala Lakota activist for the rights of Native Americans, libertarian political activist, actor, musician and writer. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968 and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.
Thunderheart is a 1992 American Neo-Western mystery film directed by Michael Apted from a screenplay by John Fusco. The film is a loosely based fictional portrayal of events relating to the Wounded Knee incident in 1973, when followers of the American Indian Movement seized the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee in protest against federal government policy regarding Native Americans. Incorporated in the plot is the character of Ray Levoi, played by actor Val Kilmer, as an FBI agent with Sioux heritage investigating a homicide on a Native American reservation. Sam Shepard, Graham Greene, Fred Ward and Sheila Tousey star in principal supporting roles. Also in 1992, Apted had previously directed a documentary surrounding a Native American activist episode involving the murder of FBI agents titled Incident at Oglala. The documentary depicts the indictment of activist Leonard Peltier during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to use impeachment to remove tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Protesters also criticized the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Native American people, and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations with the goal of fair and equitable treatment of Native Americans.
Tasunka Kokipapi, was an Oglala Lakota leader known for his participation in Red Cloud's War, as a negotiator for the Sioux Nation after the Wounded Knee Massacre, and for serving on delegations to Washington, D.C.. A proper translation of his name is They Fear Even His Horses or His Horse Is Feared, meaning that the bearer of the name was so feared in battle that even the sight of his horse would inspire fear. During and after his lifetime, American sources and written records mistranslated his name as Young Man Afraid of His Horses or uncommonly as His Horses Are Afraid.
Richard A. Wilson was elected chairman of the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he served from 1972–1976, following re-election in 1974.
The Oglala are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.
Yellow Bear, Mato Ǧí, was an Oglala Lakota leader.
Spotted Elk, was a chief of the Miniconjou, Lakota Sioux. He was a son of Miniconjou chief Lone Horn and became a chief upon his father's death. He was a highly renowned chief with skills in war and negotiations. A United States Army soldier, at Fort Bennett, coined the nickname Big Foot – not to be confused with Oglala Big Foot.
The Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON) was an American paramilitary group established in 1972 by Oglala tribal chairman Dick Wilson under authority of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council. It operated on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation during the early 1970's, and was disbanded after a new chairman was elected in 1976.
Leonard Crow Dog was a medicine man and spiritual leader who became well known during the Lakota takeover of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1973, known as the Wounded Knee Incident. Through his writings and teachings, he has sought to unify Indian people of all nations. As a practitioner of traditional herbal medicine and a leader of Sun Dance ceremonies, Crow Dog was also dedicated to keeping Lakota traditions alive.
The Wágluȟe Band is one of the seven bands of the Oglala Lakota. The Wágluȟe Band is also known as the Loafer Band.
John Yellow Bird Steele is an American politician. He was the President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe for 14 years. Akim Reinhardt described him as "arguably the most successful Pine Ridge politician of the IRA era".
Magnuson, Stew (2008). Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. Texas Tech University Press. ISBN978-0896726345.
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