A MAN CALLED HORSE
US/UK, 1970, 123 minutes, Colour.
Richard Harris, Judith Anderson.
Directed by Elliot Silverstein.
A Man Called Horse is a Western about Indians. It shows a great deal of Indian village life, the behind-the-scenes, so to speak, of the average Western. The Indian is not shown to be a noble savage and few would regret the passing of many details of the way of life, especially the dirt, the harshness, the barbaric rites of mourning and the fearful endurance of the suffering by those who become warriors. The film is of great interest in its pictorial presentation of this life.
The Englishman in the West learns friendship, love, endurance, and suffering. As he leaves at the end of the film, we know that, despite his basic lack of sympathy for such a way of life, he has learned something of the meaning of what it is to be a man from them.
Richard Harris is himself as the lord. Judith Anderson grunts and asserts herself as the chief's mother. The film is not for the squeamish on account of the torture scenes.
1. What characteristics of an ordinary Western has this film? Was it better or worse than an ordinary western? Why?
2. How did the early scenes of Sir John hunting and talking about his past life fill in necessary detail for the story as well as for the theme of the film - especially his -unsatisfied search for some meaning in life and the contrast of civilised English ways with the vastness and barbaric harshness of the West?
3. How was the white man humiliated as well as tortured - nakedness, being dragged along the ground, treated as a pack-horse?
4. What did the film show of day-to-day Indian life? How easy and pleasant were their ways? How harsh and -unattractive? e.g. food, shelter, cold, communication, etc?
5. Once he had begun to understand the chief and love his sister why did John not try to escape? Why did he tell the Canadian that in five years the Canadian had learnt nothing?
6. What impression did the initiation rites make on you? What did such endurance prove? Were these rites too cruel and inhuman? The film stated that the U.S. Government banned these rites - were they justified in doing so?
7. Why did John assume leadership of the Indians? Was it merely that he was a friend of the dead chief and had married his sister, or that he lined up the Indian archers to repel the attackers?
8. The old squaw - was she merely for comic relief? Comment on the Indian way of chopping off limbs in mourning.
9. Was John correct in leaving the Indians? Was there any future there for him? He had learnt to love. Had he learnt anything else? Had he changed? Had he found any of the answers to the questions of search he spoke of at the beginning of the film?
