A Man Called Horse

Rating:
Summary: A Man Called Horse
Review: A one dimensional portrayal of the Sioux. The movie is told as seen by an outsider or "captive" point of view. The Sioux in this movie are shown to be ignorant, dirty savages - indicative of the norm of public thought leading up to the time the movie was made. The "indians" in this movie do a lot of yelling and whooping, pointing at objects with spears, and jumping around in front of bon fires. The "indians" much resembled the neanderthals in "Clan of the Cave Bear". This film would make a great study for college courses. It shows much of the ignorant one-sided misconceptions about Native Americans held by early America up to the late 1970's.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most powerful westerns ever made!
Review: Elliot Silverstein got a hit with this film . The script turns around a white man kidnapped by the Sioux , will be the spark for that movie , Richard Harris made one of the finest performances in his career. Superb landscapes and dazzling direction.
Unforgettable!

Rating:
Summary: a moderatly good movie
Review: I do agree with the comments of the other viewer reviews. The sioux in this movie were portrayed as very dirty and savage like. Over all the sundance and alot of the culture done very well. I have seen george catlin's paintings and have read books about the sioux people. Also someone metioned he was captured by the crow indians which was false. They were a group Known as the yellow hand sioux.

Rating:
Summary: 4 stars ONLY for entertainment
Review: I give this move 4 stars only for it's entertainment value/action/adventure, NOT for any degree of alleged historical accuracy, nor was it a "true depiction" of the Sioux Indians. Everything about that was made "hollywood", such as the ritual, which was not accurately depicted either. (I laugh at any of these reviews which attempt to dwell on the reviewers mistaken belief this movie's historical accuracy was anything less than a half-a$$ hollywood depiction to make $$$). That said, I enjoyed the drama, suspense and action this fictional account offered. Harris was great, and some of the Indian characters (minus their slaughtering of the language) was up there as well. Have not seen the sequel.....

Rating:
Summary: Highly Entertaining
Review: I go to the movies to be entertained, and to school for history lessons. It is true that this movie is not historically accurate or representative of the real Lakota people in any way. But it is fool of action, suspense, and Color. I don't know of any Historical representations on films, that did anything more than entertain, and in some cases such as myself, arouse the desire to learn more about the factual people and situations depicted. I loved this movie.

Rating:
Summary: A Man Called Horse
Review: I happen to disagree with the reviewer who thought the movie unfairly portrayed the Indian milieu. On the contrary, it was quite accurate. As accurate, in fact, as the movie Blackfoot, the only difference being that one tribe was of the west and the other tribe of the eastern nations. The culture as portrayed in a Man called Horse was obviously well-researched from an historical point of view. Life amongst the Crow Indians was indeed harsh and brutal, and the "sun" ritual was portrayed with amazing realism. When the warlike tribes went to war, there was neither quarter taken nor given. Yet one cannot help but sympathize with the characters as portrayed in the movie. A classic movie and a job well done.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Believe Everything You Read About This Film
Review: I loved this movie! My Great Grandmother was
a full blooded Narragansett Indian. I am very sure
she would have forgiven me for liking this movie.
Just enjoy and try not to pick it apart.

Rating:
Summary: Overlook what is wrong and enjoy.
Review: I loved this movie! My Great Grandmother was
a full blooded Narragansett Indian. I am very sure
she would have forgiven me for liking this movie.
Just enjoy and try not to pick it apart.

Rating:
Summary: A Lord in the Teepees.
Review: I'm always fascinated with books & movies that deal with the interaction of subjects from different cultures such as "Shogun", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Dances with Wolves" or "Broken Arrow".
The film "A Man Called Horse" (1970) had a very special place in my memory. At times I caught myself thinking about some of its scenes deemed by the years and felt sorry that wasn't shown in TV or available to hire. Searching into Amazon I finally found it and of course I bought it. I've just finished watching it and I'm delighted with the revival.

It tells the story of an English Lord in 1825 that is hunting & sightseeing Wild America, far away from "civilization". He is captured by a Sioux warriors party and kept by its chief as a horse. In this quality the chief gift him to his mother.
A hard apprenticeship starts for the Englishman, step by step he rises himself from "horse" to warrior to leader. Along with his hardships he comes to understand, admire and adopt this culture so different to his own but full of human values.

Harris performs his part with deep conviction and is one of the best of his career. The rest of the cast is of multinational extraction: Manu Tupou fleshing Chief Yellowhand is Fijian, Judith Anderson, his mother is a distinguished performer of Macbeth & Medea, Corinna Tsopei sister of the Chief and lover of the Englishman is Greek and Miss Universe 1964, Eddie Little Sky performs as Black Eagle, Iron Eyes Cody the Medicine Man was born Italian and later adopted Native American identity and married a Native American woman. Real Native Americans performs as Warriors.
Is this a drawback? Is it necessary to be Native American to flesh one? I don't think so. We do not expect actual Romans to impersonate Emperors or Egyptians to pass as Pharaohs.
One of the other objections to the film is the atrocious pronunciation of the Lakota language, but this is only perceptible by very few. I'm used to hear horrible Spanish in American films and that does not irk me. The bottom-line is that the movie tries to show a realistic approach to the surroundings of a man thrown in an alien environment.

Even with its flaws this film moved me to admire and respect Native American culture and start reading and investigating on the subject.
A groundbreaking work from the earlier Seventies!!!!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.



Rating:
Summary: Some "improvement" from the old Westerns...
Review: Okay, so here I am at my home on the Pine Ridge Reservation, watching "A Man Called Horse" for the first time with a bunch of friends. They are Native (Lakota "Sioux" and a Navajo), I am not, but I seem to be the one elected to write the review so here goes.
Where to start? To the people who say that this was such a leap forward in the representation of Indian people, I really have to wonder exactly what their familiarity with Indians is and where it comes from. Books? Catlin paintings? First of all the speaking of the Lakota language was atrocious. The far-flung actors can be forgiven for their unfamiliarity with a relatively obscure language, but they could barely have been worse. Lakota is a beautiful language, and it is really not that difficult to get the gutteral and nasal sounds at least passably well-pronounced (it was far less painful to listen to the actors in Dances with Wolves). These people, though, seemed bent on making it sound like Hollywood-Indian language at its worst.
Although the film purports to have done a lot of research on the subject of the "Yellow Hand Sioux," whoever they may be, it manages to evoke every thinkable American stereotype about Native peoples. They are alternately dirty primitives, noble savages, romanticized sexpots (Miss Universe's slinky character), ignorant people waiting for a white person to come lead them and educate them, etc. It is true that the film manages to get some things right. During what I felt to be the most appalling and offensive scene, for example, the singers were singing an actual Sundance piercing song, one that is still sung commonly at ceremonies today. And yet the entire _emphasis_ of the movie, the whole tone of it, was problematic. Was this movie shown to Native audiences for their feedback? I am sure that even back in 1970, Native people would have demanded a less caricatured portrayal of their ancestors. In fact, with the Indian rights movement coming into full swing at that time, it seems like their must have been a lot of outcry over this film, but I can't say for sure.
Now about that Sundance scene. So yes, the Sundance was and is a major - some would say THE major - Lakota ceremony. But it was NOT used as a ritual to prove one's manhood or endurance as Hollywood and American popular culture would have everyone believe. It is done in a spirit of extreme prayer and humility. I have been to Sundances and many of my friends take part in this sacred act. To see this ceremony perverted and twisted in this movie was frankly infuriating. If a bunch of moviemakers wanted to show an exceedingly sacred ritual - and one which was banned by the U.S. government for decades (at least the movie gives a token mention to this fact) - they could have at least done it with a little more accuracy.
I could go on and on but am limited to a thousand words, so I had better just leave it at that. Well one more thing. This movie was one in a long line of movies that never (to my observation) showed Indians cracking a smile. At least Kevin Costner realized that Natives are some of the funniest and most good-natured people in the world and was able to put some of that in his film. His Lakota weren't just going from wardance to warpath to whooping and screaming and whatever else the Indians of "A Man Called Horse" spent their time doing.
I should say that I do not think that Dances with Wolves was the pinnacle of movies dealing with Native Americans - far from it. I do think that more recent movies like Smoke Signals and the soon-to-be-released "Skins" are major steps forward - showing Indian people from their OWN perspective. Surely they will be able to do better than this film. It is just the same old story with the wording slightly changed.
PS - If you are really interested in Lakota culture/society at roughly the time this film took place, I recommend the book Waterlily. Ella Deloria (the author) was not only a Native (Nakota) woman herself, but also a very distinguished and erudite ethnologist. The portrait she paints is far more respectful and, I would argue, more accurate.