BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS
or SITTING BULL'S HISTORY LESSON
(1976)With Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Joel Grey, Harvey Keitel, Kevin McCarthy, Geraldine Chaplin, Will Sampson
Directed by Robert Altman
Reviewed by JL
Aside from McCABE
AND MRS.
MILLER and NASHVILLE, and portions of M*A*S*H and CALIFORNIA SPLIT, I
have a lot of problems with Robert Altman. While it's
conceivable
that a director could build a career doing nothing but variations on
the same theme, Altman's trademarks have become formula to the extent
that he's made essentially the same film at least a dozen
times.
Typical Altman ingredients include a large ensemble cast, divergent and
interconnecting storylines, and characters ripe for mockery.
A
crisis or tragedy (usually the death of a prominent character) is the
turnabout, whereupon Altman's mockery turns to bitter hatred.
Add
overlapping dialogue and sloppy camerawork, and you've got yourself an
Altman film.
BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS,
an
often-overlooked work, is far from one of Altman's best formula films,
but for at least half its running time, it's very funny
stuff. I
probably shouldn't enjoy it so much since Altman makes his main point
in such a dishonest way, in that he lies about history in order to make
the point that history is a lie. It's true that William F.
"Buffalo Bill" Cody's legend was largely fabricated by Western writer
Ned Buntline (played in the film by Burt Lancaster), but there's zero
evidence to suggest that Cody was the clueless buffoon portrayed by
Paul Newman. And although Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was
regarded as grand and first-rate entertainment in its time, Altman
can't resist ridiculing its naive innocence. Yet if you can
put
aside such considerations and regard Buffalo Bill and the Indians as an
all-purpose lampoon of American myth-making, there's much fun to be
had. Newman gives one of his best and most incisive comic
performances, the supporting cast is uniformly brilliant (including
Geraldine Chaplin as Annie Oakley, Joel Grey as Bill's
malaprop-spouting manager, and Kevin McCarthy as a pompous and
flamboyant p.r. man), and the film has a gritty and authentic period
look.
It's after the
turnabout (the death of a
main character, natch) that things fall apart. The second
half of
the film suffers from a rambling monologue by Newman that overstates
the obvious and brings the action to a grinding halt. In
addition, Altman's satire turns to cynicism at this point, a jarring
shift in tone that rings false. It is, nevertheless, a great
half
a movie. 
½ - JL
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