No Cinema For You, Sir

[amalekite]

Friday is usually movie night for me, but as it stands, I'm poorer than a character in a Dickens' novel about poor people; so I think I'll just put my clothes in the washing machine and spend the night interpreting the sounds of the tumble dryer as Enochian keys if it's all the same to you. That and a few cans of Strongbow should get me through '

Comments

[a_tannenbaum]

That's not why "Buffalo Bill" was unpopular. It came out in the mid-70's, after years of similar breast-beating pictures about the evils of America and debunking visions of the American past. "Buffalo Bill" wasn't original at all but part of a genre, the Vietnam-Nixon era mea culpa film. "Buffalo Bill" said nothing that "Little Big Man" hadn't said just a couple of years before. Altman was just pumping away on the old melodeon, as Mr. Mencken would have put it. Worse than that, Altman's timing was bad. By the mid-70's, people were heartily sick of such message pictures anyway. They wanted to have some fun at the movies again, to feel some joy, and they didn't want to come out of the theater feeling depressed and guilty once more. The popular movies of the mid-70's were "Jaws" and "American Graffitti," and "Star Wars" was just around the corner. I don't like the direction that Lucas and Spielberg took American movies in, but the audience followed them for a reason. People were tired of seeing movies that made them want to commit

[amalekite]

"Buffalo Bill" said nothing that "Little Big Man" hadn't said just a couple of years before.

But LBM wasn't funny.

The popular movies of the mid-70's were "Jaws" and "American Graffitti," and "Star Wars" was just around the corner.

I rest my case. ;)

[a_tannenbaum]

Actually, LBM did have some funny moments, which are absolutely the only ones I remember. And rightly so.

I'm not necessarily praising the Spielberg-Lucas era, just pointing out that those pictures were welcomed because they were so different from what had gone before. I don't like Lucasberg much, but I don't miss the heavy message movies of the Vietnam-Nixon era either. People mutht be amuthed, thquire. And if it comes to that, the pro-Indian message in American movies is very old hat; William S. Hart was trying to be 'fair' to Indians in his day, too. Altman gets no merit badge for doing the same.

Someday, perhaps, American moviemakers (and British ones, too?) will quit oscillating between shallow sensation and heavy-breathing evangelism and just create good movies the way writers create good novels. That day is not yet.

[amalekite]

Whilst I'm not familiar with Hart's oeuvre (or that of Mix or much else in the genre prior to Stagecoach), I found the messages in BB far more implicit than the open condemnation you get in LBM (e.g. Old Lodge Skins' deathbed scene). Admittedly, you do get a similar scene near the end of Altman's film, but I felt the comic elements where so ubiquitous that it subtracted any evangelical (dysangelical?) feeling the viewer might have taken away from it.

And if it comes to that, the pro-Indian message in American movies is very old hat

I don't concede that, I'm afraid. As far as I can see there's usually only two sorts of Injuns in Hollywood: mindless heathen brutes or nature-worshipping primitives. The second type only seems to have begun appearing in the Vietnam era.

Someday, perhaps, American moviemakers (and British ones, too?) will quit oscillating between shallow sensation and heavy-breathing evangelism and just create good movies the way writers create good novels.

I'll have my review of the new Robin Hood up in the next few