Tennessee, 1863. Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Kevin Costner) is fighting on the side of the northern states during the American Civil War. Dunbar is posted to a distant post on the American frontier, but he finds himself alone there after the previous soldiers abandoned it due to the threat of nearby Native American tribes. Whilst staying at his little fort, Dunbar comes across a nearby Lakota tribe, and ends up befriending them. Over time, he discovers that they are not the bloodthirsty savages he thought they were- and they learn that even the white man can have redeeming features (who knew?!)
Doug says...
‘Oh no,’ I said as we sat down to watch what I didn’t realise was a three-and-a-half hour film about what seemed to be fixing on the American Civil War. ‘Here we go again.’
Regular readers of this blog will know how much I hate war films and the opening scenes of this prepare you for yet another tedious slog with hyper-masculinity being worshipped and generally some ‘Oscar-winning’ performances. This film opens with Kevin Costner nearly losing his leg, running into battle and riding his horse against the opposing side in a suicide mission that just doesn’t work.
Reader, I was wrong. This is in no way a war film. It also joins How Green Was My Valley, The Best Days of Our Lives, Marty, and Gandhi as one of the unexpected delights uncovered by this project. It was, in a word, tremendous.
Because what this film is actually about, is the Native American tribes at the frontier of the American plains. Kevin Costner as Lieutenant Dunbar goes off to live in the frontier by himself, and becomes acclimatised, eventually meeting the Native Americans, warming to them and slowly becoming one of them. It’s remarkable because when do you ever have a film with the ‘Indians’ as the good ones and the ‘Cowboys’ as the baddies?!
And it’s done oh so well. Because (for once) the running time is used well. We slowly see his journey with him, so his eventual integration into the tribes is believable and lovely. We see the ‘savage’ nature of the Native Americans actually be revealed as a false impression, with their kindness, humour and love taking priority in their lives. Costner (who also directed) is our movable marker, his fear becoming love, especially with characters such as Wind In His Hair, who originally hates Dunbar, but then becomes a close friend.
Round about the two hour point, you do wonder what’s going to happen now - but then when it happens it’s devastating. Because we see - unflinchingly - how awful the white people are. They trash the Native American’s sacred land, shooting their animals and wasting their crops. The soldiers who capture Dunbar are disgusting, and in one scene they use Dunbar’s beautifully drawn diary pages as toilet paper, as they squat in the field. The visual metaphor of them using art and culture to wipe their arses is oh so obvious. And that’s saying nothing of what happens with the wolf…
It’s notable too for using actors actually from Native American and Canadian tribes. The Chief Ten Birds is particularly impressive, carrying wisdom and sage wit in his toothless presence. I particularly liked how Costner carefully shows the tribes with their actual beliefs and practices. At one point the wise man Kicking Bird says no man can tell another what to do, and we see this with Chief Ten Birds, who does not tell anyone what to do, but eases them towards it, encouraging them to come to the right decision on their own.
I haven’t even got into anything of what I wanted to discuss. Suffice to say that this is a three and a half hour film that uses every minute of its screen time. It’s an extraordinary directorial debut and scenes like the buffalo stampede and the tribes fighting pair beautifully with the desolate imagery of the empty hills and the fireside storytelling of the Chief and his wife. Exceptional film-making.
Highlight
Stands With A Fist (a white tribe-adopted woman) is falling for Dunbar. While by the fire with her friend Black Shawl she mistakes her friend’s questioning about Dunbar for nosiness and gets flustered. Black Shawl then looks confused, says ‘what did you think I meant?’ and then delivers the biggest smirk I’ve ever seen on the silver screen. It’s an award-winning moment.
Lowlight
I actually can’t think of one. Everyone - the actors, the cameramen, the writers - are pulling their weight. Even the tiny cameo of mad Major Fambrough at the beginning is suitably chilling and superbly performed. So none.
Mark
10/10
Paul says...
This was an astonishingly difficult DVD to track down. Not on Netflix. Not on Amazon Prime (not even available to buy). The only physical DVD (I know, how old skool!) available that was brand new was a ridiculous £17, so I had to settle for the 3.5 hour uncut Special Edition from Ebay. I thought I was buying a '90s Western, not the Ark of the Covenant.
Nonetheless, Dances With Wolves kicks the '90s off very well. But at first I thought this was not the case. As Doug says, the first impressions were not positive- 10 minutes in we were starting to call it Yet Another War Film. My first impressions seem to have lasted a little longer than Doug’s, and I would go so far as to say that the whole first hour was a bit bland and a bit slow. Most of it is carried by Costner on his own, either narrating or staring impassively into the middle distance and being the sort of lone ranger every straight man dreams of being (and his late-'80s mullet set him apart from mid-19th century America far too obviously). I began to despair that the Curse of the '80s, with its emphasis on lengthy shots of landscapes and platitudinous speeches, was over-flowing into the early '90s.
But Dances With Wolves saves itself when Costner finally meets the Lakota tribe, because it then injects what pretty much no '80s Best Picture winner had: humour. Most of the laughs derive from the Native Americans’ looks of bewilderment at some of Costner’s behaviour and routines, which is a clever little twist in which we now see white people through another race’s eyes. Immediately, all of these characters become lovable and engaging because they are just as clumsy, confused and curious as the rest of us. This means that when the threats of a more jingoistic Pawnee tribe and bloodthirsty white soldiers arrive, we feel genuine concern for these characters’ lives, and the subsequent two and a half hours shot by much quicker. I suspect that the original cut of the film ensured that the opening exposition was kept to a minimum.
The idea that Native Americans are not as savage as they are often made out to be is nothing massively new to modern eyes, especially for people like me who spent many a lonely childhood hour belting out Colours of the Wind during Disney’s Pocahontas. But what does make Dances With Wolves original is that both Dunbar and the Native Americans discover each other’s virtues and vices in equal measure. One of the most poignant moments is when the Lakota tribe finds some buffalo slaughtered for their skin by the white men, and react by tracking down the white men and slaughtering them in turn, an act that shows Dunbar’s conflict between his respect and fear for these people. No one is perfect here, but they grow and prove their worth through their acts of solidarity and acceptance.
Dances With Wolves was not expected to be the hit that it was. It was Costner’s directorial debut, and many die-hard Oscar fans have sometimes lambasted it for beating Goodfellas to the crown. It also beat The Godfather Part III (thank God) and Ghost. Did early-'90s audiences identify with the film’s lessons of unity, integration and togetherness so soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or did Kevin Costner just look bloody good in a Union Army uniform? All I know is, it’s an entertaining way to kick off a decade that I have high hopes for. But I’d recommend buying the original, shorter edit unless you want to traipse your way through that slow first hour.
Highlight
The first scenes between Costner and the Native Americans provide excellent laughs, and charmingly humane insights into these characters. A sense of humour has been a long time coming.
Lowlight
The first hour could have been sped up a bit. Does this make me a philistine? Oh well…
Mark
7/10
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