Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill Cody is the prototype of the American superstar. Capitalizing on the American penchant for turning history into myth almost as fast as it is made, Bill (played by Paul Newman) turns the myth into a sideshow. Among the celebrities recruited for the famous Wild West Show, which began in 1883, are Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) and Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts), now a political prisoner brought in by an Indian agent. (The action of the film takes place between 1885, when Sitting Bull joined the Wild West Show, and 1890, when he was killed.) Just as Buffalo-Bill-the-hero is created by dime-novel writer Ned Buntline (Burt Lancaster), and the Wild West spectacle aided by Bill's eager partner (Joel Grey), who intends to “Cody-fy the world,” Sitting Bull's ambiguous silence is translated into political rhetoric by his interpreter (played by Will Sampson, who played Chief Bromden in One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
Bill's character is continually self-reflexive, as is the film itself, which packs plenty of entertainment but, like other Altman films, not in the usual climactic way. (JB)