#75. Dances With Wolves (1990)

As a general rule, I don’t dislike something until I have learned enough about it to make an educated decision. Because of this I know more about Toby Keith, the CSI Franchise and the Boston Red Sox than you could ever imagine. However, there are some things I just know I won’t like from the word “go” no matter how much I try to open my mind to them. “Dances with Wolves” was always a movie I knew I wouldn’t like, and it didn’t disappoint me (or did depending on how you look at it).

Kevin Costner plays Lt. John Dunbar, a humble and quite unintentional hero (not unlike his roles in “Field of Dreams” and “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” not that I am saying Kevin Costner lacks dimension, but I digress) who rallies his fellow Union troops and inadvertently motivates them to attack a group of Confederates with whom they are at a combat stalemate when he attempts to get close enough to have them kill him. As a result of his botched suicide attempt, Dunbar is given his choice of duty station and asks to be relocated to a post out in the Dakotas. His rationale is that he wants to “see the frontier before it is gone” which is a commendable attitude for military man to have at such an embryonic stage of the Western Expansion. It is the mindset I think most of us have once hindsight is factored in, but it is unrealistic and just comes across as corny even though I know it was meant to be eerily prophetic.

As Dunbar travels west with his guide a voice-over narration begins which is really where the whole thing starts to fall apart. The monotone and drab narration seems very appropriate as we are under the belief that Dunbar is keeping a copious log of his activities for use in a possible military text or field manual. In this case sterile and impersonal dialogue is the only way it would be able to work as such things are done in a very cut-and-dry, black and white way. However as soon as Dunbar begins making jokes and interjecting personal thoughts and observations it is obvious that he is keeping a journal- suddenly the narration becomes absurd to the point of laughable.

After some tense encounters with his neighbors, a tribe of Sioux Indians, Dunbar discovers one of the tribeswomen slashing her wrists. He takes her back to her people and, once it is understood that he means to help, groundwork is finally laid for peaceful communication to begin. The woman he rescued, Stands With a Fist is actually a white woman by birth who was kidnapped by a tribe of Pawnee before being rescued and taken in by the Sioux, particularly the tribe’s Holy Man Kicking Bird, whose judge of character indicates early on that Dunbar is a friend. The love story subplot becomes almost insulting as it becomes “understood” that the two must wind up together because they are both white, even though the theme of the film seems to be the bridging of cultural divide. Perhaps Dunbar relates to her since they have now both attempted suicide, but the lesson comes across as an obligation to stay within your own race romantically. Oh and before I forget, does Dunbar SERIOUSLY write “I love Stands With a Fist” IN HIS DIARY?!?! Honestly, someone thought making him a high-school girl would be a good idea?

Progress is slow but the tribe begins to accept Dunbar and eventually even welcome him as one of their own and is even given the tribal name Dances With Wolves as he is spotted by Kicking Bird playing with Two Socks, his pet wolf. Before long he knows the language, speaks with the elders and provides them with weapons from the seemingly abandoned Army post he is supposed to be guarding to fight off their rival Pawnee. Race relations and demolishing cultural barriers are probably the issues closest to my heart, but when it is unrealistic and syrupy it almost comes across as more offensive and racist than not bridging the racial divide at all, as is the case with the friendship between Dunbar and Wind In His Hair, the tribe’s most fierce warrior. The hostility between them evaporates so fast that it is completely unrealistic and hard to swallow and becomes even more so when we learn that Stands with A Fist’s dead husband (her grief was what drove her to attempt suicide) was Wind In His Hair’s best friend, but now he accepts both Dunbar and his relationship with Stands With A Fist. What could be viewed as a touching gesture of peace between he and Dunbar winds up looking more like Wind In His Hair’s loyalty can be won over in exchange for some guns.

Another disturbing element of this film is the offensive naiveté the tribe is depicted as having. Though they suspect there will be more American troops coming from the East to continue the westward expansion, they allow their fears to be assuaged by Dunbar’s reassurances that this will not be so, though he even says in his little pink diary with the hearts and iCarly stickers on it that he knows they will come and wipe the Sioux out. Finally he admits to Kicking Bird that there will be many white men coming and they will all be hostile- rather than questioning Dunbar’s 180-degree turn in his story, it is just quietly and sadly accepted. When the soldiers finally do come they begin systematically killing everything Dunbar holds dear- his horse, his pet wolf and presumably his adoptive family. Dunbar is arrested and loaded up for transport to be tried for treason but is freed when the Sioux attack the convoy and rescue him, making him a fugitive and spelling almost certain doom for the rest of the tribe.

It was at this point that my disdain became rage. I was able to see that this film was a transparent rip off of a really bad 80's movie called "Enemy Mine." Yes the concept of finding community in a culture other than your own is nowhere near a new idea, but this film borders on plagerism. There is even once scene that was directly lifted where one of the soldiers attempts to steal a talisman hanging around Dunbar's neck which violently snaps him out of a near-coma. The same thing is depicted in "Enemy Mine" with the exact same results and the exact same camera angle. I couldn't believe my eyes- the only reason I can give for Costner stealing from such a terrible movie was the hope that nobody would notice because nobody saw it.

”The white man the soldiers are looking for no longer exists. Now there is only a Sioux named Dances With Wolves” (Ten Bears, “Dances With Wolves)

The same issue I took with the ending of “American Graffiti” happens again here- the epilogue that condenses the next several years of history and just leaves you saying “that’s it?” By doing so, Kevin Costner again misses a prime opportunity to make a real impactful plea for cultural understanding by glossing over the activity that would soon follow. There is something to be said for assuming we all know how bad it was but truth be told, I don’t think a lot of people do. Plus the Sioux characters are not given any real depth or personality, which leaves us feeling detached from them which makes it hard for the average viewer to really become emotionally involved or saddened by their ultimate demise.

“Dances With Wolves” had good intentions, but it is one of those efforts that carries the ball all the way to the one-yard line then ends up fumbling. It comes up short in its focus, it comes up short in its appeal to emotions, it comes up WAY short in its acting and most of all it comes up short in its efforts to show the depth of the beauty, honor and values of the Native American people. One thing I can say for it though is that it contains some of the most gorgeous cinematography I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame really because the power of the outdoor plains shots could have been used as a brilliant directorial tool to help advance the story but instead it winds up serving the same purpose as special effects- it banks on the fact that it will distract you from the shortcomings of the story.