Rating: 
Summary: A metaphor for the peculiarities of US foreign policies
Review: Of course, it was intended as a comment on a domestic policy. And a profoundly embarrassing one at that. Same diff. Same mind-set. One of Altman's best films. (Before the post-Player downhill slide.) Newman is wonderful. Burt Lancaster is wonderful. The European imigrants are generally buffoonish, but the Native Americans are presented as real people and not hyper-noble spiritual beings. That would have been too easy. Geraldine Chaplin is as ethereally wonderful as always - and, speaking of Chaplin, why isn't Cria Cuervos on DVD? Are the people who run those companies THAT hopeless???
Rating:
Summary: A metaphor for the peculiarities of US foreign policies
Review: Of course, it was intended as a comment on a domestic policy. And a profoundly embarrassing one at that. Same diff. Same mind-set. One of Altman's best films. (Before the post-Player downhill slide.) Newman is wonderful. Burt Lancaster is wonderful. The European imigrants are generally buffoonish, but the Native Americans are presented as real people and not hyper-noble spiritual beings. That would have been too easy. Geraldine Chaplin is as ethereally wonderful as always - and, speaking of Chaplin, why isn't Cria Cuervos on DVD? Are the people who run those companies THAT hopeless???
Rating: 
Summary: Misunderstood
Review: Robert Altman's "Buffalo Bill and the Indians (or Sitting Bull's History Lession)" has largely been forgotten while his other films from this period have been rediscovered as classics. While maybe its time for this one too.The "Why" of why this film such a critical bomb is not hard to decipher, Altman is continuing his critique of the West that started with "McCabe and Mrs. Miller". Yet this film is even more scathing. Bufflo Bill is an illiterate buffoon and President Cleveland works as a reminder that there were politicians back then. What I think really worked against Altman here, wasn't his treatment of this historical period but the changing of his own. In 1976, audiences were getting tired of these self-conscious films that were popular just five years eariler. "Buffalo Bill" stuck between "Jaws" (in '75) and then "Star Wars" (in '77) was a hard sell as the country was getting more conservative. Beside this, "Buffalo Bill" like a lot Altman films is a great film. He continues his pioneering use of overlapping dialogue and widescreen cinematography. And oh, did I mention it was funny, a second viewing really helps catch all of Altman's wry wit. Newman fooling around with ballet dancers is hilarious. And you can't tell me that the extra "Or Sitting Bull's History Lession" isn't a homage to Kubrick.
Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood
Review: Robert Altman's "Buffalo Bill and the Indians (or Sitting Bull's History Lession)" has largely been forgotten while his other films from this period have been rediscovered as classics. While maybe its time for this one too. The "Why" of why this film such a critical bomb is not hard to decipher, Altman is continuing his critique of the West that started with "McCabe and Mrs. Miller". Yet this film is even more scathing. Bufflo Bill is an illiterate buffoon and President Cleveland works as a reminder that there were politicians back then. What I think really worked against Altman here, wasn't his treatment of this historical period but the changing of his own. In 1976, audiences were getting tired of these self-conscious films that were popular just five years eariler. "Buffalo Bill" stuck between "Jaws" (in '75) and then "Star Wars" (in '77) was a hard sell as the country was getting more conservative. Beside this, "Buffalo Bill" like a lot Altman films is a great film. He continues his pioneering use of overlapping dialogue and widescreen cinematography. And oh, did I mention it was funny, a second viewing really helps catch all of Altman's wry wit. Newman fooling around with ballet dancers is hilarious. And you can't tell me that the extra "Or Sitting Bull's History Lession" isn't a homage to Kubrick.
Rating: 
Summary: Buffalo Buffoon
Review: The one thing about the great directors is that even their misfires are interesting which is the case with "Buffalo Bill and the Indians". Director Robert Altman wants to make the case that the mythology of the wild west is a sham and it's greatest legend, "Buffalo Bill" Cody, is an egomaniacal showboat. Altman makes his case from the start and reiterates this theme throughout the film incoherently. On paper it is brilliant casting of cinema's biggest star, Paul Newman, as Cody to play the west's biggest star. But Newman, for the first time in a major motion picture, seems confused as to how to play this character. Newman isn't the only one to flounder in this muddle. Included in the cast are Burt Lancaster, Harvey Keitel, Geraldine Chaplin, Joel Grey and few of them are given any grist to sink their teeth into. The film is a series of scenes that do not cohere. Even the penultimate scene where Cody confronts the ghost of Sitting Bull is incoherent. I debated whether to give this film two or three stars. It's not exactly boring, but it is a mess.
Rating:
Summary: Robert Altman Rides AGain
Review: This is a quirky take on white/native relations in the late 19th/early 20th century, a mad mix of historical fact and whimsical fiction. Newman is masterful as the addled demagogue into which Buffalo Bill has morphed. I recommend this film for students enrolled in our college's AMERICAN WEST class; it is provocative fodder for good discussion, good writing on alternative views of history. Robert Altman fans will recognize stock characters from his other films, but will be entertained (perhaps delighted) throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Robert Altman Rides AGain
Review: This is a quirky take on white/native relations in the late 19th/early 20th century, a mad mix of historical fact and whimsical fiction. Newman is masterful as the addled demagogue into which Buffalo Bill has morphed. I recommend this film for students enrolled in our college's AMERICAN WEST class; it is provocative fodder for good discussion, good writing on alternative views of history. Robert Altman fans will recognize stock characters from his other films, but will be entertained (perhaps delighted) throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Best movie about Indians I've ever seen
Review: well, all I can tell you is having grown up in western oklahoma with lots of real indians this is the best movie about INDIANS i have ever seen. Not only do real Indians play Indians (as opposed to Italians playing Indians) but they actually sound and feel like real Indians. I saw this movie over twenty years ago and it has haunted me ever since. Although I really don't think Buffalo Bill was as big a fraud as he is portrayed here (in fact the Indians in his Wild West show LIKED him and remarked on his generosity and compassion) I think of him (in this movie) as a symbol of how we (whites) view ourselves and of our tendency towards superficiality and phoniness. But above all, I think this movie made a powerful statement about Native American spirituality that rings true. Sitting Bull WAS a profoundly spiritual person. He WAS mistreated and murdered by greedy and shallow people who couldn't appreciate his profound depth. To me, this was a movie about Sitting Bull and the greatness of Native American spirituality and I hope it haunts you the way it has me. I can't believe it's not more well known.
Rating:
Summary: A stunning blast against the fraudulence of America.......
Review: While not approaching the level of "Nashville" or "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," this film employs all of the Altman tricks (overlapping dialogue, a cast of thousands) to bring forth a scathing attack on America's reliance on myth and the need to rewrite the past with lies and hypocrisy. At every turn, Altman gives us images of a culture so immersed in show business and deception that it is no longer able to distinguish between reality and fantasy. While that in itself is hardly an original concept (especially for Altman, one of our greatest satirists), it works here because the film was released in 1976, the very year America was congratulating itself for a job well done. The best image remains the last, a reinforcement of America's need to dominate and win at all cost, even though such victories might be tainted by cheap shots and blatant unfairness.
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