Regular Price $14.98

Starring: Richard Harris,  Judith Anderson,  Jean Gascon,  Manu Tupou,  Corinna Tsopei, 
Directed By: Elliot Silverstein, 
Rated: R (Restricted)
Release Date: 1970-05
Studio: Paramount
Format: Anamorphic,  Closed-captioned,  Color,  Dolby,  DVD-Video,  Widescreen,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about A Man Called Horse

Product Description
A carefully documented epic that attempted to realistically portray the life of american sioux in the early 19th century. When an english lord is captured by a sioux indian tribe he is given to the chiefs aging mother as a servant. Gradually he embraces the tribes way of life. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 01/27/2004 Starring: Richard Harris Manu Tupou Run time: 114 minutes Rating: R

Amazon.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

Customer Reviews for A Man Called Horse

my interest is the american indian
this dvd is for my personel interest in the life of the american indian and in my opinion gives a good exampleA Man Called Horse

If you're into factual Indian Culture, stay away.
This is another wreck of Indian ways and culture told by Hollywood story tellers, who had no idea what an Indian really was. If you look at the fact that Sioux Indians were in the North West, then why did his companion, who spoke French, was the way of Indians in the lower East of America.
Besides that, why did Harris's character, who after living with the Indians for so long, never bothered to even learn their language. At one point, he is teaching his new wife english...how sad. But, that's Hollywood, and this is an exploitation Hollywood-style, of the true and authentic Indian Cultures.
Terrible acting, sound and editing, stay away from this one. You'll be glad you did.A Man Called Horse

Silverstein's camera captures beautifully the expansive outdoor of the Sioux way of life and their rituals...
The story begins with a British aristocrat named John Morgan who finds himself captured by Sioux warriors... At first he's mocked and treated like an animal and then he's dragged to their camp where he is given to work for an old squaw (Judith Anderson).

Before too long the 'grand white gentleman' up with another captive Batise (Jean Gascon) whose family was all massacred five years ago by the Indians acts as translator for Morgan... One day after killing two Shoshone Indians from another tribe and scalping one of them, John gains trust and respect from his captives thus paving the way to be soon a warrior, then a loving husband...

The film's centerpiece is the Sun Vow that Morgan must bear to prove his courage to withstand all tests of pain in order to gain the hand of Running Dear (Corinna Tsopei) sister of Chief Yellow Hand (Manu Tupou). As the English nobleman is white, he is considered weak and he'll give up in the moment of truth...

There are also other truly memorable moments in the film: how the Indian virgin prepares herself for marriage--how she takes her sweat bath to be pure; and the tragic events when an Indian mother loses and has no other son or man, how she cuts off her forefinger and when winter comes she dies from the freezing cold...A Man Called Horse

A first in empathy for Sioux Indians
It is one of the rare films about American Indians that is not at all concerned by their extermination by Custer and company. But it is in fact a lot deeper than that. It shows from inside the functioning, the culture, the rites and rituals of Sioux Indians when a white English Lord is captured and turned into a slave for some time. It shows how he manages to become a warrior by killing two Shoshone assailants. Then he marries the sister of the chief and eventually becomes the chief after a war with the Shoshones who attack the village that he defends successfully. And then they move. It shows how hard they are with old women when their sons have disappeared. It shows how hard they are with their warriors who have to go through very cruel rites. Pain is the deliverer of the soul. It shows the basic motivation of wars between tribes: to loot the others, in other words to survive by doing nothing productive but appropriating what is not theirs but the others'. It could be considered as light anthropologically but when it came out in 1970 it was a real revolution in the sympathy and empathy it conveyed about the Indians, but also about the fact that cruelty and pain were never looked for per se but always to prove the courage and the strength of the person. In other words it is the proof that Sioux Indians had a high level of morality based on proved physical endurance and courage. It also proved that love was a real dimension among them governing the relations among fellow human beings in the tribe and between men and women, though their love was not necessarily expressed the way we would romantically adorn it.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
A Man Called Horse

History of Native American Life
Being a history teacher, I needed a movie that would depict realistic Native American life for a Texas history unit. I remembered this movie
from my youth and what an impact it made on the nation. My students are not exposed to those great epic movies of yesterday. This film is an accurate accounting of everyday village life of the Sioux. It truly is a
historical classic with superb acting from Richard Harris and others. It is a must see and one for our children to view in their studies of Native Americans.A Man Called Horse