Subtext is everything

Rating: 8/10 (22 April 2011)

This movie can be read as an allegory about the Native Americans--there are OBVIOUS references and not so obvious. The first thing that tipped me off was a shot that recreates a famous shot from The Searchers...when at near the end of Chapter One the Nazi officer stands in the doorway...as John Wayne does in The Searchers. (See the Searchers.) From there it gets more obvious. Brad Pit is the APACHE, who forms a band of Jewish soldiers to get him SCALPS. So already the Jews are identified with the Native Americans twice. Then there are the Jewish soldiers' names: the "Bear" and "Little Man." Hitler and his men die in an ambush something like Custer's Last Stand at Little Big Horn. Notice also the makeup (war paint)the Jewish theater owner puts on as she prepares for the ambush. The unpleasant subtext thus, is that the Nazi's domination of the Jews is comparable to the "white" man's domination of the "red." (See Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.) The Nazis are compared directly to the Americans' when the sniper war hero is called the German Sergeant York.