The film is a real disappointment in many ways, notably in Ford's inability or unwillingness to seriously challenge the generic conventions and formulae of the Hollywood western and its portrayal of Native Americans. I do not mean to say that all of these conventions are bad per se. But in this instance -- a film aimed at righting wrongs with respect to the "Hollywood Indian" not only in Ford's earlier cavalry films but in western films in general -- adherence to these conventions seems to have hamstrung the effort, not to mention the lack of inspiration and imagination displayed in the film, for which more violation of convention might have been the antidote. Of course Ford was working under the studio system, and even the greatest Hollywood directors turned out a disappointing film every now and then. I don't want my comments to seem unfair to Ford or unduly harsh. I love Ford at his best, but this film happens to have many flaws -- too many for me to try to discuss, so I'll focus my critique on the topic I stated at the outset.
I believe that Ford sincerely intended the film to be a chance to "show their [the Indians'] point of view for a change," as he said. Whether it succeeded is quite another matter. The film is certainly centered on the Indians, but that's hardly the same thing as being from their point of view. Like nearly every Indian-themed Hollywood film, the story is told overwhelmingly through the stories of white characters, in this case Widmark and numerous others who encounter the Cheyennes in some way and figure into their story for the period depicted in the film. Related to this, the first characters developed (and arguably those developed most fully) were white. The importance of these matters of voice and perspective are of broad significance, and all I can do here is touch upon it. What it meant for Cheyenne Autumn was an inability to move beyond stereotypical portrayals of native characters: the hostile warrior or the proud, noble savage.
The portrayals of some of the white characters are similarly two-dimensional. We are shown a push-and-pull between good whites (represented by Carroll Baker's schoolteacher) and evil whites, (represented by Karl Malden's character). It's interesting to rethink the schoolteacher's determination in teaching the Cheyenne English in light of what we've subsequently learned about the effects of American Indian residential schools, whose stated purpose was to wipe out Indian culture through assimilation. I'm not arguing that was the conscious intention of Baker's character, but there are related issues that merit consideration. Malden's ruthless German poses interesting cultural questions, too. Surely the Nazis were brought to audiences' minds by his accent and the fact that a huge portion of his lines had to do with how orders are orders, and orders must be carried out, and authority must be obeyed. I'm not sure whether this effectively provided viewers on some level an ideological link between fascism and 19th century U.S. ethnic cleansing, or whether it rather amounted to an unconscious transference of culpability within the film's narrative onto an enemy familiar to modern audiences. These questions are what make the film so interesting to me, despite its flaws.
Getting back to Cheyenne Autumn as a vehicle for neglected Native American culture and history, I observed a general feel of inauthenticity throughout it. Of course, some American Indian scholars object to the adherence to the conventional practice of casting non-native actors in every major native role. However, I don't blame Ford for this. He wanted to cast Navajo actors in the lead Cheyenne roles, but the studio forced him to use the big-name actors who appear in the film, or at least so McBride has it. There are also fundamental problems that come from conflating different indigenous cultures, as westerns including Ford's so often did. This is illustrated well by Tony Hillerman's novel Sacred Clowns in which Navajo people watch Cheyenne Autumn at a drive-in to laugh at the Navajo performances as Cheyenne and at the jokes and obscenities in their native language they smuggled into the film, ostensibly portraying the Cheyenne speaking their own language. (I haven't read this novel firsthand -- thanks to Douglas Pye for the reference).
Beyond this are more troubling instances of inauthenticity, which contribute to the film's inability to convincingly depict Cheyenne life, at the times in the film when there is even an opportunity for such an attempt to be made. Given the importance of the relationship between culture and environment, what could have motivated him to take events that occurred in the plains states and filmed them in Monument Valley? This is really just the tip of the iceberg. Comparing Mari Sandoz's great book (and other sources) with the film shows just how many crucial parts of the history were left out. I find the language of the opening credits fitting, which tells us that the film was "suggested by" Sandoz's novel. The film deviated from the book so severely that all that was left to connect the two was a mere suggestion. Perhaps if she had been brought on as a consultant the film might have not only been more historically accurate but would have felt more true-to-life.
I should state that this is but one example of my hesitations about the ways that substantive liberties are taken with cinematic treatments of historical subjects. The problem is that audiences are so easily fooled into thinking that such history-themed films are representations of reality. I do not propose to limit filmmakers' creative freedoms but I do think that a disclaimer should be shown before such films to spell out that what people are about to see is a work of fiction and that because many fundamental changes have been made in adapting the story from the actual events it should not be considered a work of history. On the contrary, many fictionalized historical films are actually passed off as works to learn from, with no discussion of the changes the filmmakers made to known historical facts, for example Spielberg's Amistad, which was sent to history classrooms across the country with suggested lesson plans from the studio. Cheyenne Autumn seems to have had some similar pretentions, judging from the "Cheyenne Autumn Trail" short (included on the DVD) which purported to narrate the history of the Cheyenne journey to their homeland, interspersed with clips from the film.
In the final analysis, what distinguishes this film is the perhaps that it signals the beginning of a change of emphasis from one stereotype (the vicious Indian warrior) to the other (the proud, doomed Indian). Aside from what Ford's personal wishes might have been, I think there is some irony in the studio's motivation to produce this. Remember the New York Globe editor's speech to his staff in the film. He throws down an assortment of the competitors' product and says,
EDITED for typos, grammar, etc.Take your pick. They're all saying the same things we're saying: bloodthirsty savages on the loose, burning, killing, violating beautiful white women. It's not news anymore. We're going to take a different tack. From now on we're going to grieve for the noble red man. We'll sell more papers that way.
