Thunderheart - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Thunderheart or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Thunderheart

[morris]

The gravestone is a replica of the real one, with "Thunderheart" replacing the name "Swift Bird."

[clayton]

Two hundred and fifty Native Americans worked as extras on the movie.

[ivan]

ARM is based on the American Indian Movement (AIM), a group that fights for Native American rights. The film is inspired by conflicts between AIM and the FBI in the '70s.

[cameron]

John Trudell, who played an Indian activist suspected of murder in the film inspired by the real life events surrounding Leonard Peltier, is in fact an Indian activist, as well as a poet and singer.

[carl]

During the early to mid-Seventies, there were fifty-seven unsolved murders on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation due to the fighting between the "Traditionals" and Tribal government sanctioned "goons". This made the Village of Pine Ridge (Pop. 1100) the "Murder Capitol of the Nation" with the highest number of violent death per capita in the United States.

[gabriel]

A paperback novel published by HarperCollins titled Thunderheart based on John Fusco's screenplay, was released on May 28, 1992. The book dramatises the fictionalised events of the Wounded Knee Incident, as depicted in the film. It expands on the ideas of how an FBI agent's assignment to uncover the truth behind violence on an Indian reservation leads to a wide-range conspiracy.

[jesse]

The 55th biggest grossing film of 1992.

[duane]

Brian Cox, Robert De Niro, Scott Glenn, Dennis Hopper, Tommy Lee Jones, Harvey Keitel, Stephen Lang, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Ron Perlman were considered to play Frank Coutelle.

[richard]

Filming was done with the support of the Oglala Sioux people, who trusted Michael Apted and John Fusco to express their story.

[willard]

Fred Dalton Thompson portrays a fictional FBI agent, William Dawes. In "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," Thompson portrays President Ulysses Grant opposite of Aidan Quinn's Henry Dawes. Henry Dawes was a senator known for creating the Dawes Act, which ultimately encouraged the assimilation of Native Americans into the white culture.

[kristina]

This is the first role for Sheila Tousey.

[frances]

The video clip which William Dawes shows Ray Levoi in the beginning of the film is actual footage of Native American activists rioting in Custer, South Dakota. The activists were protesting the change from a white man's charges from murder to second degree manslaughter, in the death of a Native American in Custer. They scuffled with the South Dakota Highway Patrol, set fire to the courthouse, and incurred property damage.

[frances]

The character of Maggie Eagle Bear was likely based on AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash, who was found murdered along Highway 73 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in February 1975. Aquash had been a schoolteacher in an Indian school in Minneapolis - alluded to in the character's comment that she is from Minneapolis, and the fact that when the audience first sees her, she is exiting the school with a classroom of children.

[gabriel]

John Trudell (Jimmy Looks Twice) really did serve in Vietnam and was acting chairman of A.I.M. From 1973 to 1979.

[kim]

Richard Gere was offered the role of Ray Levoi, but he was busy with Final Analysis (1992).

[wallace]

A fictitious Sal Mineo movie, "Arrows on the Prairie" is mentioned. Although the movie is fictional, Mineo did star as a young Sioux warrior in Tonka (1958) and later as a Cheyenne warrior in Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

[ava]

Ted Thin Elk, who played an honoured Lakota medicine man, is a Lakota elder himself.

[janice]

Screenwriter John Fusco lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation for five years researching the script. There, he met Frank Fools Crow, a tribal elder who was the inspiration for Grandpa Sam Reaches.