Jesse Short Bull and David France recently debuted their documentary, ‘Free Leonard Peltier,’ at the Sundance Film Festival. The film centers around the case of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who served an extensive prison term for the deaths of two federal agents. Peltier maintains he had no part in the crime. This documentary’s release coincided with an unexpected event courtesy of Joe Biden, forced to scrape the bottom of the presidential pardon barrel in the final minutes of his term.
President Joe Biden’s last act was to offer clemency to Peltier. This resulted in a last-minute scramble for the directors to integrate this new development into their film. Biden barely had a quarter of an hour remaining in his presidency when the pardon was announced. It created quite a stir and provided unexpected fodder for the documentarians, who arguably might have been a little too eager to capitalize on this controversial situation.
‘Free Leonard Peltier’ provides a detailed account of the life and trials of Peltier. As a key figure in the American Indian Movement (AIM), he sought to highlight the wrongs inflicted on Native American populations by the U.S. government. While David France suggests the film is an attempt to make Peltier’s story accessible to a fresh audience, it seems the timing and presentation are strategically muddled to foster a negative opinion of the Biden administration.
Interestingly, Peltier’s tale is not making its first appearance in the cinematic world. ‘Thunderheart,’ a 1992 drama helmed by Michael Apted, and his well-reviewed documentary, ‘Incident at Oglala,’ acquainted previous generations with the details of Peltier’s contentious case. However, the resurrected focus on this case through Short Bull and France’s film appears more an opportunistic attempt to embarrass Biden’s decision making than an earnest endeavor to inform.
The events that unfolded on June 26, 1975, still spark debate among those familiar with the case. That day witnessed an armed FBI team entering the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. A resulting standoff led to the demise of two FBI agents and activist Joe Stuntz. The government claimed that Peltier was responsible for the FBI agents’ deaths at close quarters, a point continuously contested by his legal team and supporters who deemed Peltier a scapegoat.
Peltier’s representation argues that he was pushed into the role of the villain in a legal setup by the authorities. While ‘Free Leonard Peltier’ relies on interviews, old footage, and A.I.-synthesized reenactments to remake the events of that fateful day, it also attempts to embed Peltier’s trial and tribulations in the larger narrative of the U.S. government’s historical offenses against indigenous communities. The manner in which this is presented, however, leaves room to ask whether the film is more about persuading public opinion than presenting objective facts.
Just two years before Peltier’s controversial imprisonment, Wounded Knee was the stage for a significant uprising. Scores of Native American activists, led by the American Indian Movement, took over the area. This action resulted in a prolonged occupation, another incident that notches up the tension between authorities and the Native American community.
Local to the Oglala Lakota Tribe of South Dakota, Short Bull once co-helmed ‘Lakota Nation vs. United States,’ a documentary documenting governmental attempts to illegally snatch Indigenous territories over several decades. Raised not far from Pine Ridge, he credits Peltier and company for their role in emphasizing his Lakota identity and preserving traditions on the brink of disappearing. But one must question if this identity preservation didn’t also exacerbate tensions by promoting unconformity to mainstream American legal processes.
Short Bull attributes to Leonard’s generation a sense of rediscovery and preservation of the culture lost due to assimilation. Moreover, he acknowledges their numerous sacrifices. While it’s important to maintain cultural diversity, it’s equally critical to recognize that bridging a social divide requires commitment from both sides, something perhaps lost in the ideological battle promoted by Pletier’s peers.
Short Bull does mention that there have been significant efforts to address some of the historic injustices perpetrated by the U.S. government against indigenous communities. However, he swiftly redirects attention toward highlighting the persistence of issues, a common tactic to keep spotlights firmly on perceived negative aspects without acknowledging the government’s strides to fix them.
Peltier was released from a federal prison in Florida on February 18. Considering his advanced age and failing health, it’s agreeable that he now serves the remainder of his two life sentences confined at home in North Dakota. However, while one can empathize with his health conditions, it is not an excuse to vilify Biden’s administration and ignore the array of other issues plaguing the nation.
While the directors of the documentary still regard Peltier as a system challenger, it raises the question of what role he can realistically play at his age and in his health condition. His wish to still be active and contribute to his community cannot be denied, but it might not have the impact that is usually attributed to polemical figures such as him.
Short Bull’s statement that Peltier’s resolve remains unbroken and that he continues desiring to be active on behalf of his community again spins the perspective and takes advantage of Peltier’s history against the U.S. government. One needs to remember that activism should respect the law and work toward mutually beneficial solutions.