The movie is based on the 1964 novel by Thomas Berger , a satirical picaresque that helped establish the "Revisionist Western" genre in literature.
Rather than a martyr, General Custer is portrayed as a vainglorious, "raving lunatic," a shocking reversal of the historical narrative at the time. The Technical Feat Little Big Man
Released during the height of the Vietnam War, the film is widely viewed as a protest piece. The movie is based on the 1964 novel
The harrowing depiction of the U.S. Army attacking Native villages was a direct cinematic parallel to the real-world My Lai Massacre . Little Big Man
Unlike the faceless "savages" of previous decades, the film portrayed Native Americans as a complex society—what the Cheyenne call the "Human Beings".