- Also Known As:
- Version:
- Language:
- Length:
- 118 minutes
- Review Format:
- DVD
- Year:
- 1976
- Country:
- Predominant Genre:
- Comedy
- Director:
- Outstanding Performances:
- Premiss:
- Buffalo Bill exploits Sitting Bull to add credibility to the historical distortions presented in his Wild West Show.
- Themes:
- Advertising | Alienation | Compassion | Corporate Power | Destiny | Emotional repression | Empathy | Ethnicity | Friendship | Genocide | Identity | Loneliness | Loyalty | Materialism | Narcissism | Personal | Political | Political Correctness | Schizophrenia | Self-Esteem | Solipsism | Stereotyping | White culture | White Privilege | White supremacy
- Similar to:
Summary: The birth of modern
show-business in the
West - and all the
self-delusion that this entails.
Superb comedy-western about westerns and the attendant cultural myths and self-delusions that fuel White culture and keep it from achieving greatness - outside of fantasies of already-achieved greatness at the expense of People of Color (POC). It also takes a satirical stab at White entertainments that do exactly the same - specifically Hollywood westerns of the John Wayne, dreaming out-loud variety.
The pomposity, arrogance and vanity of White bullshit-artists is well to the fore here in it leading Whites to a strong sense of culturelessness and never having anything like a fixed sense of identity. The resultant thin-skin, so common among Whites, leads them to also pretend that the superficial is more real than anything else: Tinsel being more valued than gold.
This is best exemplified with the arrival of Chief Sitting Bull (of Little Bighorn fame) as an important new guest-star in Buffalo Bill Cody’s grand illusion. Much to Cody’s annoyance, Sitting Bull proves not to be a murdering savage, but a genuine embodiment of what Whites desperately-believe about themselves: Quietly heroic and morally pure. He refuses to portray Custer’s Last Stand as a cowardly sneak-attack - because it wasn’t. Instead, he asks Cody to act out the massacre of a peaceful Hunkpapa Sioux village by murderous US Cavalry.
Via a revisionist Western, the director skewers an American historical myth of heroism, in this case the notion that noble white men, fighting bloodthirsty savages, won the West. Here, the blustering Indian fighter (of legend) becomes a show-biz creation who can no longer separate his invented image from reality. Altman’s Cody is a loud-mouthed buffoon, a man who claims to be at-one with the Wild West but lives in luxury; play-acting in a western circus of his own making. Cody’s long blond hair is a wig, he cannot shoot straight nor track anyone any more - and all his staged circus battles are rigged in his favor.
Apart from sharpshooter Annie Oakley and her friend, the Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull, the show is populated by phonies and opportunists. Biggest phony of all is Cody, himself, whose fame has been based more on the penny-dreadful scribblings of Ned Buntline than on any real accomplishments. But none of this keeps him from acting as if his triumphs are real - or of plaguing his entourage with endless monologues about himself.
However, despite the superb performances from all concerned, the major fault of this film lies in its being too long for its material; making it a little self-indulgent and something of a smirking in-joke - especially given the fact that characterization takes second-place to the political argument that America is a nation based more on show business, hucksterism & performance than on any substantive ethical or cultural values.
No comments:
Post a Comment