Dustin Hoffman stars in this free-wheeling version of the great American novel by Thomas Berger.
The 1970 film opens in modern times with an interviewer recording the recollections of the oldest man in the world, 121 year-old Jack Crabb (Hoffman).
Peppered with highly-effective narration, Little Big Man boasts a Twain-ish voice (Jack Crabb talks a lot like Huck Finn) and offers a sense of the true way of things regarding life in the West alternately comedic and dramatic.
It's a movie that plays Emperor's New Clothes with Hollywood Westerns. Points right at 'em and says, "Nope. Weren't like that at all."
And then proceeds to show the truth through a lot of wild tall tales while simultaneously pronouncing, "You callin' me a liar?"
Old Jack Crabb talks about how Young Jack Crabb was both orphaned and raised by Native Americans.
"For a boy it was a kind of paradise. I wasn't just playin' Indian, I was livin' Indian!"
Incidental to nothing, this film uses a trick picked up years later by the makers of Superman - The Movie: When the actor playing the younger version of the star is on screen, we still hear the star's voice dubbed in.
Reveling in revisionism is the fuel that powers the story. And the real star of the movie is a Salish tribal leader. Chief Dan George plays Cheyenne chief Old Lodge Skins, who is like a father to Crabb, himself reborn as Little Big Man.
As an example of the revisionism, Little Big Man returns for awhile to the world of the white man, whereupon he goes through his gunfighter phase. Not knowing how to shoot, it's lucky for him he learns from his sister.
"Shooting rifles against bow and arrow," J.C. pointedly recalls. "I never could understand how the white world could be so proud of winning with them kind of odds."
Featuring Faye Dunaway as the pious--well, maybe not so pious--more like downright wanton, really--wife of a pious guy. When she's good enough to take Young Crabb in, she goes even further and makes sure he's scrubbed all clean and good.
Also starring Richard Mulligan--eventually of TV's "Soap" and "Empty Nest" fame--as Custer. "I knowed General George Armstrong Custer for what he was," Crabb assures, "and I also knowed the Indians for what they was."
Also in 1970 A Man Called Horse, starring Richard Harris, was released. That one imagines a tall blonde Englishman adopted by hostile Indians who eventually learn to respect him as a leader, and is famous for a rite-of-passage scene involving Harris being hung like a boob by hooks in his chest.
Little Big Man comes from a different place. One not desirous of supremacy, but rather a place of respect.
LITTLE BIG MAN
Starring Dustin Hoffman,
Faye Dunaway,
Chief Dan George,
Martin Balsam,
Richard Mulligan,
Aimee Eccles,
Ruben Moreno
Directed by Arthur Penn
Written by Calder Willingham
Based on the novel by Thomas Berger
Runtime 139 minutes
Rated PG-13
Stewart Kirby write for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE
No comments:
Post a Comment