Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 155: Mon Jun 5

Little Big Man (Penn, 1970): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.10pm


This screening is part of the Dustin Hoffman season and you can find all the details of the season here. This film is also being shown on June 11th and 30th. Full details here.

Time Out film review:
Arthur Penn's adaptation of Thomas Berger's novel is an epic post-Western that sets out to demythologise its subject-matter through the eyes of Jack Crabb (Hoffman), either a 121-year-old hero who's seen it all or a phenomenal liar. Ambiguity, both towards fact and character, is the keynote, as Hoffman's protagonist is orphaned, adopted by Indians, returned to the whites as a conman, and finally acclaimed as the sole white survivor of Custer's downfall at Little Big Horn. It's a shaggy, picaresque tale, laden with off-beat but pertinent observations as Crabb exchanges cultures and bears witness to the white man's genocidal treatment of 'the human beings'. Parallels with Vietnam naturally abound, but finally it's a wryly ironic rewriting of American history that makes up for its occasionally facile debunking of heroic targets by means of vivid direction and effortless performances. Funny, humane, and a work of brave intelligence.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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