A CAREFULLY DOCUMENTED EPIC THAT ATTEMPTED TO REALISTICALLY PORTRAY THE LIFE OF AMERICAN SIOUX IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY. WHEN AN ENGLISH LORD IS CAPTURED BY A SIOUX INDIAN TRIBE, HE IS GIVEN TO THE CHIEF’S AGING MOTHER AS A SERVANT. GRADUALLY, HE EMBRACES THE TRIBE’S WAY OF LIFE.American Indians were a “cool” factor in 1970 cinema, the year A Man Called Horse made its vigorous, feverishly real, and occasionally shocking debut alongside Little Big Man and Soldier Blue. Unlike the latter two films, however, Horse is less an allegory for Vietnam-era America and more of a vision quest for historical identity. In one of his defining roles, Richard Harris plays an English aristocrat captured by Dakota Sioux in 1825. Over time, he adopts their way of life and eventually becomes tribal leader–but not before undergoing savage initiation rituals, the most famous of which involves being suspended by blades inserted beneath Harris’s pectoral muscles. Horse looks clunky, quaint, and inadvertently demeaning in some respects today, but the film’s Native American milieu is at least defined on its own terms, i.e., whole cloth and apart from familiar Western conventions. The real draw is Harris, whose performance has a soulful integrity. –Tom Keogh
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September 9, 2010
#1
Review by Maximiliano F Yofre
Rating:
I’m always fascinated with books & movies that deal with the interaction of subjects from different cultures such as “Shogun”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Dances with Wolves” or “Broken Arrow”.
The film “A Man Called Horse” (1970) had a very special place in my memory. At times I caught myself thinking about some of its scenes deemed by the years and felt sorry that wasn’t shown in TV or available to hire. Searching into Amazon I finally found it and of course I bought it. I’ve just finished watching it and I’m delighted with the revival.
It tells the story of an English Lord in 1825 that is hunting & sightseeing Wild America, far away from “civilization”. He is captured by a Sioux warriors party and kept by its chief as a horse. In this quality the chief gift him to his mother.
A hard apprenticeship starts for the Englishman, step by step he rises himself from “horse” to warrior to leader. Along with his hardships he comes to understand, admire and adopt this culture so different to his own but full of human values.
Harris performs his part with deep conviction and is one of the best of his career. The rest of the cast is of multinational extraction: Manu Tupou fleshing Chief Yellowhand is Fijian, Judith Anderson, his mother is a distinguished performer of Macbeth & Medea, Corinna Tsopei sister of the Chief and lover of the Englishman is Greek and Miss Universe 1964, Eddie Little Sky performs as Black Eagle, Iron Eyes Cody the Medicine Man was born Italian and later adopted Native American identity and married a Native American woman. Real Native Americans performs as Warriors.
Is this a drawback? Is it necessary to be Native American to flesh one? I don’t think so. We do not expect actual Romans to impersonate Emperors or Egyptians to pass as Pharaohs.
One of the other objections to the film is the atrocious pronunciation of the Lakota language, but this is only perceptible by very few. I’m used to hear horrible Spanish in American films and that does not irk me. The bottom-line is that the movie tries to show a realistic approach to the surroundings of a man thrown in an alien environment.
Even with its flaws this film moved me to admire and respect Native American culture and start reading and investigating on the subject.
A groundbreaking work from the earlier Seventies!!!!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
September 9, 2010
#2
Review by Steven Hellerstedt
Rating:
An English nobleman, visiting circa-1820 America, is kidnapped by a band of Sioux warriors. Before you can say `Lord Greystoke” John Morgan (Richard Harris) is adapting to the strange and savage savages, and integrating himself into their strange and savage culture. That adaptation, of course, ultimately results in Lord John having a pair of splinters driven deep under his chest muscles and getting hoisted high in the air by a rope attached to those splinters. After this initiation ceremony Horse/Lord John/Harris becomes a respected warrior in the tribe. The scene, gruesomely realistic when A MAN CALLED HORSE was released in 1970, still works pretty well today.
I recommend this movie with, no pun intended, reservations. Director Elliot Silverstein does a good job of presenting the story from Harris’s point of view. His initial capture and harsh treatment is appropriately exciting and unsettling. Harris is good in the physically demanding lead role, and conveys well the disorientation Lord John feels and his gradually increasing confidence in the hostile environment. And it’s always nice to have a movie pay attention to details when it takes place in a foreign and exotic location – in this case a Sioux tribe in the early decades of the 19th century. The small stuff, as far as I can tell, is accurately related.
On the other hand, the `Tarzan factor’ always has to be taken into account. White English nobleman travels to the colony, is kidnapped by the `natives’ and, through inherent superiority, rises to a position of power and prestige in the foreign environment. At least A MAN CALLED HORSE treats the Sioux with interest and respect, and even has a few Native Americans, most notably Eddie Little Sky, among the cast. Well, Iron Eyes Cody, the `Crying Indian’ some of us may remember from anti-pollution television commercials of the `70s, has a part in it too. But I’ve just learned, to my surprise, that Iron Eyes Cody was a second-generation, full blooded Italian from Louisiana whose real name was Espera DeCorti. Who’da thunk? Yellow Hand, the chief who claims initial ownership of Horse, is played by Manu Tupou (Fiji Islands.) Running Deer, Horse’s eventual love interest, is played by Corinna Tsopei, Miss Greece 1964. Perhaps the most intriguing bit of casting is the actress who plays Yellow Hand’s mother and Horse’s opening day tormenter, Buffalo Cow Head – beneath the brown grease paint and buckskin robe it’s no other than the redoubtable Dame Judith Anderson.
A MAN CALLED HORSE was followed, a half decade or so later, by RETURN OF A MAN CALLED HORSE. I haven’t seen the second one but enjoyed the first well enough to bury it deep in a rental queue.
September 9, 2010
#3
Review by Cory D. Slipman
Rating:
Richard Harris stars as John Morgan a privileged but bored English nobleman hunting in the Northwest in the 1820′s. He is captured and his party slain by a band of Sioux Indians. Brought back to their village he is presented to the aged mother of the chief, Buffalo Cow Head played by Dame Judith Anderson. He is degraded, dehumanized and must serve as the old lady’s slave.
“A Man Called Horse” was extensively researched as to the lifestyle among the Sioux at this time and portrayed in beautifully photographed and acted out fashion. Harris gradually embraces the way of the Sioux and is schooled by another prisoner Batiste, a half Indian and half Frenchman who acts as his interpreter.
Harris falls in love with the sister of the chief, Running Deer played by the gorgeous raven haired Corinna Tsopei, a former Miss Universe from Greece. The chief, Yellow Hand played by Manu Tupou will not approve of their marriage until Harris undergoes the Sun Vow, a harsh, hurtful ceremony to prove his bravery.
Filmed in both Mexico and South Dakota with a large native American supporting cast, the movie goes on to effectively portray the tragedy that follows Harris and the Sioux tribe as they struggle for survival in the competitive environment they populated back in those days.
September 9, 2010
#4
Review by Tasunke Hakte
Rating:
Okay, so here I am at my home on the Pine Ridge Reservation, watching “A Man Called Horse” for the first time with a bunch of friends. They are Native (Lakota “Sioux” and a Navajo), I am not, but I seem to be the one elected to write the review so here goes.
Where to start? To the people who say that this was such a leap forward in the representation of Indian people, I really have to wonder exactly what their familiarity with Indians is and where it comes from. Books? Catlin paintings? First of all the speaking of the Lakota language was atrocious. The far-flung actors can be forgiven for their unfamiliarity with a relatively obscure language, but they could barely have been worse. Lakota is a beautiful language, and it is really not that difficult to get the gutteral and nasal sounds at least passably well-pronounced (it was far less painful to listen to the actors in Dances with Wolves). These people, though, seemed bent on making it sound like Hollywood-Indian language at its worst.
Although the film purports to have done a lot of research on the subject of the “Yellow Hand Sioux,” whoever they may be, it manages to evoke every thinkable American stereotype about Native peoples. They are alternately dirty primitives, noble savages, romanticized sexpots (Miss Universe’s slinky character), ignorant people waiting for a white person to come lead them and educate them, etc. It is true that the film manages to get some things right. During what I felt to be the most appalling and offensive scene, for example, the singers were singing an actual Sundance piercing song, one that is still sung commonly at ceremonies today. And yet the entire _emphasis_ of the movie, the whole tone of it, was problematic. Was this movie shown to Native audiences for their feedback? I am sure that even back in 1970, Native people would have demanded a less caricatured portrayal of their ancestors. In fact, with the Indian rights movement coming into full swing at that time, it seems like their must have been a lot of outcry over this film, but I can’t say for sure.
Now about that Sundance scene. So yes, the Sundance was and is a major – some would say THE major – Lakota ceremony. But it was NOT used as a ritual to prove one’s manhood or endurance as Hollywood and American popular culture would have everyone believe. It is done in a spirit of extreme prayer and humility. I have been to Sundances and many of my friends take part in this sacred act. To see this ceremony perverted and twisted in this movie was frankly infuriating. If a bunch of moviemakers wanted to show an exceedingly sacred ritual – and one which was banned by the U.S. government for decades (at least the movie gives a token mention to this fact) – they could have at least done it with a little more accuracy.
I could go on and on but am limited to a thousand words, so I had better just leave it at that. Well one more thing. This movie was one in a long line of movies that never (to my observation) showed Indians cracking a smile. At least Kevin Costner realized that Natives are some of the funniest and most good-natured people in the world and was able to put some of that in his film. His Lakota weren’t just going from wardance to warpath to whooping and screaming and whatever else the Indians of “A Man Called Horse” spent their time doing.
I should say that I do not think that Dances with Wolves was the pinnacle of movies dealing with Native Americans – far from it. I do think that more recent movies like Smoke Signals and the soon-to-be-released “Skins” are major steps forward – showing Indian people from their OWN perspective. Surely they will be able to do better than this film. It is just the same old story with the wording slightly changed.
PS – If you are really interested in Lakota culture/society at roughly the time this film took place, I recommend the book Waterlily. Ella Deloria (the author) was not only a Native (Nakota) woman herself, but also a very distinguished and erudite ethnologist. The portrait she paints is far more respectful and, I would argue, more accurate.
September 9, 2010
#5
Review by
Rating:
RE: A note to those confused about “white” men becoming Indian chiefs . . . so frustrating it is when some people criticize that which they clearly know nothing of.The following is from the back cover of a book depicting a true story. The book is called BLUE JACKET by Allan W. Eckert, Landfall Press, Inc., Dayton, Ohio, Copyright 1969 by Allan W. Eckert:”In the year 1771, a white boy named Marmaduke Van Swearingen was captured by Shawnee Indians in what is now West Virginia but was then the edge of the American frontier. Impressed with his bravery, he was not killed but instead was taken to Ohio where he was adopted into the tribe and given the name Blue Jacket, from the blue shirt he was wearing at the time of his capture. The boy grew to excel as a warrior and leader and became the only white to be made war cheif of the Shawnee.”So famous is this story that every summer in Xenia, Ohio, very near where many of the noteworthy historical exents depicted in this book actually took place, the story of BLUE JACKET is performed live on stage in an ampitheatre in the form of classic outdoor drama.Good people, don’t allow the ignorance of others to mislead you into their conclusions. Indeed, this film is highly entertaining whether it is well-researched or not; and it does stand upon its own merit against the test of time whether or not some people who write negative rewiews of this film have well-researched this film and the validity of its subject matter or not. My opinion is to hand controversy over to the controversial; and instead allow for the art of filmmaking to color your own, personal take on this movie as you experience this film and all it means to you instead of what it means to others; for far more colorful and enjoyable this film will be when taken in the context in which it was clearly intended to be, and that is the study of a man who is desperately struggling to uncover his own personal values, and then discover what to do with them. Richard Harris delivers a soulful and well-rounded performance that, if missed, would surely be unfortunate. Yes indeed, five stars for A MAN CALLED HORSE.