Cheyenne Autumn

1878. A Cheyenne community has been settled on a reservation in Oklahoma. The food promised does not arrive, disease spreads and their numbers fall. The community decides: they will go north, back to their own land. It is about fifteen hundred kilometres. The army follows. Captain Archer leads the column and does not want the duty; he has dealt with the same people for years and knows why they are going. Along the way the forts, the borders and the press all come into it. John Ford directs. Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Sal Mineo are in the cast. It is Ford's last western and he spoke of it as an answer to how native people were shown in his own films. The event behind the narrative is historical; the attempt to return north and what followed are recorded in American history. Its limit is casting; some of the native characters are played by actors who are not native, which is plainly criticised now. There is a long comic section in the middle; that part, set in Dodge City, departs entirely from the film's register and became a matter of argument. The photography rests on the wide frame and the landscape; Ford's known locations are used here too. The film is long and was shortened for release; some versions are missing sections. Who it is for: anyone curious about classic westerns and late Ford. Who it is not for: it is long, the structure loose, and the problems of representation plain.