Filming: Color
Length: 181 minutes
Genre: Drama/History/Western
Maturity: PG-13 (for violence, sexuality, and some
language)
Cast: Kevin Costner (Lieutenant John Dunbar), Mary
McDonnell (Stands-with-Fist), Graham
Greene (Kicking-Bird), Rodney A. Grant (Wind-in-His-Hair), Floyd Red
Crow Westerman (Ten Bears), Tantoo Cardinal (Black Shawl), Robert
Pastorelli (Timmons), Maury Chakin (Maj. Fambrough), Charles
Rocket (Lt. Elgin), West Studi (Toughest Pawnee)
Director: Kevin Costner
Personal Rating: 2 Stars
***
Since the passing
of the Golden Era of Epic Westerns, there have been countless attempts to
create a modernized resurgence of the genre, usually from unusual perspectives
and with painful results. Dances with
Wolves had its good points, including a detailed portrayal of Native
American life and an appreciation of the language barriers that existed between
the Indian tribes and white settlers. But I’m afraid they were considerably
mitigated by unnecessary “shock factors” that were nothing more than cheap
attempts to boost ratings.
Our story opens
with Kevin Costner starring as Lieutenant John Dunbar, a Union soldier fighting
in the American Civil War who is feeling really down-and-out by all the
fighting and decides to do a suicidal dare-devil escapade to distract the
Confederates while the Union commanders launch a surprise attack from the rear.
This heroism/imbecility earns him a promotion and a transfer to the Wild, Wild
West which is gradually vanishing into oblivion as more settlers move in and
camp out.
The next fifteen
minutes of the film could really be skipped altogether. Dunbar’s utterly
repulsive side-kick, Timmons, does a variety of disgusting things until he is
put out his misery by Sioux arrows (the reason for this we don’t know…but we can’t
say we miss his enlightened presence overly much!). Then we get to see Dunbar take a beauty bath – in the full
resplendence of his birthday suit! (Somebody get the screen!!!). Have to say
now would be an apt time to break for a reservoir pollution commercial, but
suffice to say he settles down in his new station out in the great plains and
befriends a lone wolf who lives nearby the run-down stockade.
Meanwhile, he also
attracts the curiosity of the Sioux tribe staked out nearby. After initial
awkwardness on both sides and difficulty communicating due to the language
barrier, they develop a mutual interest in and respect for one another. Oh,
yeah, and if bath-time wasn’t enough to get stomachs churning, we also get to
watch a certain white captive raised by the Indians stab herself (ill-explained…but
don’t worry; she’ll be back!), and the many delights of buffalo hunting…and
skinning…and hacking…yeah, you might want to fast-forward that, too!
But never fear,
the bathing beauty returns…with friends! Or shall we say a friend. Or to be
even more specific, a lady friend with an Indian costume and ‘90’s hair.
Actually, she’s the one who tried to stab herself. But she’s moved on since
then. Now she’s translator-in-chieftess for Dunbar and the Sioux Commission,
making it easier for the American Cavalry officer to assimilate with the tribe.
Eventually they fall madly in the love (a little too madly for public viewing…)
and get hitched in a Sioux ceremony.
But unfortunately,
this happy hiatus in the hills is wrecked when Dunbar is taken captive after
going back to the fort for his diary (“My Diary!!!”), beat up by some
blue-coated thugs (“My Head!!!”), and framed for high treason. But never fear
(is that becoming a refrain?), the Sioux super warriors are here, ready to
whisk our favorite naturalized native back to his beloved! After a long chat
over a peace pipe, Dunbar finally decides he will be noble and leave his home
among the Sioux to lead the Cavalry off their trail, and he and his bride ride
off into the snow-capped summits of the Hollywood hills.
Okay, so you’ve
deducted from my tone, I’m being sarcastic again. And when I’m being sarcastic,
well…you can deduct my general sense of appreciate for the flick I’m reviewing.
But I shall make a point of being fair to Lieutenant Dunbar and his tribesmen. First
off, Dancing with Wolves is supposed
to be an epic about a lost world, and the filming panorama certainly lives up
to that. We get to see the “wide open spaces”, golden plains as far as the eye
can see, and towering mountains enwrapped in snow. There is a sense of grandeur
and nostalgia about a wilderness on the brink of being conquered, and a man
searching for the true worth of man in the face of sometimes heartless
progress.
I will start by
saying that this film is almost the cinematic twin of The Last Samurai (actually, the other way round since Wolves was made before Samurai). Basically, they’re stories
about disillusionment within one’s own progressive culture and a subsequent
search for one’s true identity by embracing another, more indigenous culture. There
are two main distinctions, however: the positive difference is that Wolves tends to be easier to understand
than Samurai in its method of
capturing emotions and following the plot; the negative difference is that Wolves also tends to be much bloodier
and sexually explicit (which is ironic since Wolves is only PG-13, whereas Samurai
is R!).
Kevin
Costner does a much job being a disillusioned Cavalry officer in Dances with Wolves than he does as a
hippy outlaw in Prince of Thieves. No
really, his character is well-meaning and curious about the world around him,
making him an interesting guide through the story as he interacts with the
harshness and beauty of the wilderness and native peoples. Also, I am pleased
to report that this movie does a really good job focusing on the Native
Americans as Characters. They are not cookie-cutter models; they are not
savages, nor saints; they are human beings inured in their own specific culture
and belief system, trying to understand Dunbar as much as he is trying to
understand them.
The emphasis on
the language barrier is an overlooked factor in White-Native relations that is
all too often overlooked. Scenes from The
Seven Cities of Gold come to mind here, where the Spanish Fr. Serra is able
to instantly communicate with the native tribes he encounters in California.
I’m not even going to go into all the other Western series that make the same
error in script, with all the Indian characters speaking some sort of
broken-Italian-dialect with the John Wayne delegation. But anyway, Dances with Wolves really makes up for
all this pain, and the feel of the proceedings is admirably authentic, doing
justice to both sides.
There is really is an effort on both sides to get past the
language barrier and learn about each other through actions, causing quite a
few humorous situations to unfold. Love the part when Dunbar tries to get them
to understand the word “buffalo”, and puts his fingers above his head like
horns, scuffing about on the ground! His Sioux guests are slightly mystified by
the energetic display! Also enjoy the sequence where he grinds coffee for them
in an over-enthusiastic way! Overall, he comes off as a sensitive and basically
sweet-natured guy whose friendship with the wolf (who he memorably “dances”
with, earning him his Sioux name) mirrors the development of his relationship
with the natives. Another iconic scene is towards the end of the film when he
sees the wolf wounded by a white man’s gun, symbolic of the tribe being scattered
by the encroaching pioneers.
Like Nathan Algren
in The Last Samurai, Dunbar finds
himself slowly but surely assimilating into another nature-based culture. He
plays with the village children, accompanies the tribe on a buffalo hunt, joins
them in their story-telling sessions around a fire, and learns about their
unique customs and language. The main thing that he takes away from his
experience is that the Sioux are just as human as the White Men. The triumvirate
of memorable characters he encounters in the tribe are the wise and measured
Kicking-Bird, the fiery and impulsive Wind-in-His-Hair, and the shy yet
formidable Stands-with-Fist.
For a while there, I really did have hope for the romance in this movie. Stands-with-Fist, the white woman captured by Indians as a child, grows to trust Dunbar gradually. They both come off as being rather shy and wary of connecting, but as her work translating helps bring together Dunbar and the Sioux, she and Dunbar as also brought together. As I mentioned, she does have ‘90’s hair, but Mary McDonnell still does an excellent job acting in this film, realistically portraying the translation process and way someone might remember a first language they had forgotten. There is also a humorous scene in which Stands-with-Fist tells Dunbar how she got her name – after knocking down a Sioux Woman who mistreated her as a child! Dunbar teasingly tells him to demonstrate where she had hit her, and she puts her fist under his chin, after which he playfully pretends to fall over!
For a while there, I really did have hope for the romance in this movie. Stands-with-Fist, the white woman captured by Indians as a child, grows to trust Dunbar gradually. They both come off as being rather shy and wary of connecting, but as her work translating helps bring together Dunbar and the Sioux, she and Dunbar as also brought together. As I mentioned, she does have ‘90’s hair, but Mary McDonnell still does an excellent job acting in this film, realistically portraying the translation process and way someone might remember a first language they had forgotten. There is also a humorous scene in which Stands-with-Fist tells Dunbar how she got her name – after knocking down a Sioux Woman who mistreated her as a child! Dunbar teasingly tells him to demonstrate where she had hit her, and she puts her fist under his chin, after which he playfully pretends to fall over!
Unfortunately,
their hitherto innocent relationship goes over-the-top in a rather shocking
manner that I didn’t see coming. Basically, Stands-with-Fist decides she does
indeed love Dunbar (now called “Dances-with-Wolves”), and the next thing we
know, they are making a mad dash for each other, making physical contact like
football players, and groveling around on the ground. It all looked so
animalistic (and violent, to be honest), but I had my hopes they might pull
back from the brink. They didn’t. In fact, the next scene finds them completely
stripped down in a teepee and…need I say more? Bizarrely after all this, they do wind up
getting hitched in a Sioux ceremony (like Algren, Dunbar doesn’t seem to be
very deep in his Christianity), and my brain was like, “Seriously? You couldn’t
have waited until then?”
As with the
violent aspects, the sex scenes just went way beyond the fringe in my opinion.
I mean, really…do we, the public need to see this sort of thing? Actually, no,
but it seems Hollywood is unconvinced of this. They are constantly employing
both these methods to beef-up epics that fall a bit short of the plan. Such, I
believe, is the case with Dances with
Wolves. It was an interesting little story about the bridging cultural gaps,
but like Rob Roy, the plot really
fell short of the epic it was cracked up to be. The beginning was confused, the
central conflict was minimal, and the ending was rather vague. Also, like The Last Samurai, the plot makes a point
of emphasizing the humanity of the indigenous peoples, but at the same time
shows no sympathy whatsoever to the whites aside from Dunbar.
The Cavalry
officers are shown to a man as being corrupt, vulgar, and brutal in their lust
for land. While some of this is no doubt true, no group should be stereotyped,
and it should be remembered that these same “blue-coats” portrayed in Wolves and Samurai so negatively had just gotten through fighting a war that
preserved the unity of America and ultimately put an end to slavery within her
borders. Also, it should be emphasized that most Native tribes did not even
abide by the concept of selling land, so it would have been impossible to even
try to strike a fair deal with them with regard to land transactions. Plus, the
Native Tribes were not shy about fighting each other for dominance, as is
briefly touched upon in the movie but not explored in depth.
Dances with Wolves is an okay film in a
lot of ways, with a few glimmering moments of beauty, and quite a few disturbing
scenes of excessive sex and violence. If you want to see an epic, this is not
it, but if you want to see a pretty basic cross-culture flick, and are willing
to trudge through the muck and mire to see the beneficial parts, then it might
be worth something for you. Plus, who knows what cultural tid-bits you might be
able to pick up about buffalo hunting, peace pipe smoking, and creating
authentic ‘90’s hair-dos!
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| Lieutenant Dunbar (Kevin Costner) and Sioux Braves prepare for Buffalo-burgers |
