A Man Called Horse

Description

Product Description 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 and falls in love with the chief's sister. But before he can be accepted with honor as an equal member of the tribe, he must endure the Sun Vow-a savage ritual far beyond the realm of anything dreamed of in the civilized world. Actor/Actors: Dame Judith Anderson, Richard Harris 115 minutes 1970 Original Language: English Additional Language(s): French Subtitles Available: English. .com 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