Brando supported Indians

'Brando':  Mercurial FlickersBrando does best when it focuses on Brando’s other interests. To its immense credit, the film contextualizes his decision to turn back the Oscar for The Godfather, beyond the sensational moment at the 1973 ceremony that has become so familiar. Sacheen Littlefeather, whom Brando infamously sent to read his statement in support of the American Indian Movement, recalls the outrage of the evening ("Meanwhile, backstage,” she says, “John Wayne had to be restrained by several big men from coming onto the stage and dragging me off"). Alongside her, Russell Means, AIM’s first national director, underlines the importance of Brando’s gesture, as well as his decision to go to Wounded Knee the day after the Oscars, during the Oglala Sioux’s occupation. At last the press—tagging along with Brando—reported from what Means calls “inside” the struggle. “It was probably was the finest for us in the entire 20th century,” says Means. “He saw what we saw and he felt what we felt. He was the only non-Indian who stepped out front with us.”

Brando’s commitment to social and political causes, observes Jane Fonda, was groundbreaking. “When I first became an activist,” she says (wearing a cowboy hat adorned with a little U.S. flag), “There weren’t very many movie stars I could look to as role models. I mean, it’s hard to think of Marlon as a role model for anybody, at least for a woman, but you know, he had taken a very active stand in support of Native Americans and in support of Black Panthers who were in jail… It was to Marlon that I turned to get information and to talk.” In an archival interview, Brando disparages “the ignorance I see concerning the Indian,” as even so-called “scholarly people” and “informed people… know nothing.”