Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan GeorgeLittle Big Man was directed by Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) and boasts talents such as Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway - not to mention a great host of native actors. Preceding the narrative elements of Forrest Gump and Dances with Wolves, it recounts the life and trials of a 121 year old man who experienced the ways of both the whites and Cheyenne. His loyalty and identity also sways between the two depending on which will favor his survival.
The great strength of this movie is that it revels in the cultural details of the Cheyenne as well as the major events such as the Battle of Little Bighorn. His first encounter presents us with the usual suspects such as fighting the white man, the proud skeptic native showing animosity towards the new white guest, and the battle practice of counting coup. But their later encounters were very insightful to the Cheyenne as a people. The respect shown towards a hiwani (sp?) and his special status among them was a welcome addition. How they perceived African Americans as the black white man was very new to me and is making me want to research into that further.
But there's something really odd about this film and that's the tone. It doesn't really seem to know what it wants to be; in the beginning, i found myself smiling and chuckling while events leading up to Bighorn had me reserved. It went back and forth between comedy and drama but in a peculiar way. It's as if the film was assuming the same flaws as Little Big Man himself. If this was a conscious decision made by Penn then that's absolute genius really. And that's certainly possible but I don't believe that was the case.
To sum it up, Little Big Man was an epic and ambitious hit and miss. It didn't quite get there but it did one hell of a job trying. And it's hard not to admire any movie that tries that hard.
The great strength of this movie is that it revels in the cultural details of the Cheyenne as well as the major events such as the Battle of Little Bighorn. His first encounter presents us with the usual suspects such as fighting the white man, the proud skeptic native showing animosity towards the new white guest, and the battle practice of counting coup. But their later encounters were very insightful to the Cheyenne as a people. The respect shown towards a hiwani (sp?) and his special status among them was a welcome addition. How they perceived African Americans as the black white man was very new to me and is making me want to research into that further.
But there's something really odd about this film and that's the tone. It doesn't really seem to know what it wants to be; in the beginning, i found myself smiling and chuckling while events leading up to Bighorn had me reserved. It went back and forth between comedy and drama but in a peculiar way. It's as if the film was assuming the same flaws as Little Big Man himself. If this was a conscious decision made by Penn then that's absolute genius really. And that's certainly possible but I don't believe that was the case.
To sum it up, Little Big Man was an epic and ambitious hit and miss. It didn't quite get there but it did one hell of a job trying. And it's hard not to admire any movie that tries that hard.
