Little Big Man (film)

121-year-old Jack Crabbe ( Dustin Hoffman ) tells a curious historian about his life.

Young Jack and his older sister Caroline manage to survive after the reprisal of their convoy, inflicted by the Pawnee tribe. They are found by the Cheyenne warrior and taken to his village. At night, Carolina runs away from there, but Jack remains - and grows up under the auspices of the leader of the Old Wigwam Skins (leader Dan George ). His life is perfect, although he makes his own enemy in the form of a peer nicknamed the Young Bear. Jack is nicknamed Little Big Man for his small stature and masculinity. During one battle, Jack is captured by the American cavalry and thereby returns to the white people. He is taken under his guardianship by the Rev. Pendrake and his wife Louise ( Fay Dunaway ). Soon, Jack became interested in Louise, but he could not connect her piety and piety, on the one hand, and her lasciviousness and hypocrisy, on the other, and left their house.

Jack becomes an assistant to the rogue merchant Merriweather ( Martin Bolsam ). Together, they trick people into playing shows and convincing them to buy supposedly healing products. When a crowd arrives one evening to reprise them, Jack recognizes his sister Caroline in one of those who came and reunites with her. Carolina, in her image, is trying to make a shooter out of him - and it turns out that he shoots great. He becomes a respected person. One day he meets Wild Bill Hickock , who is imbued with sympathy for the young man. When Hickock kills a man for self-defense, Jack suddenly becomes disillusioned with the shooting, which is why Carolina leaves him.

Jack decides to open a store and marries a Swedish woman named Olga. However, it soon becomes clear that Jack’s business partner is a thief, and he has to close the deal. Colonel George Armstrong Custer ( Richard Mulligan ), who happened to be nearby, invites the couple to start life anew in the west. Jack agrees, but during the trip their stagecoach is attacked by the Cheyenne and Olga is kidnapped. In vain attempts to track down Olga, he reunites with the leader of the Old Wigwam Skins, who is very happy about Jack's return to the tribe. He learns that Young Bear has become a warrior who does the opposite. After a short stay with the tribe, Jack returns to search for Olga.

Hoping to obtain information about the whereabouts of Olga, he enters the Custer cavalry regiment. Jack takes part in the battle against the Cheyenne. When soldiers begin to exterminate women and children, Jack becomes furious and attacks the soldiers. In a nearby forest, Jack catches a Cheyenne woman, nicknamed Sunshine , who gives birth to a baby. He saves Joy from the soldiers and returns to the leader's tribe of the Old Skins of the Wigwam. Joy becomes his wife and gives birth to his son. Jack meets the Young Bear, who has again changed his lifestyle: he no longer does the opposite, he is now the henpecked husband of Jack's ex-wife. Olga does not immediately recognize Jack, and Jack makes no attempt to remind her of their past.

One winter, Custer's regiment suddenly attacks a Cheyenne camp on the Washita River . Jack manages to save the blind and aged leader Old Wigwam Skins, but the soldiers kill Joy with the child, as well as her three sisters, who lived with Jack. Jack manages to infiltrate General Custer's entourage to avenge him. However, when he arrives at the general’s tent in the evening with a knife, he realizes that he cannot do this, which is why he is ridiculed by the general, who leaves him with his “miserable life”. A broken Jack becomes an urban drunkard. One day, Wild Bill Hickock runs into him and gives Jack money to bring himself into a human form. When Jack returns to the bar, Hikoka is killed, and before his death, he asks Jack to fulfill his desire: to help the widow with whom he had an affair. Jack goes to the widow, a prostitute, and discovers that this is Mrs. Louise Pendrake. Jack gives Louise money to start a new life in Washington .

Jack becomes a hermit hunter. One day he finds his trap with a bawed wolf paw in it, and "something turns over in it." He decides to commit suicide. Standing on a rock, he prepares to jump when he suddenly hears weak music from General Custer's marching troops. Jack decides to take revenge on him, but does not yet know how to do it. Caster accepts Jack as a scout, hoping that everything he says will be a lie, and thus the general will have to do the opposite. Jack leads the troops into a trap on Little Bighorn . Before the attack, Jack sincerely tells Custer his opinion that his troops will be defeated. However, Custer does not believe him and sends his soldiers to death. During a fierce battle, Caster decides to kill Jack and points his gun at him, but does not have time to shoot, because he himself is killed. It makes a Young Bear. He picks up the wounded, unconscious Jack and takes him to the leader of the Old Wigwam Skins.

When Jack comes to his senses, he finds out that the leader decides to die. He accompanies the old man to the hill, where he makes a dying speech and lies down, ready for death. However, death does not come to the old leader. Instead, it begins to rain. The leader sighs and says: “Sometimes magic works, and sometimes not,” and they go back to the wigwam to eat.

Old Jack Crabbe suddenly interrupts his story and tells the historian to get out. The film ends with an image of how Jack looks sadly into the void.

• Dustin Hoffman - Jack Crabb
• Faye Dunaway - Mrs. Pendrake
• Martin Balsam - Mr. Merriweather
• Dan George - Chief Old Wigwam Skins
• Richard Mulligan - General George Armstrong Custer
• Jeff Corey - Wild Bill Hickock
• Eme Ackles - Joy
• Kelly Gene Peters - Olga Crabb
• Carol Androsky - Carolina Crabb
• William Hickey - Historian

“Little Big Man” is considered one of the revolutionary films in the history of Western, offering a picture of the relationship between Indians and whites, which was very different from the existing canons of the genre. According to film expert Elena Kartseva,

“Destroying the western in its previous incarnation, he (Arthur Penn) does not kill the genre at all, but only radically changes his view of the same material, the same set of adventures, the same situations, and gives him a new hero. Naturally, the fulfillment of such a difficult task inevitably leads Penn to exaggerate the social background and social characteristics, to an acute grotesque , and finally, to a parody. ”

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Unusual was the detailed showing of the Indians' life, the story of their moral principles and the large number of prominent roles played by Native Americans, in contrast to traditional westerns, where the Indians played mainly the function of impersonal villains, shading the courage and courage of John Wayne's heroes. In turn, the interpretation of the actions of the American cavalry and the caricatured image of General Custer, shown as an arrogant and glorious obsessed officer, abruptly fell out of tradition and, apparently, were inspired by the disappointment of the Vietnam War . ^{[2] [3]}

A number of comedic episodes mimic the religious and moral values ​​of Western society (the "training" of the hero under the direction of the dissolute Mrs. Pendrake, the sale of the "healing remedy" and others). ^[2]

In order to play the ancient old man, Dustin Hoffman spent five hours in the make-up chair, and to portray a suitable, "creaky" old man's voice, he screamed heartbreakingly in his dressing room for an hour.

• 1971 - special mention of FIPRESCI at the Moscow Film Festival (Arthur Penn)
• 1971 - National Film Critics Society Award, USA, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Chief Dan George)
• 1971 - Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Leader Dan George)
• 1971 - Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Chief Dan George)
• 1971 - Nominated for the US Scriptwriters Guild Award for Best Adapted Drama (Calder Willingham)
• 1972 - three BAFTA nominations : Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Best Music (John Hammond) and UN Award

• Little Big Man on the Internet Movie Database
• Little Big Man on allmovie