500 Nations (DVD)

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Disc four, episodes seven and eight, contains "Roads Across the Plains" and "Attack on Culture." These segments take us from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, where the series began. Interestingly, this is the only disc to include what looks like some very brief live-action footage. Anyway, it takes us to California, the West, and the Midwest, and it includes most of the Indians known to us today through Western-movie lore: Sitting Bull, Chief Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, and the like. The disc concludes by stating that "renewal of native cultures reminds us of the glory of America's original people and the hardships they endured."

"500 Nations" is a scholarly look at the native peoples of North America, perhaps too scholarly to make for absorbing watching at a single sitting. But, then, it was never meant to be seen all at once. It was meant to be viewed over a period of nights, one episode at a time, which is the way I watched the series. The entire program may not be as well paced or as exciting as it could have been, and more live action would have undoubtedly animated the events considerably, but what we have is still plenty good. The information presented is enlightening and informational; oppressing, yes, but inspiring, too. A recommended watch.

Video:
Because the series was made for television, it is presented in a standard 1.33:1 television ratio. The video's most notable achievements are its natural colors--never too bright, never dull or faded--and its clean transfer to DVD. Its drawback, however, is that typical of a television product, it appears slightly blurred compared to a good DVD movie transfer. The hazy picture is not really bad, mind you, just much like regular-broadcast television, and combined with a variety of moiré effects, wavy, jittery, unsteady lines, the result is not top-notch reproduction of the kind we usually expect from a good film.

Audio:
The sound, too, is typical of television, a straightforward 2.0 stereo affair clarified somewhat through the Dolby Digital process. Its strong points are its midrange clarity, superb in rendering the narration so necessary in a documentary, and its freedom from any kind of background noise. Its weaknesses are a relatively narrow front-channel stereo spread, a limited frequency and dynamic response, and almost no surround information. Fortunately, it doesn't need much more than a good midrange to reproduce voices, soft background music, and a few sound effects.

Extras:
The first three DVDs in the series include sections for "Special Features" in their Main Menus but there are none. Only disc four and the bonus CD-ROM have any extras on them. Disc four includes three minutes of closing remarks from Costner and eight minutes of "CGI Insight with Director Jack Leustig."

I'm not sure why WB chose to include a bonus CD-ROM disc of archival and making-of material rather than another DVD or a DVD-ROM. I suspect that the CD was made at the time of the series' production, 1995, and that was all the technology the filmmakers had available to them. In any case, it is a typical interactive disc, with an opening menu and index that allow the user to access timelines, picture galleries, stories, histories, and so on at the tap of a mouse button. It is easy to use, highly intuitive, and instructive.

The five discs are packaged in a foldout cardboard-and-plastic container housed in a handsomely embossed, sturdy cardboard slip case. Also enclosed is further information on the contents of each disc, plus a booklet insert containing complete chapter listings.

Parting Thoughts:
"Human beings can be awful cruel to one another," wrote Mark Twain in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." We have seen this truism play out in almost every country of the world in almost every age since the beginning of recorded history, and never more so than in the treatment of Native Americans (and Africans) at the hands of European settlers in America. Costner concludes his remarks by saying that the history of Native Americans is "a story of loss and a story of hope."

One's appreciation for "500 Nations" will undoubtedly depend upon one's appreciation for history in general and documentaries in particular. Insofar as documentaries go, this one is no better than most in style or construction, but superior to most in substance. It is probably the single best examination of Native American history and culture ever committed to film. While the series may be a long haul for the disinterested, and while it is no Ken Burns "Civil War," it is a worthwhile watch for anyone, student or non student, interested in America's heritage.