Some fine acting, less fine writing and directing

Matt Damon's first major role was as 2nd Lt. Britton Davis in "Geronimo: An American Legend" (1993). No, he did not play the title character! He was, however, the narrator, who observed the mostly tragic events of Geronimo's two surrenders and the bad faith of the US government in breaking the promises honorable army officers, such as Brig. Gen. George Crook (Gene Hackman) and 1st Lt. Charles B. Gatewood (Jason Patric) delivered to the Apaches, war leader Goyaalè, called by the Mexicans "Geronimo" (Wes Studi), in particular.

These officers knew that the  carrying capacity as unirrigated farmland of the Arizona/Sonora desert is very low and that  the concentration camps (reservations) lacked the game that could be hunted in the less barren Chiricauhas. The movie does not show Indian agents at all. If it showed them not delivering the promised allotment of food or delivering mealy flour, the movie might be accused even more of taking the side of the Indians, but like the arrest of Chiricauhua scouts and shipping them off to Florida with Geronimo, it's all too true. And although "concentration camp" does not mean "death camp," high death rates bothered the Great White Father(s) and his agents very little, if at all.

The new lieutenant (Davis) sees his seasoned superiors (Crook and Gatewood) in interaction with Geronimo. Indeed, the movie probably disappointed some fans of action westerns by mostly focusing on negotiations in which, skeptical as he was, Geronimo was insufficiently skeptical of the good faith of the US government.

The scene in which Gatewood and Geronimo claims that their primary deity (Usen) is a "god of peace" sounds to me (as it could not in 1993) like George W. Bush claiming that Islam is a "religion of peace." It is not, and neither is Christianity (the history of which has very little to do with the message of the Gospels).

The Apaches  had a long history as raiders (on Navajos and pueblo peoples), but, as elsewhere, miners and settlers invaded their territory (not just their aboriginal range, but what the 1852 treaty with the US government recognized as their lands) and Cochise’s relatives were killed by the U.S. Army. (Geronimo's wife and daughters were slaughtered by a Mexican army expedition). As is ignored in most westerns, the US broke pretty much every agreement it ever made with native peoples, including the Apaches and expected them to accept not only their cultural but their physical annihilation. To point this out is not scurrilous "political correctness" gone wild, but historical truth for which there are mountains of evidence.

The Cherokee actor Wes Studi is taller than 19th-century Apaches and perhaps the character of Geronimo is more insightful and articulate than the historical Goyaalè, though the historical Goyaalè dictated his memoirs in captivity at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, so that his perspective is documented.

As in most (all?) dramatizations, events are telescoped in the screenplay, and perhaps Brig. Gen. Nelson Miles (Kevin Tighe) is vilified, though he was a particularly political general without any concern for the survival of native peoples or making promises he knew would not be kept.

As Chief of Scouts Al Sieber, Robert Duvall, is perhaps sentimentalized, but Duvall is so good that I don't mind. Most everyone else is more restrained, and Sieber is as stoic as an Apache or Lt. Gatewood.

As the main Chiricauhua US Army Scout Mangas (a very historically marked name for a leader who was murdered earlier than the story shown in the movie), Rodney A. Grant is quite impressive, too.

Damon's role was to be an observer telling us the story not to have a formed character and since he still looks quite innocent, it is no surprise that he seemed very innocent back in 1993.

Having lived in southern Arizona (twice), the scenic backdrops looked wrong to me: the rocks sedimentary rather than metamorphic, and the movie was shot around Moab, Utah rather than in Arizona. Reference is made to the Dragoon Mountains, but I was sure that I was not seeing (again) the Dragoon Mountains of southern Arizona.

I am not impressed by Lloyd Ahern's often red-filtered cinematography and I think a charge of visual staticness could be sustained against the movie, which takes away from the very fine acting I've been praising.

Although far less noxious than "Dancing with Wolves," and despite the title being "Geronimo," the movie is another in a long line of movies about honorable white men disturbed by the treatment of nonwhites. Although Davis does not speak for the Apaches, it seems the Hollywood certainty that movies must have white champions (Amistad, Mississippi Burning, Schindler's List, Dances with Wolves, etc., etc., even "Code-Talkers" directed by a nonwhite). Indeed, even a major shoot-out does not include any agency on the part of the one Apache who is present in it. I guess these movies are not really about the nonwhites but about the guilty consciences who see the human costs and/or to whom the "destiny" of WASP overlordship is not "manifest." I think that the historical Gatewood was a WASP, but the movie suggests (at least to me) that its Gatewood was Catholic. Both the historical and the movie Gatewood are brave.

Still, not least having Studi around to play Geronimo, I wish the movie were more about the Apaches, less about their reluctant (if not quite conflicted) pursuers. Should the actor playing title character get fourth billing? Shouldn't a movie titled "Geronimo" be about Geronimo rather than honorable US Army officers?

One of many historical ironies is that a Congressional Medal of Honor did not go to the historical one, because he was so good at his job (and so willing to go into  parleys in hostiles' strongholds) that he was not under fire. In the movie, Sieber suggests Gatewood might think differently had he seen what happened at Cibecue Creek (following the shooting of an unarmed and lassooed "medicine man"...). Gatewood fixes him with a fierce Jason Patric look and replies that had he been in command there, there would not have been a shoot-out. I don't know if writer John Milius intended this as a comment on the medal discussion, but I do believe that Patric's Gatewood spoke the truth in that scene. (And that Sieber spoke the truth earlier in telling Gatewood: "You don't love who you're fighting for, and you don't hate who you're fighting against." Interestingly, Paric had already played a soldier in Afghanistan about whom similar things were said, in "The Beast." )

©2009, Stephen O. Murray