This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Really Surprised!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

At the time the film was dismissed by critics and ignored by audiences, in part because its deflation of American myths could hardly compete with the Bicentennial. But also because the critics couldn't see past the obvious satirical element to the more complicated themes that Altman explored.Altman is not content merely to satirize the West, because he understands that America's gift for self invention and self-serving myth making is really what sets it apart, what makes America "exceptional." Altman is interested in the power of fiction, and he argues that in the contest between reality and fiction, neither is a clear winner, but genuine art, rather than mere showmanship, is every bit as consequential. When the opera singer entertains President Cleveland, the president yawns, but Cody and his band of liars are moved to tears because as showmen they recognize the power of a really good show. And this is what ultimately distinguishes Sitting Bull from Bill Cody. As Ned Buntline observes, "I was thinking about Sitting Bull. Just put yourself in that Injun's place. You sit in your tepee and dream. And then you go to wherever the dream may take you... it might come true. And you wait for real life to catch up. Injuns gear their lives to dreams. And what an injun dreams, no matter how far-fetched, will wait until he dies to come true. The white men - they're different. The only time they dream is when things are going their way." The real conflict is not between a mythical and a real West, but between competing dreams, as played out in the contest between Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull, who bests Cody at his own game. Sitting Bull is not just the real deal — a real chief and a real horseman, who can easily slip away from camp without being tracked down by Cody (thus spoiling his reputation as a famous tracker) — he is also the superior myth maker. And he authors his own myth, whereas Cody is the invention of Ned Buntline, as Ned reminds him toward the end of the film. In the end what matters is whose myth is the more powerful, the more convincing, the more enduring. Cody appears to have the last word by staging a phony act in which he slays Sitting Bull, but Sitting Bull defeats death itself by appearing before Cody after having been murdered at Standing Rock. Sitting Bull had the patience to wait until real life caught up with his dreams.Many consider the film a minor effort, but take a closer look and you'll find that it exemplifies all of Altman's strengths as one of the most original and individual of America's directors in the 70s.

Pompous showman Buffalo Bill Cody bribes the United States government into transferring custody of Sitting Bull to him and his show, only to find the old man a little more eccentric and unbroken as he expected.Light years away from Joel McCrea's loving and famous performance, William Cody is portrayed as the walking, breathing embodiment of "Manifest Destiny", already fulfilled and ten-years past it's prime, fronting a two-bit circus that's more of an insult to the past than a tribute.Paul Newman, as Cody and Will Sampson, as Sitting Bull's interpreter, are good, though the script (like every Robert Altman movie I've seen) is pretty talky, with whatever wittiness it exudes rendered impotent by it's smug demeanor, a smugness hammered home by the film's climax, featuring a drunken Newman ranting at the ghost of Sitting Bull, before symbolically killing him in effigy, in a staged combat for the masses.This is a perfect example of the kind of films by Hollywood's new guard of the nineteen-seventies, casually killing off the cherished heroes of their parent's (and sometimes their own) childhoods, for the sake of being called a "rebel" or "a maverick" by swooning critics. BLAH!

A film that divides critics equally, Robert Altman's 1976 offering is a clunky movie that fails to sparkle and delivers far less than it should. Flowing haired Paul Newman plays the titular hero, and the premise centres around his Wild West sideshow and his attempts to lure the legend that is white-American nemesis Sitting Bull into the show ring. Meanwhile, the great red Indian chief secretly has his own agenda, and the stand off comes in Newman sacrificing historical fact for blatant commercialism whilst Sitting Bull wants his opportunity to put the record straight on behalf of him and his people. Altman went on record and denied any deliberate political allegory, but there is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. The main problem with the movie for me is that a Wild West sideshow with the chief protagonists turned into circus acts just doesn't work. And whilst Gerladine Chaplin is highly watchable as Annie Oakley, with her breathtaking shooting skills ready to go wrong at any minute, there is little to engage the viewer here and it doesn't rise above the mediocre. Newman delivers his lines admirably, and, for such a consummate professional is not inconvenienced by the fact that the movie misfires, but it's too slow in places. He was very similar in WUSA, where he was perfectly able to display his skills with ease whilst all around him was uninspiring, but there are a few too many movies like that in the Newman cannon. This is probably for strict Newman or Altman fans only (unless you really want to spot a youthful looking Harvey Keitel) but you won't be rushing to see this one again and again.

A great cast is wasted on this effort, a theme looking for a story to embody it. It's hard to fill ten lines describing this effort, since there really isn't much to describe. Newman does have a "mad scene." The problem is, Newman's mad scene doesn't evolve from anywhere due to the fixed nature of his character. Given the lack of a story and the fact that nothing climactic happens that actually offers any new insight to the characters or changes them from the way in which they were at the beginning, coming up with ten lines about this film is reminiscent of those papers assigned in grade school than were required to be "X" number of pages. But it looks as though I've finally made it.