Dances with Wolves (Widescreen Edition)
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DVD details
DVD: Region Code 0Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, THX, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 181 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-11-17
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Image Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Dances with Wolves (Widescreen Edition)
DVD Review: Kevin Costner creates a truly epic American Western
Summary: 5 Stars
I can appreciate the idea that "Dances with Wolves" is an example of cinematic revisionist history, if not an outright case of affirmative action that instantiates the idea of the "noble savage" that once held sway among the European settlers of the New World. But Hollywood has been reinterpreting the Old West in light of changing socio-political beliefs for decades. Just look at the changing story of Custer at the Little Big Horn from "Them Died With Their Boots On" to "Little Big Man" to "Son of the Morning Star." With Kevin Costner's film the Western was elevated to a level that hitherto had not been approached in American cinema.
It is "Little Big Man," along with "A Man Called Horse," that are clearly the cinematic ancestors of "Dances with Wolves." All three deal with a white man who finds a home among a Native American tribe, but where this 1990 film differs is that it is also an epic, at which point we are talking "How the West Was Won" and "Once Upon a Time in the West." Yet "Dances With Wolves" is a significant step beyond all of those films. "Little Big Man" was a black comedy and not an epic, "A Man Called Horse" was about an English aristocrat and not an American soldier, "How the West Was Won" was about Manifest Destiny and not the destruction of an indigenous culture, and "Once Upon a Time in the West" was operatic and not grounded in history, albiet a romanticized one.
Michael Blake's screenplay is based on his novel, and it is the film's prologue that I find most problematic. The idea is to establish Costner's John Dunbar as being someone special from the start, so that the Union soldier who could survive a hail of Confederate bullets becomes the man that could befriend a wild wolf on the Plains. It is also establishes Dunbar as a man who is searching for something, and not merely an alternative to the horrors of war but more importantly a reason for living. Whereas the rest of the film takes its time to develop things this initial part is relatively rushed, but the excuse for putting Dunbar in the middle of the Dakotas on a deserted military post is secondary to what happens once he is there.
The greatest strength of "Dances with Wolves" is that Dunbar's interactions with the Sioux (really the Lakotas, but the film uses the more familiar but erroneous name for these Native Americans), are defined by a series of relationships with clearly defined characters. Although his romance with Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell) is a major plot line, and her being a white woman raised by the tribe a useful contrivance for allowing the two sides to communicate, the relationship that really stands out is between Dunbar and Kicking Bird (Graham Greene). This is because the two are kindred spirits, each willing to be open to the other and committed to understanding the other on his own terms. The opposite position is taken by Wind In His Hair (Rodney A. Grant), but even he forges a relationship with the man who is given the Sioux name Dances With Wolves.
Then there are the relationships with both the tribal elders, such as Chief Ten Bears (Floyd Red Crow Westerman), and the youngsters, including Smiles a Lot (Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse). What makes these characters so compelling is that they are utterly devoid of caricature and that the performances seem so real and provide such a sense of dignity. There are moments of warmth and humor throughout the film, both springing from this same source. It is ironic that while the film won seven Oscars, none of them were for acting (Costner, Greene, and McDonnell were all nominated).
Because Dunbar is all alone at his post, he begins keeping a journal. This simple device allows the film to take advantage of Dunbar's narration to advance both the story and the message. What would seem stilted as a monologue works perfectly well in the context of a written journal entry. In the last act of the film the journal becomes part of the story as well, not only as a symbol of the disdain most white men have for the Indians and their culture, but as a testament to what is being lost. Dunbar decides to come West because he wants to see it before it is gone (even though the time frame here is the 1860s and the Civil War), and the final point of the film is that the Sioux were only years away from being herded to reservations. One of the great ironies of the story is that it is Dunbar, the only white man the Sioux have ever known, who gives them their death sentence when he tells them that as many white as there are stars in the sky are coming.
There are two major action sequences in the film, the buffalo hunt and Pawnee attack, but they are really not the most impressive parts of the film. That Dunbar would be invited to go on the hunt or that he would organize the defense of the village, are ultimately more important in the film. Dunbar is heroic because he is, in the best meaning of the term, human. Costner won the Oscar for best director, but clearly his strength is in telling the story and keeping the characters real rather than in coming up with pretty pictures, althought Australian cinematographer Dean Semler comes up with plenty of those, especially when he takes advantage of a brilliant sunset as a backdrop. "Dances with Wolves" is epic in its scope, but it has an attention to detail that few Westerns can rival, which it why it was the first film since "Cimarron" in 1931 to win the Best Picture Oscar.
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