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"Illusions ought always to be destroyed. The truth is better." (Eisenstein, "Rin-Tin-Tin Does His Tricks for Noted Russian Movie Man") Up the flagpole and across the settlement, a sepia filter promptly denied by a dissection of spectacle even before Joel Grey turns up with megaphone. "Disrespect for the dead" sums up history, mythology meanwhile is a three-ring circus in the prairie, a sour jamboree. Marauding braves and stagecoach shootouts comprise the pageant, Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) has a star turn with arm in sling and Frank Butler (John Considine) trembling with targets, "the authentic business." Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) is the newest attraction, elsewhere the Legend Maker (Burt Lancaster) advertises the punchline from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Where is Buffalo Bill in all of this? In front of the dressing-room mirror, tightening the wig and practicing fancy words and hiding the fatuous terror in Paul Newman's blue eyes. "Now let me show you something about real." Robert Altman's Old West Nashville, a death march set to jaunty fanfare. The frontier hero is a horseshit artist who favors painted portraits and operatic divas, after leading a failed posse he unloads his pistols on his inamorata's pesky pet bird. Indigenous genocide is a rejected number but Little Big Horn is an audience favorite, a matter of scenarios. The visit from President Cleveland (Pat McCormick) is a feather in the cap of "America's National Family," Sitting Bull's "simple request" is turned down unheard at the after-party. A Seventies view best admired by Rossellini (the filming takes note of both Viva L'Italia and La Prise de Pouvoir par Louis XIV), Buffalo Bill ranting to specters is remarkably like Nixon in Secret Honor. "Is this part of the act?" Eastwood's riposte in Bronco Billy inaugurates the new decade. With Harvey Keitel, Kevin McCarthy, Will Sampson, Shelley Duvall, Denver Pyle, and Bert Remsen.
--- Fernando F. Croce |