Little Big Man

The 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), last veteran of the American Indian War, is now in an old people’s home and tells a journalist the story of his life. Born white, he was raised by the Cheyenne and given the name Little Big Man; he experienced “civilization” in the form of the land grabs by the white men as a form of terror. In order to survive, Crabb went back and forth between the sides, tried his hand at different professions and classic Western roles, but neither as a sniper nor a trapper, neither as a cavalry man nor a Quaker, neither as a white man nor a Cheyenne did he find his place. LITTLE BIG MAN (Arthur Penn, USA 1970) creates a compendium of Western cliches and carries out an ironic reevaluation of the myth. The legends woven around historical figures like Wild Bill Hickok or George Armstrong Custer are dismantled. Custer is depicted as a brutal psychopath and his cavalry regiment’s attack on a Cheyenne camp at Washita River in 1868 as a massacre, which at the time the film was made was interpreted as a commentary on the Vietnam War and the My Lai massacre that had come to light shortly before. (Hans-Joachim Fetzer)