NEW YORK - Filmmaker Ken Burns has reached an agreement with Hispanic groups to add additional scenes to his newest project, a twenty part, forty-four-hour adaptation of Dee Brown’s 1971 classic tale of the Indian wars, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee ” The additional scenes will highlight Latino acts of barbarity and cruelty in America ’s quest to fulfill its manifest destiny. Burns issued a statement this morning conceding that his film, as originally presented, neglected to include the many contributions made by Latino’s in nearly wiping out Native Americans, and making the frontier safe for subdivisions and strip malls.
“I regret the omissions in the first cut,” said Burns. “It was not my intention to lead viewers to the conclusion that all of the lying, betrayal, murder and theft visited upon the tribes of the Great Plains were done exclusively by white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.”
A spokesman for the Hispanic groups said he was pleased that Mr. Burns had seen fit to address their concerns. “It is a fairy-tale, at worst, and a misrepresentation of history, at best, to present a film that glorifies the treachery of the white man in subjugating the American Indian, while ignoring the treachery of other ethnic groups in the process.”
Mr. Burns said the revised, final cut of the film will debut on PBS this fall. Allowing for pledge breaks, the film is scheduled to begin over Labor Day weekend, and conclude over the Memorial Day weekend, in 2009.
