Synopsis
The greatest buffaloer of them all!
Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Cast
Paul Newman Joel Grey Kevin McCarthy Harvey Keitel Allan F. Nicholls Geraldine Chaplin John Considine Robert DoQui Mike Kaplan Bert Remsen Bonnie Leaders Noelle Rogers Evelyn Lear Denver Pyle Frank Kaquitts Will Sampson Ken Krossa Fred N. Larsen Jerri Duce Joy Duce Alex Green Gary MacKenzie Humphrey Gratz Pat McCormick Shelley Duvall Burt Lancaster E. L. Doctorow Patrick Reynolds
Director
Producers
Writers
Original Writer
Editors
Cinematography
Executive Producers
Production Design
Art Direction
Title Design
Composer
Sound
Richard Portman William A. Sawyer Rob Young James E. Webb Richard Oswald Michael Galloway Chris McLaughlin
Costume Design
Makeup
Studios
Countries
Language
Alternative Titles
Buffalo Bill e gli indiani, Buffalo Bill und die Indianer, Buffalo Bill et les Indiens, Buffalo Bill y los indios, Μπούφαλο Μπιλ, באפלו ביל, Buffalo Bill a Indiáni, Buffalo Bill és az indiánok, Бъфало Бил и индианците, 西塞英雄谱, Buffalo Bill og indianerne, Buffalo Bill i Indianie, 버팔로 빌과 인디언들, Buffallo Bill e os Índios, Баффало Билл и индейцы, بوفالو بیل و سرخپوستان، یا درس تاریخ گاو نشسته, Oeste Selvagem, Buffalo Bill och indianerna, Buffalo Bill i els indis, Buffalo Bill ja intiaanit
Genres
Themes
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Germany6
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USAPG
14 Mar 1978
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Greece13
Physical
01 Mar 1992
- Czechoslovakia
Releases by Country
Czechoslovakia
01 Mar 1992
- Physical
Germany
24 Jun 1976
- Theatrical6
Greece
14 Mar 1978
- Theatrical13
USA
24 Jun 1976
- TheatricalPG
Popular reviews
More-
“Buffalo Bill” is Robert Altman’s second revisionist Western. Technically. But to say it exists in the same genre as “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” is unfair to both.
“Buffalo Bill’s” actual genre — is a revisionist showbiz picture.
While it pulls its satire more from “Singin in the Rain” than “Stagecoach,” the movie could hardly escape being lassoed into a discussion of Western reinterpretations; especially, given its release year:
America’s Bicentennial.
Altman would feign ignorance and say the timing was a coincidence. If so, it was a coincidence about 200 years foretold. And audiences... were not pleased.
Paul Newman stars as the mythical cowboy icon named in the credits only as ‘The Star.’ This version of Bill is a drunken clown…
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Populist western myth debunked through a sharp-shooting exercise in revisionism, the camera roaming and zooming in typical Altman fashion. I’m not sure what the pre-existing release of this looked like, but Indicator’s new high-definition remaster is nothing short of flawless. I’d heard mostly negative things about Buffalo Bill, but for die-hard Altman fans, this is an essential journey into the predestined victory of The Wild West, even if it does suffer from occasional bouts of stagnancy. Paul Newman’s bubbling denial and self-hatred straddles the line perfectly between satire and sincerity, carving out an in-depth critique of American ideals; an extension of the Nashville template for the late 1800s, only with twice the racism and half the charm.
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In 1976, American audiences were in the midst of celebrating their Bicentennial, and had collectively fallen in love with the optimistic underdog story Rocky had brought to the screen. All the while, Robert Altman was busy trying to tear those same inspiring myths and values to the floor, casting them into question with his satirically revisionist reinterpretation of legendary showman Buffalo Bill Cody (played here by Paul Newman) and his famed Wild West troupe.
The iconoclastic filmmaker paints an evocative picture that shows how Cody’s artificial version of the wild, untamed west was marketed and sold wholesale to willing crowds who wanted believe in it (which perhaps applies to us as viewers too). In his shows, Cody can recreate events…
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A smug lecture that doesn't even has the good sense to craft a few half-decent scenes around the self-satisfied liberal sanctimony. Altman major weakness as a thinker is that he is a successful insider than fancies himself as an outsider and that is a frequent stumbling block and it is a major one on this one and The Player. One of his major assets as a filmmaker, besides his disposition for experimentation, is that despite that he does show a lot of affinity for losers and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, has even less time for them than Nashville did. There are obvious parallels between Altman and Buffalo Bill (for starters, there's not a single second of this movie that…
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"Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson" is a 1976 directed by Robert Altman. Using Altman's distinctive based style of overlapping conversation builds and the viewing audience being somewhat of an inserted fly on the wall, the film technically fits within Western genre based upon topical subject matter, but it clearly is a revisionist or anti-western approach in application. Altman uses his clever assemble grouping of characters as they cross back and forth in their conversations. At times different groupings are speaking to their own side narrative and jumping in and out of the centralized plot, but there is always a constant flow and motion to film that Altman uses in divisive form. I can easily see…
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"The last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does."
Altman deconstructs not only the Western film genre here but also the modern mythologized conception of the Western frontier. Unsurprisingly, the two intersect on common ground. A lot of things we take as orthodox and unchallengeable are shown to be the social inventions they are. The best example comes when we hear The Star Spangled Banner announced as something Buffalo Bill believes will become the national anthem while a crowd murmurs along, clearly only semi familiar with it. The film also makes it clear that this myth building that warps historical understanding comes with real incentives. Mainly that it's financially lucrative, as is evidenced by Bill's fame and…
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“There ain’t no business like show business.”
In the 70s, cinephiles let critics, especially Pauline Kael, convince us that Robert Altman was a genius, rather than a merely clever, often self-indulgent director, with a distinctive style. I loved all of his films from MASH through 3 Women, with one exception. I watched part of Brewster McCloud again recently to see if it was as bad as I remembered. Oh, my. It’s worse. Of the others, however, only The Long Goodbye holds up for repeated viewings, perhaps primarily because of my love of noir. The others are interesting but don’t seem as impressive as they once did, with one exception. I allowed Pauline to trick me into thinking Nashville was a…
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48/100
Hey did you know that the popular conception of the Wild West is riddled with lies? That it glorifies assholes and treats Native Americans as sub-human? That Buffalo Bill wore hair extensions?! I suppose the need for revisionism felt more urgent as the Bicentennial approached (I was eight, only remember the parades), but simply presenting it as if it were revelatory per se still amounts to lazy nose-thumbing, a meager mediocrity somehow sandwiched between Altman's consensus masterpiece and (ahem) his actual masterpiece. Milieu intermittently fascinates, along with the patented verbal chaos; I also enjoyed Geraldine Chaplin's strangely lusty-prim interpretation of Annie Oakley, at odds with her legend in a productive way rather than merely critical. But I kept waiting…
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Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was a precursor to the American Western as presented in entertainment. A sterilized, simplified historical reenactment displaying how the settlers heading out West managed to vanquish the savages they encountered, with Buffalo Bill Cody being its most prominent hero. It's show business, a circus with a ringleader who's bought into the myth crafted to draw in the crowds. A revisionist western set in the foundational period where guilt and insecurity reveal themselves as the chief motivators to the image presented.
In this vein, the film opens with a seemingly real setting. A mountain cabin, a small family of settlers pillaged by an overwhelming number of Native Americans, who savagely and wantonly murder them. Only for…
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Disillusionment In Sun-Drenched 1970s American New Wave Cinema: A Watching Brief
I really like Robert Altman anyway but I like him even more knowing that he released this on the American 'bicentennial'. That's A+ trolling from the lad.
This is a very recognisable and typically Altman approach to the Buffalo Bill 'legend'. It's another comedy-drama ensemble piece with overlaid dialogue and a very laidback pace that leads the film to nowhere of any great drama or stress. It does feel rather lightweight compared to his other films of this kind though, like there's something missing.
I did read that he cut a few scenes from it after some initial poor reviews but his style very much leant itself to a…
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Elaborates at tedious length on every single obvious irony that wanders in front of Altman's particularly lazy camera here. Something this silly has no business being so laborious and smug.
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Tiresome and silly; Buffalo Bill and the Indians is a massive letdown for a huge fan of both Newman and Altman.
While I appreciate the film's deconstruction of western myth, said deconstruction is embedded in a tiresomely boring film. It is cool seeing Newman in Buffalo Bill garb, but what is not cool is the fact that the film never really goes anywhere. There is a static feeling that no amount of silliness can break, thus the whole time I just kept waiting and waiting for something to happen.
Ultimately, Buffalo Bill and the Indians is just a tremendous disappointment given who is involved, a disappointment that never comes close to warranting even a two hour runtime, but at least the ending felt rewarding enough.
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