Insofar as the Native characters speaking English, you really have to appreciate this film in the context of the time in which it was made. In 1970, Hollywood was just coming out of the era in which all Natives were portrayed as savages, usually played by white actors in bad wigs. For its time, this film broke a surprising amount of ground (even though, granted, we still have some white actors in bad wigs). However, the film's sympathetic and for the most part realistic portrayal of Cheyenne life was groundbreaking for the time.
(Ever hear of the old saying, one must take small steps before one can run? This film was actually taking some rather large strides!).
The general consensus in 1970 Hollywood would have been that no audiences would be willing to sit through a two-and-a-half hour film with Cheyenne dialect and subtitles. Of course, history has since proven this mode of thinking wrong, with films like Dances With Wolves and Apocalypto proving that audiences will not only tolerate a subtitled film, but will turn out in droves at the box office). But that being said, it's still a risk, and even today, there are people who will refuse to see a film that is subtitled. The notion in 1970 would have been practically unthinkable.
What the film is really expecting of us is that we suspend our belief and assume that the Native characters are speaking in Cheyenne. I personally find this far more distracting than reading subtitles, but again, the practice of using subtitles was just not a generally done practice at this time.
Funny thing is, I had just watched this film with my sister over the holidays and I made practically the same comment: If you can ignore the fact that all the Indians speak English, it's a great film.
Personally, I thought Dustin Hoffman was great. But everyone is entitled to their opinion, I suppose.
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dalback.maria
18 years ago
I loved the film, even my son and he is 14. One of the reasons why it was such a great film is that it was done with a blink. You can see that through the whole film.
If you want to see a serious film about the Cheyenne and what was done to them watch "Soldier Blue", there you have a piece of real US history.
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jbwilm
18 years ago
why is the film scored so highly? Because it's a great film. Forest for the trees huh?
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nick7dawg
18 years ago
It was a good and entertaining comedy but never a great movie.
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Paul_Jay
17 years ago
"In 1970, Hollywood was just coming out of the era in which all Natives were portrayed as savages, usually played by white actors in bad wigs."
Perhaps you refer to so many "B" movies, however, there were number of "good" movies made well before the 70's that portrayed Native Americans as intelligent, reasoning individuals.
True, many were played by actors that were not Native Americans, but they were not necessarily "white" men and they didn't wear bad wigs.
This is a link to a list of Hollywood-type movies that, "to various extents present Native Americans; some films provide a respectful image of the Native American, some less so." http://www.americanwest.com/pages/namovies.htm
Perhaps, prior to the 70's, we were not as "enlightened" or "politically correct" as people are today, but that doesn't mean we weren't aware of the fact that Native American's were civilized human beings.
“That may be true, but it is also irrelevant.”
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curtin-dobbs
10 years ago
I have mixed feelings about characters speaking their authentic languages. For me, personally, I would prefer character's language with subtitles. Or, everybody speaks articulate English, instead of broken English w/ an accent. One of the world's most sophisticated directors, Phil Kaufman, when he made THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, had his Czechoslovakian characters speak English with a slight Czech accent. It worked for that movie, but then, you're talkin' Daniel Day Lewis and other top notch actors. Mostly, it ends up being much ado about not much; when the film is released overseas, 95% of the time it'll be in a dubbed version.
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lfdow-1
8 years ago
The reason I don't like subtitles is that they never get the nuance or the complexity of the original language. It's just impossible to translate 2,3 or 4 sentences into a short phrase or two. In this case, using English allows those of us who don't speak the native Indian language - which is almost everyone watching this great movie - to get everything the characters are saying, and implying. I think it's the best possible compromise. I also like that the dialogue used mostly colloquial English, just as the Indians would have used colloquial Cheyenne instead of the stilted, broken English usually used for Indians during this period. BTW, I didn't understand that the movie implied the Indians were speaking English but that the MOVIE used English so we could understand what they were saying. I've always liked this flick a lot. I don't think it's Hoffman's best by far, but I do think overall that even at 7.7 it's an underrated film.
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