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> Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson |
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Staring:
Paul Newman,
Joel Grey,
Kevin McCarthy,
Harvey Keitel,
Allan F. Nicholls
Director:
Robert Altman
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $6.63
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 9780792849544
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 079284954X
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2001-05-08
Running Time: 123
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1976-06-24 |
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Description
From director Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, The Player) comes an uproarious, high-spirited look at "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the legendary Western adventurer. With a fine cast that includes Paul Newman, Harvey Keitel, Burt Lancaster, Joel Grey and Geraldine Chaplin, Buffalo Bill and the Indians is a hilarious yet poignant comedy that shows the Old West as you've never seen it before! Although Buffalo Bill (Newman) has fought Indians and Civil War battles, nothing can prepare him for his newest challenge: show business! His "Wild West Show" is hugely popular, but when he signs a former enemy, Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts), for a featured role, a hysterical clash of cultures reverberates far beyond the boundaries of their sprawling outdoor theater. And the complications only multiply when the troupe discovers it must put on a special command performancefor none other than the President of the United States!
Amazon.com
Robert Altman was often ahead of his time--once at the cost of being behind himself. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, a snorting exposé of the U.S. predilection for buying into heroic myths, opened on July 4, 1976. Clearly the film was positioned as the ultimate bicentennial event, Altman-style. But Altman had already delivered that a year earlier: the splendiferous, deeply disenchanted yet exhilarating Nashville. Both Nashville and Buffalo Bill are films about America-as-show business, hucksterism, and the rare miracle of performance. But everything Altman got so thrillingly right in Nashville, which teems with life and mystery and widescreen dynamism, came out flatfooted and obvious in Buffalo Bill, a cramped, smirky inside joke that ends up being on the joker. The setting is the base camp for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, where the blustering Indian fighter of legend is gearing up for his latest national tour. Apart from sharpshooter Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) and her great friend, the Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts), the show is populated by phonies and opportunists. Biggest phony of all is Cody (Paul Newman), whose fame has been based more on the penny-dreadful scribblings of Ned Buntline (Burt Lancaster) than on any real accomplishments; even his long blond tresses are fake. Altman and cowriter Alan Rudolph (working from a play by Arthur Kopit) thump their insights about the Establishment's feet of clay as if they were breaking-news bulletins instead of countercultural clichés. Only the occasional ineffably mysterious Altman zoom shot offers relief. --Richard T. Jameson
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'Buffalo Bill' Cody: "...an injun is red for a very good reason. So we can tell us apart.", 2010-08-21
Sitting Bull joins Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show after he dreams of meeting Pres. Cleveland there. The (not-so) Honorable W.E. Cody's plans to exploit him are ruined when the chief refuses to participate in false battle reenactments, but insists (through an interpreter) on recreating the Wounded Knee massacre for audiences. Star attraction Annie Oakley allies with Sitting Bull when he's told to pack up and leave, and Bill sorely regrets ever allowing the Hunkpapa warrior into his show. Cast includes 6' 5" Sampson, the Chief in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975).
Director Robert Altman does a fine job of simulating the 1880s. As with many of his pictures, this one lacks smooth pacing. Altman tends to linger on individual scenes as if the viewer has all day to spend. Where the film works best is in its proper mix of hero worship and cynicism, plus in a crucial bit of soul-searching on Bill's part that occurs during a dream (or maybe it's an alcohol-induced hallucination). He converses here with a ghost but gets no responses, as the one-sided discussion is really between Bill and himself.
This penultimate sequence leads into the concluding highly cynical moment, where Bill finally gets his way: he squares off in the arena against Sitting Bull and dramatically bests him. The chief however is in his grave now and his former interpreter, a man apparently willing to do Cody's bidding, has replaced him in the Wild West Show. At the end, Bill Cody succeeds in slanting history to suit himself and by so doing, he loses a final opportunity to embrace honesty and to become something more than a "living legend." His chance to be a real person is squandered. It's all too apparent that Bill only cares about putting on a self-indulgent spectacle meant to dazzle an audience and himself, as well.
Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.
(6.0) Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Chief Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) - Paul Newman/Joel Grey/Kevin McCarthy/Harvey Keitel/Geraldine Chaplin/John Considine/Denver Pyle/Frank Kaquitts/Will Sampson/Pat McCormick/Shelley Duvall/Burt Lancaster
Burying The Heart at The Wild West Show, 2009-01-24
Altman's comedies aren't always that funny. With a radiant Paul Newman, supported by Burt Lancaster's bemused Ned Buntline of the dime novel, we have a script delivering a steady drumroll of putdowns about the creation of the West. Buntline exits stage door left, deeply uncertain about the transformation of his own commodity into a newer, more spectacular, but thinner variant. Whatever resonance the film may be attempting to strike with 1880s values, Altman's film has plenty to say about 1970s liberal values. The buffoonery proceeds apace while Bill connives to con Sitting Bull to headline his Wild West Show. The Sioux lads (Sitting Bull has an interpreter, the aptly dubbed and granite-like, William Sampson)don't budge a grain of gravel in contracting to participate. They comply merely to facilitate the course of Sitting Bull's dream. The camera frequently withdraws to encompass the immensity of the eternal mountain range behind the ephemerality of the carnival. Bill is foiled. His grog-addled arrogance and vanity are no match for the sombre indigenies who stake their land claim,to no avail, before an supremely ignorant President Cleveland. The whites are the dills in Altman's bigger picture which has Bull's demise promptly trivialised when re-enacted in the pitiful stage death by his stoic interpreter.Hadn't he said not long before something like,'History is just disrespect for dead people'?
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, 2010-08-28
A terrific Robert Altman film done wrong by MGM and then by Amazon. This disc is NOT anamorphic as described but what is called "widescreen". That is, it will not stretch across your TV screen but will by contained in a small rectangle.
This is false advertising as I, for one, would never have bought this title if it was advertised correctly. I bought this thru moviemars via Amazon.
YOU CAN DO BETTER, ALTMAN-WISE . . ., 2007-04-20
When Altman is good he's great. Like in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shortcuts, The Player and, oh yes, MASH. The Amazon review for BB et al should be read before ordering this. Like, flat-footed and obvious, I think they say. Beyond Altman, an akin movie of this time would be Little Big Man, which is sensational, not stupid.
interesting, 2007-02-15
I was filmed in my home town and a very good friend of mine was a extra in the movie and we looked at it to see if we could pick her out. Unfortunatly we did not find her. o-well
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