Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
by Robert Altman
List Price:
Our Price: $13.49
You Save: $1.49 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $6.77 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Allan F. Nicholls, Harvey Keitel, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy, Paul NewmanDirector: Robert Altman
Brand: Buffalo
Producer: Robert Altman
Writer: Robert Altman
Producer: David Susskind
Producer: Jac Cashin
Producer: Robert Eggenweiler
Writer: Alan Rudolph
Writer: Arthur Kopit
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 123 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-05-08
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Movie Review: Burying The Heart at The Wild West Show
Summary: 4 Stars
Altman's comedies aren't always that funny. With a radiant Paul Newman, supported by Burt Lancaster's bemused Ned Buntline of the dime novel, we have a script delivering a steady drumroll of putdowns about the creation of the West. Buntline exits stage door left, deeply uncertain about the transformation of his own commodity into a newer, more spectacular, but thinner variant. Whatever resonance the film may be attempting to strike with 1880s values, Altman's film has plenty to say about 1970s liberal values. The buffoonery proceeds apace while Bill connives to con Sitting Bull to headline his Wild West Show. The Sioux lads (Sitting Bull has an interpreter, the aptly dubbed and granite-like, William Sampson)don't budge a grain of gravel in contracting to participate. They comply merely to facilitate the course of Sitting Bull's dream. The camera frequently withdraws to encompass the immensity of the eternal mountain range behind the ephemerality of the carnival. Bill is foiled. His grog-addled arrogance and vanity are no match for the sombre indigenies who stake their land claim,to no avail, before an supremely ignorant President Cleveland. The whites are the dills in Altman's bigger picture which has Bull's demise promptly trivialised when re-enacted in the pitiful stage death by his stoic interpreter.Hadn't he said not long before something like,'History is just disrespect for dead people'?
Summary of Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
From director Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, The Player) comes an uproarious, high-spirited look at "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the legendary Western adventurer. With a fine cast that includes Paul Newman, Harvey Keitel, Burt Lancaster, Joel Grey and Geraldine Chaplin, Buffalo Bill and the Indians is a hilarious yet poignant comedy that shows the Old West as you've never seen it before! Although Buffalo Bill (Newman) has fought Indians and Civil War battles, nothing can prepare him for his newest challenge: show business! His "Wild West Show" is hugely popular, but when he signs a former enemy, Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts), for a featured role, a hysterical clash of cultures reverberates far beyond the boundaries of their sprawling outdoor theater. And the complications only multiply when the troupe discovers it must put on a special command performancefor none other than the President of the United States!Robert Altman was often ahead of his time--once at the cost of being behind himself. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, a snorting expos? of the U.S. predilection for buying into heroic myths, opened on July 4, 1976. Clearly the film was positioned as the ultimate bicentennial event, Altman-style. But Altman had already delivered that a year earlier: the splendiferous, deeply disenchanted yet exhilarating Nashville. Both Nashville and Buffalo Bill are films about America-as-show business, hucksterism, and the rare miracle of performance. But everything Altman got so thrillingly right in Nashville, which teems with life and mystery and widescreen dynamism, came out flatfooted and obvious in Buffalo Bill, a cramped, smirky inside joke that ends up being on the joker.
The setting is the base camp for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, where the blustering Indian fighter of legend is gearing up for his latest national tour. Apart from sharpshooter Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) and her great friend, the Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts), the show is populated by phonies and opportunists. Biggest phony of all is Cody (Paul Newman), whose fame has been based more on the penny-dreadful scribblings of Ned Buntline (Burt Lancaster) than on any real accomplishments; even his long blond tresses are fake. Altman and cowriter Alan Rudolph (working from a play by Arthur Kopit) thump their insights about the Establishment's feet of clay as if they were breaking-news bulletins instead of countercultural clich?s. Only the occasional ineffably mysterious Altman zoom shot offers relief. --Richard T. Jameson
Action & Adventure DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in Yee Ha
Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy WritingStory Line Press; Published: 2000-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.95
Cowgirls: Commemorating the Women of the Westby David R. Stoecklein
Stoecklein Publishing; Published: 1999-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $72.95
A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove (Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography)by Bill Wittliff
University of Texas Press; Published: 2007-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $28.21
Price in other shops:
The Big Roundup: Classic and Contemporary Poetry from CowboyPoetry.comNew West Library; Published: 2001-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.95
Cowgirl Up!: An American Cowgirl's Poems, True Stories & One-Linersby Bobbie Smith
Robert D. Reed Publishers; Published: 2001-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.24
Price in other shops:
Cowgirl Poetry : One Hundred Years of Ridin' and Rhymin'Gibbs Smith; Published: 2001-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.25
Price in other shops:
Cowboy Poetry: A GatheringGibbs Smith; Published: 1990-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Cowgirls: Women of the Wild Westby Elizabeth Clair Flood, William Manns
ZON International Publishing; Published: 2000-01-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $29.33
Price in other shops:
The Cowgirl's Cookbook: Recipes for Your Home on the Rangeby Jill Charlotte Stanford
TwoDot; Published: 2008-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.30
Price in other shops:
Cowgirl Cuisine: Rustic Recipes and Cowgirl Adventures from a Texas Ranchby Paula Disbrowe
William Morrow Cookbooks; Published: 2007-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
WinningUniversal; Release date: 1999-03-16; DVD
Best price: $2.94
Price in other shops:
Mr. & Mrs. BridgeRelease date: 2003-05-06; DVD
Best price: $3.16
Price in other shops:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Deluxe Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2006-05-02; DVD
Best price: $8.97
Price in other shops:
A New Kind of LoveParamount; Release date: 2005-01-18; DVD
Best price: $4.92
Price in other shops:
Cool Hand Luke (Deluxe Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-09-09; DVD
Best price: $9.98
Price in other shops:
The StingUniversal; Release date: 1998-03-31; DVD
Best price: $3.92
Price in other shops:
The Long, Hot SummerTwentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2003-05-20; DVD
Best price: $7.28
Price in other shops:
HombreTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2002-06-04; DVD
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops:
HudParamount; Release date: 2003-12-02; DVD
Best price: $4.36
Price in other shops:
The Life and Times of Judge Roy BeanWarner Brothers; Release date: 2003-06-03; DVD
Best price: $13.16
Price in other shops: