son—we’re white, after all, but howrnmany of us were Indian fighters or evenrnbuffalo hunters, or how many of ourrngrandparents or great-grandparents? Werncan send out waves of love, maybe, andrnuphold the banner of the Sioux—exceptrnthat, one, they didn’t have banners; two,rnthe Pawnees hated them, and virtuallyrnevery tribe thought that every other tribernwas scum, which is why Native Americansrnhate to be categorized together evenrnas noble victims; and three, they weren’trnsuch ecological exemplars after all, butrnwould run whole herds of buffalo over arncliff because they thought it was funny!rnRobert Aldrich has not had one ofrnthose revered Hollywood careers. He is arnjourneyman director whose best workrnwas either The Dirty Dozen or, if yourrntaste runs this way, Hush … Hush, SweetrnCharlotte. He has also made some eminentrnturkeys. One of the great hoots ofrnall time, in fact, was his Sodom andrnGomorrah, from which 1 remember thernimposing Anouk Aimee holding out herrnbejewelled arms and calling for thernattention of her subjects in an unforgettablernsalutation: “Hebrews and Sodomites!”rnThere was more to the speech,rnbut the queen’s words never carrvrnthrough the gales of the audience’srnlaughter. Ulzana’s Raid, though lessrnwell-known, is probably Aldrieh’s masterpiece,rnwith an intelligent script byrnAlan Sharp and one of Burt Lancaster’srnvery best performances as Mr. Mcintosh,rnM»o^v«i«N«c;?rnLET u s KNOWrnBEFORE YOU GO!rnTo assure uninterrupted delivery ofrnCHRONICLES please notify us inrnadvance. Send change of address on thisrnform with the mailing label from yourrnlatest issue of CHRONICLES to:rnSubscription DepartmentrnCHRONICLESrnRO. Box 800rnMount Morris, Illinois 61054rnADDRESSrnthe guide who goes along with the greenrnLieutenant DeBuin (Bruce Davison)rnwho has just come out from Philadelphia.rnThere are lots of similarities betweenrnthe two films. In a way, each is the storyrnof what its lieutenant learns. Costner’srnofficer discovers the p.c. truth thatrnIndians are finer, truer, nobler humanrnbeings than whites, and he marries StandrnWith Fist and, in the end, goes native.rnDavison’s lieutenant comes out to seernwhether one can be a Christian and arnsoldier at the same time, and what hernlearns, under Mcintosh’s tutelage, is thatrnthis is hard country and the Apaches arernhard people. There’s no more sense,rnthough, as Mcintosh explains, in hatingrnthem “than there is in hating the desertrnbecause there isn’t any water in it.” Butrnyou do have to know what vou’re uprnagainst.rnIn other words, Indians are not reallyrnthe subject of this film. What Sharprnand Aldrich are getting at is larger andrnmore interesting—truth, reality, and thernduties and constraints of an honorablernlife in a dark and disagreeable world.rnWhen the Apaches talk, they speak inrnApache but without the subtitles Costnerrngives his Sioux. The effect inrnAldrieh’s movie is to distance the Indians,rnto make them mysterious, whichrnworks dramatically because that mysteryrnis what the young lieutenant has to unravel.rnWe are told very eariy on aboutrnthe philosophical resonance of whatrnwe’re watching, when Latrcaster tells thernmajor at the fort, “I’ve seen war partiesrncome in all sizes—the kind with a hundredrnbraves and the kind with one.”rnThat is not an easy line to deliverrnconvincinglv, but Lancaster’s familiarrnweathered look and his peculiarly athleticrnslouch make it good. The majorrnsays he’ll send out a detail as soon as hernknows the number and the probable intentionrnof the war party. Lancaster looksrnup from his coffee mug to let a littlernsanity back into the conversation, “Theirrnprobable intention is to burn, maim, torture,rnrape, and murder, Charlie.”rnSo the detail goes out, to try to roundrnup Ulzana and his renegades. And werncut back and forth between scenes ofrnmayhem, in which the AjDaches torturernand kill the settlers in the Arizona bleakness,rnand scenes of the cavalrymen closingrnin. There are very few of what advertisingrnagencies call “beauty shots” ofrnWestern scenery, which slow down thernpace of Dances With Wolves. The pointrnhere is that this is not an earthly paradise.rnIt is, on the contrary, hard, ruggedrncountry (Arizona and Nevada, mostly)rnwith an arid beauty that isn’t so immediatelyrnforthcoming. The Indians, too,rnare complicated, acting, as we learn, onrnthe very foreign but not at all contemptiblernnotion that if you kill a man,rnyou take his power—and if you kill himrnslowly and inflict a great deal of pain,rnyou get more of that power. There isn’trnany ethnicity in the direction of thernApaches’ hatred. It’s just what they believernand how they behave—which mavrnor may not be historically correct butrnwhich allows for an elegant existentialrnlevel of drama. The Western, after all, isrnour version of Greek tragedy, and thernsubject of the Western is always the closingrnof the frontier, which is to say thernlimitations of freedom. Culture and anarchy,rncivilization and its discontents,rnthe measure and value of a human life—rnwhich a man can only keep by beingrnwilling to lose it—these are issues everyrnbit as serious and grand as those Aeschylusrnand Sophocles addressed. When arnWestern works well, the homely modestyrnof its setting serves as a kind of ingratiation,rnso that we don’t mind being addressedrnon so lofty a plane. (Costner’srnfilm refuses to take advantage of thisrnstrategy and preaches at us whenever it isrnunsure of the impact of its contrived dramaticrnturns.)rnWhat happens? It is not, after all, arnsurprise that Ulzana dies. It’s a noble,rneven grand and ritualistic death. It is notrneven much of a surprise that Mcintoshrndies—a truly splendid moment in whichrnLancaster occupies himself with rolling arncigarette. The impressive turn is thatrnwe believe the callow lieutenant hasrngrown up, which is to say that we in thernaudience have grown up with him, havingrnglimpsed and even to some degreernaccepted the harsh world that is beyondrnthe theology and imagination of poorrnPhiladelphians. (Philadelphia, theserndays, is considerably harsher, of course,rnand we are less deprived of opportunitiesrnfor philosophical growth.)rnA splendid film! Up there with Ridernthe High Country, The Shootist, HighrnNoon, and Shane. Some of those moviesrnare quite famous, and others are not.rnBut, as Mcintosh would tell us, it’s hardrncountry out there, and one learns to livernin it.rnDavid R. Slavitt is a poet and novelistrnliving in Philadelphia.rn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn