Page 75 - Cinematic Thinking Philosophical Approaches to the New Cinema

Robert Altman 65

tor of the narrative, abandoning its density for the exclusive benefit of its
functionality). 33
In contrast, certain directors (Amiel singles out Keaton, Bresson, and
Cassavetes) use the body differently. Its comportment is not an "instru-
.
ment . . au service d'articulations narratives" (instrument in the service
of narrative articulations) 34 but rather the primary vehicle for producing
what is to be known. In some contemporary films (and here Buffalo Bill
is an exemplar), "the cinematographic body is no longer an object of film
or knowledge; rather it is a model of knowledge via editing. . . . [It is]
simultaneously that which is filmed and that which (re) organizes the film
in the mind / body of the spectator . . . [becoming the] source rather than
the object of cinema." 35
The "knowledge" to which Amiel refers requires a distinctive frame.
In the case of Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull's body supplies a history lesson
by effectively subverting the image that the show is trying to construct
(exemplified in Salisbury's opening soliloquy). The Wild West show's at-
tempt to turn history into both entertainment and a Euro-American vin-
dication, through the construction of a blood-thirsty savage to be bested
by Buffalo Bill in the ring, is belied by the dignified body of Sitting Bull.
First, Sitting Bull's inflated reputation as a savage killer is supposed to be
reflected in his size. As he and his entourage ride in when he first joins the
show company, his very large associate, William Halsey, is mistaken for
him. Sitting Bull turns out to be quite diminutive. Then as he rides into
the ring for his appearance in the drama of Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull,
as a silent and simply adorned old man, with a dignity and wisdom in his
carriage that radically transcends the "show" in which he is displayed, has
a dramatic effect on the audience. Their initial jeers turn to applause, for
he has managed to move out of the antagonistic role to which the show
has assigned him.
On another level silence is the historical role to which Native Ameri-
cans have been consigned in Euro-America's dominant Indian imaginary.
The stoic and inarticulate Indian, an image perpetuated in novels, paint-
ings, and films, was part of a construction of the civilizational superior-
ity that helped justify encroachment into Indian territories. In Altman's
Buffalo Bill the "silence of the Indians" is portrayed as a function of white
inattention to their words. While Sitting Bull's silent dignity during the
staged invention of an alternative Little Big Horn engagement in the show
subverts one narrative, that of the violent blood-thirsty savage, his silence