Soldier Blue [Blu-ray]

Product Information

Soldier Blue is a 1970 American Revisionist Western film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss, and Donald Pleasence. Adapted by John Gay from the novel Arrow in the Sun by T.V. Olsen, it is inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in the Colorado Territory. Nelson and Gay intended to utilize the narrative surrounding the Sand Creek massacre as an allegory for the contemporary Vietnam War. [4] Cashing in on this trend was "Soldier Blue", notorious for its "massacre sequence" in which boys are shot, children are trampled by horses, squaws are beheaded, men are impaled, women are stripped, breasts are cut, civilians are mutilated and all manners of sadistic evil and re-enacted, all in the name of "keeping the country clean". It's nauseating. For the first two thirds of the running time, this is an unremarkable love story-cum-western, interspersed with some rather bloody scenes of action and death which are rather surprising for the time in which this film was released. The drama is slow-paced and takes a rather long time to unfold; most of the running time is taken up with characterisation between the two central protagonists. The first is Cresta, a woman (but definitely not a lady) with bad habits, a foul tongue, and a love of the Native American Indians, which is not shared by her companion, a young, jingoistic soldier by the name of Honus Gent. The two young actors taking the lead roles, Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss, put in strong roles and in part make the viewing experience worthwhile.

I am at a loss to explain why there would be cuts. Three incidents of "animal mistreatment" have been erased from the version released to the public. These are, presumably, horses falling over during battle scenes. I simply couldn't tell you which three of the 10, or 12, horses falling over throughout the course of the film cross the line of mistreatment. Either they're all mistreating horses, or none of them are. And what of every single Western that has ever been? And what of the Grand National? They're as bad as Soldier Blue. A couple hiking in the great outdoors being kidnapped by a sadistic thug and having to run for their livesThe Europeans wanted the Native's land and resources while the Indians wanted the technology of the Europeans. Both sides used treaties to make peace while still trying to get what they wanted when war was too expensive. Both sides made war when they felt no other option. Because Soldier Blue underperformed at the U.S. boxoffice, several different ad campaigns were utilized. This German DVD sleeve uses provocative art from one of the U.S. campaigns that implied the sexual abuse of Native American women. The other is the military aspects, which seem to be a reflection on the U.S. military of the time, 1970—which means Vietnam. The senselessness of the killing and the blind military attitudes seem, at least on the surface, to parallel popular attitudes against American involvement in the Vietnam War. It was common at the time (as now) to use movies to speak to contemporary themes this way. Near the end, the flag is thrown to the ground in disgust and there is a long, truly brutal, and frankly disturbing battle scene.

The film provided the first motion picture account of the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the American frontier, in which Colorado Territory militia under Colonel John M. Chivington massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Colorado Eastern Plains. The central section of the film, when Honus and Cresta are wandering through the wilderness enduring trials and falling in love, is thoughtful, eventful, gentle and exciting. But the raison d'etre of this movie - stated, if obliquely, in Buffy St Marie's opening theme song - is the massacre at the end, which is genuinely horrific (if rather dated in terms of special effects). But what was worse was the wave of denial that promptly followed. Politicians, generals and congressmen began to downplay the incident, doing their best to keep the massacre under wraps. They succeeded at first, but eventually letters circulated to the press and the incident went public in 1969. a b Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1970). "Soldier Blue". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved March 28, 2018– via RogerEbert.com.Waymark, Peter (December 30, 1971). "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas". The Times. London. However this was portrayed in Soldier Blue, I haven't seen it so cannot vouch for it's authenticity or how well or not it is staged, I would imagine what happened for real that day was a lot worse. Curious to know what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "After a cavalry group is massacred by the Cheyenne, only two survivors remain: Honus, a naive private devoted to his duty, and Cresta, a young woman who had lived with the Cheyenne two years and whose sympathies lie more with them than with the US government. Together, they must try to reach the cavalry's main base camp. As they travel onward, Honus is torn between his growing affection for Cresta." Retrospective analysis has placed the film in a tradition of motion pictures of the early 1970s– such as Ulzana's Raid (1972)– which were used as "natural venues for remarking on the killing of women and children by American soldiers" in light of the political conflicts of the era. [17] However, the "visual excesses" of the film's most violent sequences have been similarly criticized as exploitative by modern critics as well. [18]

But what made "Soldier Blue" popular were its allusions to the Vietnam War. The film was released in 1970, several months after news of the My Lai Massacre (and its attempted cover-up) was leaked to the public. The My Lai Massacre, of course, occurred in 1968, and involved a United States Army task force which marched into My Lai, a hamlet in South Vietnam, and killed over 500 civilians. Anyway, I'd heard all about its notoriety, but having never seen the movie or any clips, I hadn't been able to vouch for its content. I have to say that it was a brutal film, albeit quite humorous in places, and despite my hatred of Westerns, this is one of the few really good ones. The account of the massacre is included as part of a longer fictionalized story about the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by Cheyenne, and names of the actual historical characters were changed. Director Nelson stated that he was inspired to make the film based on the wars in Vietnam and Sơn Mỹ. [6] Don't miss the beginning at any cost.Or else you would not hear Buffy Sainte-Marie's eponymous anthemic song (Yes this is my country,young and growing free and flowing from sea to sea...).The version of the song as performed here features a string arrangement not present in the original version (which is to be found on BSM's "she used to wanna be a ballerina",vanguard).This song is as moving today as it was 30 years ago,and when the singer implores "can't you see there's another way to love her?" it gains an universal meaning(not only American natives or Vietnamese as it was mooted at the time for the movie)

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Almost every two minutes Cresta scornfully calls Honus "Soldier Blue." It doesn't take a genius to work out that she'll be talking in a different tone quite soon, such as, "Oh Soldier Blue, you're so dreamy", or "Well, what do you think of your country now, Soldier Blue?" In a 2005 article on the film in Uncut, Kevin Maher deemed it "a bloody 1970 exploitation western ... [which] has a gore-count worthy of Cannibal Holocaust." [5] TV Guide awarded the film one out of five stars, writing: " Soldier Blue suffers from Bergen's weak performance and Strauss is bland, but the parallel between the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and Vietnam's My Lai incident is disturbing and the film's depiction of Native American life is an explicit attempt to move past Hollywood stereotypes." [19] Well, I'd actually quite like to get it on DVD, although I'm having problems locating a fully uncensored version. The German DVD release looks to run only 110 minutes, and is cut. I'm just saying that it's easy to be pro-Native sitting on the comfort of your sofa, but not so much when you and your loved ones are threatened with torture & slaughter.