Geronimo: An American Legend

1993 film directed by Walter Hill
the 1993 feature film about the Apache leader Geronimo

Geronimo: An American Legend is a 1993 historical Western film starring Wes Studi, Jason Patric, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, and Matt Damon in an early role. The film, which was directed by Walter Hill, is based on a screenplay by John Milius. It is a fictionalized account of the Apache Wars and how First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood convinced Apache leader Geronimo to surrender in 1886.

The film loosely follows the events leading up to the surrender of Geronimo in 1886. A respected healer, Geronimo and his fellow Apache reluctantly agree to settle on a reservation established by the American government in accordance with the Indian Removal Act. The tribe does its best to assimilate, but many Apache struggle to abandon their traditional way of life while the government fails to honor its promise to keep American settlers from encroaching on tribal lands. Geronimo finally commits himself to armed resistance when soldiers of the U. S. Cavalry accompanied by Indian fighter Al Sieber slaughter a band of Apache after discovering them practicing their “heathen" faith in secret. Geronimo forms a ragtag militia, who humiliate the army by evading capture time and time again while carrying out well planned guerilla attacks. The plot centers upon Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood, a West Point graduate charged with capturing Geronimo with the assistance of Sieber and Britton Davis, an ambitious but inexperienced cavalryman. Gatewood is torn between his grudging respect for Geronimo and his duty to his country. His superior, Brigadier General George Crook, has nothing but admiration for Geronimo and contempt for the self serving actions of his government. Geronimo eventually surrenders to Crook but later escapes, this time persuading more than half the reservation to join him. Crook later resigns in disgrace and is replaced by Nelson A. Miles. The new commander orders that the remaining Apache be punished as a message to Geronimo's followers. He also decides that Gatewood and his fellow officers should be removed from the field and replaced with men loyal to him. General Miles, realizing that in spite of his tactics he too is not any closer to capturing Geronimo, approaches Gatewood with an offer: use his relationship with Geronimo to find the warrior and convince him to surrender. He orders Gatewood to offer Geronimo a sentence of two years' imprisonment in Florida with the offer of fresh land in Arizona and two mules for every warrior who surrenders. Gatewood retorts to Miles that they both know the government has no intention of honoring this agreement. Miles offers Gatewood 100 men to take into the field, but the younger officer counters with a request for one Apache scout and three men of his choosing. Gatewood, Sieber, Davis, and the Apache Chato set off to find Geronimo but instead discover a village of slaughtered Apache. Gatewood tasks Sieber and Chato with finding the scalp hunters responsible. They stop at a saloon where the hunters are dealing with a Comanchero interested in buying the scalps. When the hunters try to take Chato's scalp as well, Gatewood arrives and attempts to intervene and offers them money to return to Texas. The hunters mock Gatewood as a coward and an Indian lover and a shoot out ensues. Sieber is shot and mortally wounded, his last words pointing to his surprise at dying in the act of trying to save an Apache. Gatewood, Davis, and Chato carry on the hunt for Geronimo and finally reach his camp. Geronimo asks Gatewood if the young officer will break his word like those who came before him. Gatewood decides to be honest and tells Geronimo what Miles will do to the surviving Apache should he continue fighting. Faced with the grave reality, Geronimo makes peace with Gatewood and surrenders along with his men to General Miles. Miles then arranges for Gatewood, who he considers to be insubordinate and an embarrassment to the army, to spend the rest of his career in a dull, dead end post commanding a garrison in rural Wyoming. The final ignominy befalls Chato and the other Apache scouts, who are disarmed at gunpoint and thrown into prison. Davis, angered by what he regards as a betrayal of everything he believed in, confronts Miles. The general dismisses him, remarking that Davis is a foolish idealist and even questioning his integrity by implying that anyone who takes the word of a "savage" over a white man is not a true American. Davis decides to resign rather than continue to serve under Miles. Chato approaches Geronimo and tells him he was right to fight the white man. Geronimo counsels his remaining renegades to not fall out with one another as there are so few of them remaining. He warns them of what lies ahead. Geronimo lives on for another twenty two years, never allowed to return home and forced to endure the humiliation of being displayed as a living trophy of American conquest while the Apache are left to fall into poverty and dependence on the government for their survival.

Walter Hill had a development deal at Carolco. They approached him wanting to make a Western that focused on an Indian and Hill was enthusiastic. He initially considering doing a movie on Crazy Horse "but for various reasons I thought it was a little too difficult." Eventually Geronimo was selected. ""I've been reading the history of the West for my entire life", Hill says, "and I felt the Geronimo story had never really been told." John Milius was hired to write a draft. He was working on it in 1989. Larry Gross wrote a diary on the filming of Geronimo. He recalls reading Milius' script in 1988 when Hill was working on Johnny Handsome. "I like Geronimo just as he was, a human predator", said Milius. "Geronimo was a man who saw the history of his people wiped out", added Milius. "I love the Apaches and Geronimo was the ultimate Apache. But Geronimo was more than an Apache he was the essence of a misfit rebel and he would never give up. He was a troublemaker and I understand that. Even among his own people he was a trouble maker." Hill said the title of the film should have been The Geronimo War. "The conception was you make the film from the last time he came in and broke off and was sent away", he said. "The last time he broke off the reservations. This had been a recurring pattern. I thought that would be more accurate."

The film was greenlit by Columbia's head of production Mark Canton, whose brother Neil would be the film's producer. It was taken at the time when westerns were experiencing a revival in popularity in the wake of the success of Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans and Unforgiven. ""All of these Westerns are riding the backs of those", said Hill

For instance, the script used the Turkey Creek massacre as the reason for Geronimo going off the reservation when it happened five years earlier. "No, it's not accurate", admitted Hill. "Is it authentic? Yes, it is." Hill thought the cavalry officers "were the most sympathetic to the Indians of the Southwest. They knew them and understood that what was happening was a tragedy. They understood that the imposition of the reserve system was going to have tragic consequences. Yet, they were the ones being asked to carry out this policy. They were the ones being asked to fight, so there was this kind of conflict between feelings and duty." Gross says that although Studi and Patric were cast, "Columbia found ways of not letting Walter start the picture there is endless talk about casting and the script." Under the deal, Duvall's production company, Butcher's Run Films, signed an arrangement with Columbia. On 9 May, Gross wrote that "Walter has some leeriness about Jason Patric's proclivity for a lot of takes." Gross says the scene where Sieber runs into the bounty hunters was Hill's homage to Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.</blockquote>

Another film on Geronimo came out around the same time, a made for TV movie show on Ted Turner's movie channel.

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound (Chris Carpenter, Doug Hemphill, Bill W. Benton and Lee Orloff), but lost to Jurassic Park.