Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Buffalo Bill and the Indians on hulu.com
Watching Hulu on a home computer is a little like watching AMC on a plane. The trip is that there are is a single 15-30 second commercial with a countdown in the corner about every twenty minutes or so. It is a little like having a film screening with one projector only.
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson is the only major film of Altman's seventies period I had never seen. Horray for hulu.com, it gave me that chance after 34 years or so.
I like Buffalo Bill and the Indians. It has all the things I love about Altman films of that time: The use of long lenses, overlapping sounds, and loads of great characters and actors milling about sometimes saying humorous things. In some ways it is a kind of upbeat follow-up to my favorite of all Altman films, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Is it purely coincidental that both of these were filmed on location (BC coast for McCabe, Alberta for Buffalo Bill. Both of these films are also enhanced by some innovative color work done by Alpha Cine Labs of Seattle. The colors due to an alchemy of underexposure and flash processing in McCabe are unforgettable, as is anything shot in directional sunlight in Buffalo Bill.
This bicentennial follow up to Nashville died within days at the theater. I couldn't get to it quick enough and never really had a second chance until Hulu. Maybe 1976 wasn't ready for more Altman cynicism. It is a rather strange film though. This film has three of the greatest sounding male voices in the history of screen acting: Kevin McCarthy, Paul Newman, and Burt Lancaster. He counters these with pipsqueaks Joel Grey as the emcee and Harvey Keitel playing to ultimate toady snivel nephew to his uncle Bill Cody. Keitel can really deliver some comeday, believe it or not.
The plot is mush, but who cares. Sitting Bull is added to the wild west show and is clear on participating on his own terms, much to the consternation of the yellow haired ego legend star. Later Pat McCormick as Grover Cleveland who Sitting Bull dreams about comes to see a show. The real show are the extended sequences of the performances themselves, especially the ones with Geraldine Chaplin as Annie Oakley.
And any scene with Lancaster who plays Ned Buntline, the dime novelist who created the media image of Buffalo Bill. Buntline says great stuff like as in a hypothetical conversation with Bill says "Any young fellow like yourself who is out to set the world on fire shouldn't forget where he got the match from." As he lights his cigar. Or another time when he says: "Rock isn't a rock when its turned to gravel." Which reminds me of my favorite line from McCabe and Mrs. Miller. "If a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass so much."
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:52 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment