The Sons of Great Bear
The white European colonisers sweeping across the Americas, the native population are pushed aside by the greed of the acquisitive new arrivals, any attempt at negotiation or equitable cooperation met by betrayal, Mattotaupa of the Lakota murdered by the man named Jim “Red Fox” Clark over a game of dice when he makes the mistake of placing gold on the table to cover his bet and refusing to reveal its origin, a secret of his tribe he takes to the grave.
His son Tokei-itho rising to war chieftain, he follows the ways of his honourable father even among dishonourable people, attacking the supply chains of the US Army but refusing to kill needlessly, taking the daughter of Major Samuel Smith, Cate, safely back to him and expecting to be treated with similar deference only to be betrayed again, threatened with arrest unless his people accept relocation to a reservation.
Based on Die Söhne der großen Bärin (The Sons of the Great She-Bear), a series of six books first published beginning in 1951 by historian Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, The Sons of Great Bear was directed by Josef Mach from a screenplay by Margot Beichler and Hans-Joachim Wallstein, starring Gojko Mitić as Tokei-ihto, Jiří Vršťala as Red Fox, Hans Hardt-Hardtloff as Major Smith, Karin Beewen as Cate, Gerhard Rachold as Lieutenant Roach, overstepping his authority in his ruthless ambition, and Rolf Römer as the traitor Tobias.
A broken man who sees no option but to collaborate with the enemy, despite the film being shot in the magnificent locations of Montenegro and the Elbe Sandstone Highlands, rugged plains and mountains which double as the disputed territories of the Lakota people, he is emblematic of the emptiness which permeates The Sons of Great Bear, well informed and intentioned but populated by flat, staid characters who talk of pride and lands stolen yet never show emotion.
Released in 1966 in the German Democratic Republic, only weeks after A Few Dollars More made its debut, the two films could not be more different, the native peoples presented admirably with sympathy and their treatment condemned, but that is not enough to outweigh the shortcomings, the film utterly disjointed as though it had been mercilessly cut from a longer edit and the final battle incoherent with horses running in circles, footage reused, inconsistent sightlines and improbable cover found in short dry grass.
Restored in 2K from the original camera negative and making its UK Blu-ray debut courtesy of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema collection, The Sons of Great Bear is supported by a new commentary by Jenny Barrett, a discussion of the global context of the film by Austin Fisher and a video essay on the depiction of Native Americans in the film by Lee Broughton as well as an archive newsreel on the production and trailers.
The Sons of Great Bear will be available on Blu-ray from Eureka from Monday 21st July
