BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976), dir. Robert Altman

It is said the great ones make what they do look easy. Yet here is a movie about two legendary men of their time – one a white cowboy, the other a Native American chief – in which the saying only seems half true. “Buffalo Bill” shows the hard work that its main character, William Cody, goes through to maintain his image as the archetypal frontiersman, as well as the frustrations this would-be master of animals and killer of Injuns experiences with Sitting Bull, who conjures a near-mystical aura through hardly any labor at all.

There really was a “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a former soldier and Pony Express rider who later starred in the most popular traveling show in the world. Wild West-themed, it featured a variety of skilled performers who did gun tricks and performed stunts on horseback, as well as actors who re-enacted events such as General Custer’s last stand, in which Cody himself appeared as the doomed general. The movie picks up during the troupe’s heyday, around the same time as what ostensibly appears to be a show business coup: the signing on of Sitting Bull, the former Sioux leader.

Federal marshals begrudgingly deliver the chief to Cody and his handlers, who already envision him appearing in a re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But Sitting Bull, who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West because of a vision telling him he would meet President Grover Cleveland, refuses to participate in their version of the event, in which Custer’s men would be shown massacred. Instead, he demands the re-enactment show the Native Americans being slaughtered, a suggestion Cody flat-out refuses. The show considers firing Sitting Bull, but when a key cast member threatens to walk out as well, Cody capitulates; nevertheless, the incident spurs a battle of wills between the two legends that lasts the entire movie.

“Buffalo Bill” was directed by Robert Altman, and like many of that filmmaker’s works, it’s so many things in one: an ensemble film, a drama with comedic elements, a behind-the-scenes look at a particular corner of show business. But there’s also something edgy and modern about Altman and Alan Rudolph’s screenplay, and one’s appreciation of the overall movie will likely depend on taking to their vision. To them, William Cody – who was a big star before the age of television – is like some kind of 70’s show business icon: handsome and larger-than-life in person (if slightly shorter than one might have expected, thanks to Paul Newman’s perfect casting), but vain, alcoholic, prima donna-ish and a womanizer in private.

I liked everything about this movie, especially how Cody shows an obsession with the public’s perception of “Buffalo Bill” on-par with a modern PR firm. In one of the film’s more humorous moments, he welcomes President Grover Cleveland, who is on his honeymoon, to his own self-titled ranch and resort, allowing the chief executive the use of his own bedroom. When Cleveland expresses an unwillingness to put him out, Buffalo Bill assures him he prefers to spend his nights outdoors among the plains; but of course, the first place he goes is that symbol of civilization: the tavern.

Altman, of course, was no stranger to de-mythologizing the Wild West when he made “Buffalo Bill,” having done something similar in 1971’s “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” This time around, it’s more the Wild West show he’s dissecting, his roving camera capturing a cavalcade of characters wearing ten gallon hats, only much of it is illusion: the Native Americans are played by black or white actors for the most part; during the brilliant opening sequence, an attack on a frontier town by Indians turns out to be staged; at one point, an actor is told not to get on his horse from behind, for fear it does not look “authentic.” In the spirit of a film that takes viewers “behind the scenes,” “Buffalo Bill” also shows how much intricate choreography, micro-management, and practice went into the acts.

Even the titular character’s ride into each show accompanied by a small herd of bison is far from spontaneous. But if Buffalo Bill is indeed an image whose purpose is preserving the Wild West in its most idyllic form (and that argument is supported by what amounts to a creator, played by Burt Lancaster), the question in William Cody’s mind is whether the same can be said of Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)? Here is another character with a larger-than-life reputation, but when depicted in the flesh, is short in stature, ghostly-silent, with a child-like face.

He packs none of Buffalo Bill’s bluster, but his resourcefulness clearly exceeds that of the cowboy performers. Later, he manages to win over a white audience through his own quiet dignity and grace – without having to participate in the dog-and-pony show the writers initially conceived – and when he mysteriously disappears, also manages to evade the search party led by Cody, despite his reputation of being a world-class Indian tracker.

“He has to look good in front of his people,” is Buffalo Bill’s response to Sitting Bull making a fool of him. But is Sitting Bull a legend, or, like Buffalo Bill, just a man perpetuating a legend? The answer is never clear, but by film’s end Cody, who has started to become aware of his deficiencies, comes to the decision it is better to be a has-been and know it because the alternative is ending up like Sitting Bull (whose fate I will not disclose here). "My God, look at ya! Look at ya!” he shouts. “You want to stay the same! Well, that's going backwards!" Buffalo Bill, on the contrary, continues looking forward, even if his gaze seems blank, and the rest of his image resembles an outdated relic getting older with each passing moment.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

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