Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
With Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy.
US, 1976, 35mm, color, 123 min.
Print source: HFA
Empathy and mockery are hung in precarious balance in Altman’s deconstructionist Wild West romp. Released five years after McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Buffalo Bill sees the logically crooked endpoint of the earlier Western’s concern for the decimation of the small community from the forces of capitalism: here, powerful men have propped up their own dubious community built on the willful propagation of myth. Like McCabe, Buffalo Bill presents a makeshift mini-universe dropped into the center of the wilderness, in this case a circus town comprising the ludicrously patriotic variety show act of cultish personality William Cody (Paul Newman, in a standout performance even with the goofy wig). When a pair of quietly indignant Indians arrives and Newman’s buffoonish alpha male tries to integrate them insensitively into his show, what results is a wave of dialectical comedy built on the visitors’ deadpan indifference to the white collective’s transparent embrace of illusion. Altman’s camera alternates regularly between warm proximity and studied distance, a fitting approach for a film functioning as both bittersweet entertainment and ideological critique.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Vincent & Theo
Fool for Love
Prêt-à-porter
California Split
Thieves Like Us
A Perfect Couple
A Prairie Home Companion
O.C. and Stiggs
That Cold Day in the Park
Corn's-A-Poppin'
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Gingerbread Man
Dr. T and the Women
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
