Custer’s Last Stand
This film takes a probing look at the extraordinary life and mythic afterlife of one of the most controversial figures in American history – George Armstrong Custer. Made famous by his last stand at the battle of the Little Bighorn in the summer of 1876, Custer has long been one of the most celebrated, and vilified, figures in American history. From his storied and charismatic Civil War career, that made him the youngest brigadier General in the Union army, to his reinvention as a Western hero, a renowned Indian fighter and avatar of Manifest Destiny, to his final martyrdom at the hands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors on the banks of the Little Bighorn, Custer has exerted a powerful pull on our minds and our hearts. Underneath the stereotypical images of Custer however, lies another less well-known saga, of a man whose astonishing early success would result in a perpetual drive for continuing fame and notoriety, a restless striving to recapture the glory of his first youthful military adventures.
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