Celia
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
serafinogm
I've enjoyed Dustin Hoffman in many of his cinematic roles but none more than his multi-stage role in "Little Big Man". Hoffman morphed from one persona to another; Indian to gunfighter to Army scout to drunk, repeating some of those roles as the story progressed. One was given bit of a history lesson (genocide of the American Indians) in a vehicle that was both simultaneously comedic and horrific, absolutely one of the best Westerns I've ever seen (right up there with Jeremiah Johnson, Missouri Breaks, and Hombre). From time to time I revisit this film and I have the same reactions and same responses as I had the first time I saw it in the very early seventies. This movie has staying power and it will remain a cinematic classic for all time!
JT-Kirk
I can see why some folks won't like this film: it has a tone that is incredibly uneven, at different times diving deeply into very funny comedy and utterly tragic drama; it has an utterly unforgiving sense of violence and death; it doesn't pull any punches with the concept of the destruction of the Native Americans by the "white man"; and it's exceptionally long. If someone doesn't engage with the material on a strong level, they're going to feel every second dragging on them. Yet at two and a half hours, I found myself wanting a little more of the character's story, no matter how mundane or even more tragic it would become.Dustin Hoffman - even while donning heavy makeup, red-face, and a settler's accent - is incredibly engaging and mastering his craft with the zeal of a man knowing his own limits and stepping directly to them without hesitation. He embodies the comedy aspects with ease, yet never fully letting up of the layered nuance of the character within. And he's not alone, the majority of roles both big and small don't let the audience down, the director and the casting work on this film deliver a very complete story.The film's story is itself an interesting one, an aged man telling very personal tales of growing up on the frontier under incredibly challenging and varied circumstances, some of them historically famous. The character of Jack Crabb is a bit passive at times, observing the mania of the frontier from the perspective of both sides, having been born a white man but raised during puberty as a Cheyenne, then ping-ponging back and forth over and over between those worlds. Jack Crabb, also known as "Little Big Man", eventually comes to witness and suffer at the hands of George Custer, which becomes a greater and greater focus as the film shifts more of its focus from comedic to dramatic. Yet there's also a sense of letting go in this man's life, he has seen great and terrible things, he has had hope and hate, but he continues on. How he gets from the end of the story to his place at 121 years old is not told though, and that I would have liked to have seen at least a little of how he got from that life to the modern one, and what toll that took watching as the worlds he came from changed drastically around him. It might be easy to view Crabb's tale as a yarn spun by an old man wanting attention, there are elements lightly suggesting that possibility, yet Hoffman's acting tells a silent tale that maybe it's all real, and that right there is movie magic.Little Big Man isn't a movie that has only one character though, so throughout the story we meet characters once, twice, or many more times that all have their own story arcs, their own personalities -- some are for laughs, some are considerably more nuanced, and some are downright tragic. The film is rich with characters and consequences and flaws. Choosing to tell a story of the white man and the native man's interactions from a perspective that only very recently has become accepted is a strong choice and one that not every audience member can probably accept even today.The movie also sounds and looks great, shot on location in a wide format and filling each shot without overstuffing it. I'd like to say more, but the truth is that the production felt so right that it did its job perfectly - it told the story without being distracting. I also applaud the choice to have the Native American characters speak in their tongue but we hear English, this is after all a tale being told, not a cinematic attempt at an authentic recreation of Cheyenne life, otherwise half the film would be in another language and it just wouldn't have worked as well. This truly is a film of the '70s, having one foot in the cinematic movie-making of the past and the brutal honesty of that present.So while I think this movie was fantastic, I suppose I cannot recommend Little Big Man to everybody. It is a very good film and yet it will be a challenging film for some; it doesn't ask a lot of its audience but not every audience will be able to embrace the material. There are a lot of great performances including and beyond Dustin Hoffman, and production is rock solid, yet it doesn't quite fit in the world of comedy or drama, and Little Big Man runs too long for the impatient. But the rewards for those who find this film are significant.
ducatimatz28
I remember very well Little big man being shot here in July 1969.Hoffman rented a house from a prominent local doctor.Went out one evening to where they were shooting and got a first hand look at why these Big Budget Movies cost so much to shoot,One scene that's in the movie that lasts about 8 seconds took over 4 hrs to get right.Veteran Stuntman Loren Janes and J,N.Roberts came over to our Motorcycle Dealership one evening and showed behind the scenes footage of Jane's stuntwork on movies like "How the west was Won" and Nevada Smith. He stunt doubled for Steve McQueen in almost all his Films.Movie was good but I thought it was too long needed some cutting.One local resident here that was a wagon driver had numerous scenes and thought he was going to have a good amount of screen time. Every scene he was in ended up on the cutting room floor. He was pretty devastated to say the least..s.m.
canoebeyond
One of the great movies of all time. Sensitive, funny: looks at the old west with a different and more honest perspective. Did I say highly amusing? This movie covers the lifetime of the main character, played by Hoffman and covers many phases of both his life and the opening of the west: from sod buster to gambler to Indian wars. This is a movies that can be watched repeatedly and you'll find something new every time.An acting tour de force for Hoffman. Chief Dan George is marvelous as are many others. You'll laugh a lot and probably cry a little too.Watch it if you haven't. Watch it again if you have.
