MOVIE REVIEW : Shoshone vs. United States . . . a Clash of Cultures

The Western Shoshone Indian sisters Carrie and Mary Dann have the kind of unadorned, from-the-heart directness that puts the high-flying rhetoric of most political activists to shame. In the Joel Freedman documentary “To Protect Mother Earth,” they speak out for the rights of the Western Shoshone to hunt and ranch on the 24 million acres in Nevada that the Shoshone Nation has occupied since before Columbus and which the U.S. government now claims for its own.

Since the Shoshone--who number about 10,000--are flagrantly outmatched by the government forces, the film, studded with small victories and big defeats, ought to seem dispiriting. But what one takes away from it is the Indians’ ennobling composure, their rootedness to values more majestic than monetary. If this film is a downer, it’s at least an inspiring downer. (It opens today, unrated, for a one-week run at the Monica 4-Plex Theatre.)

The conflict between the Shoshone and the U.S. government is legalistic and philosophical. The 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley gave the Shoshone title to their ancestral homeland--about one-third of Nevada. In order to use that land for strip mining, underground A-bomb testing and the dumping of nuclear waste, the government invalidated the Ruby Valley Treaty and offered to compensate the Shoshone for the land at a rate set at 1872 prices by the Indian Claims Commission: $1 per acre.

When Mary Dann says of the government, “You can’t talk sense to these people. They look at how much money they can make from the land,” she’s reiterating the Indians’ philosophic claim that the sacred land is not for sale at any price. Reacting to the Shoshone’s intransigence, the Interior Department, representing itself as the Indians’ trustees, cedes the acreage to itself. Characterized as trespassers on their own land, the Shoshone, with the Dann sisters as principals, sue the government in a case that was eventually heard by the Supreme Court--which rejected the Indians’ claims. (The film neglects to note if there were any dissenting court opinions.)

“To Protect the Earth,” which is a sequel to Freedman’s earlier film about the Shoshone, “Broken Treaty at Battle Mountain,” doesn’t always present the issues in a way that might clarify the conflict for us. The appeals process following the Supreme Court decision is vaguely outlined, and a few of the film’s people, such as the Shoshone’s lawyer, John O’Connell, seem more interesting than the film allows for. (O’Connell, in his pre-trial conference with the Shoshone elders, has an uneasy modesty; he’s aware that, as a white man, his efforts on their behalf are riddled with suspicion.) Even the Dann sisters, extraordinary as they are, are utilized in the film primarily as spokeswomen; one wants to learn more about their lives apart from the current struggle.

Freedman’s principled outrage could probably use a more expressive and slam-bang approach; the filmmaking at times is a bit groggy, and the narration by Robert Redford is flat and “instructional.” Freedman may have felt that slickness would undermine his message, that the film’s rough edges would validate the “honesty” of his approach. Or maybe he’s just not very good at slickness.

Either way, “To Protect the Earth” overrides its inadequacies. In exposing--yet again--the Shoshone’s enforced exile, the film brings to the fore a conflict that, in its political and ecological concerns, seems both age-old and up-to-the-minute.

‘TO PROTECT MOTHER EARTH’

A Cinammon Production. Executive producers Alan J. Lobel, Leonard Marks, Ann Maytag. Produced and directed by Joel L. Freedman. Narrated by Robert Redford. Cinematography Robert Flore, Mark Peterson, Sandi Sissel. Film editor Sarah Stein. Running time: 59 minutes.

Unrated.