Dances with Wolves (1990)

That was an excellent one.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is simply a masterpiece. The story of an outsider joining a indigenous community is not a new one, but this would have to be the greatest iteration of that tale. How Kevin Coaster pulled off directing, producing and starring in such a big film is amazing. The epic canvas that this period film is set is so beautifully captured by Dean Semler's cinematography and enhanced by the music of John Barry. I have seen the film no less than a dozen times. A must for high definition viewing.

What to say about this film in particular? I first saw this movie as a class project in grade 7 (1991). I enjoyed it then and I must say that I enjoy it 26 years later even more than ever. The depth and sensitivity with detail was beyond my juvenile understanding. While I recommend the uncut version, the theater version is more than an ample story of love, friendship, hate, and change in a strange time. Kevin Costner may have had career missteps, but this is his Magnum Opus. Graham Greene, Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman, and Mary McDonnell with a swell and superb supporting cast tells the story of change in North America. The maturity and sensitivity of indigenous folk is top notch. As a pre-pubescent 12 year old, I did not quite understand the entire story, but I did see this as a very important milestone in film making. Years of marinating and quite a large amount of thought has confirmed this as my favorite film of all time (Shawshank Redemption, a close number 2). The music, the scenery, the culture clash and ultimate mixing was superb. The white man's self appointed superiority without communication with the native Sioux (and Pawnee with many other tribes assuredly represented) here is the stuff of legends. I did not know this won awards as a kid. I only thought this was the coolest 3+ hour class I'd ever had. I passed the test from viewing this film. In Canada, relations still seem restrained between the First Nations people and the 'newcomers'. Truth be told, without plot details, this is a very good movie. I am reluctant to critique the age from which this film is depicting. Nothing can change what happened. I hope, as I think Mr. Kevin Costner does, that this is a very sensitive movie with action, some cultural difference, humour (who can deny the humour in the 'Good Trade' argument after the buffalo hunt?), and a great plot. If I had a picture or film to take with me to a desert island, or an abandoned camp on the frontier as described, this is the film. Although I am sentimental at heart, nothing has shaken my view of this film in 26 years. This hasn't aged and is timeless. Understandably, there are people who will disagree on varying levels. It made me appreciate the wars of the past and how ignorant previous societies were. It also showed me how far we still have to go in the way of understanding people who come from a different place or culture than what we grew up with. An eye-opening film and, in my opinion, the best film I have seen to date. The uncut version shows more detail and is recommended highly. In short, this is a lesson in how people are all fundamentally the same. We are conditioned within our own culture, more-so back in those 'Cowboy & Indian' ways/days. This film is an education piece. It also is the most entertaining education I have received (by film) to this date. 10/10

I gave this movie a solid ten and the reason I did so is because of how the movie touches me, it moves me spiritually and it probably moved everyone who watched it in a similar way as it moved me. Before I saw this movie I probably wouldn't believe that this was possible for a man, especially during this time zone, this story has impacted me so much, I feel like no matter what the challenge is I have to over come it with flying colors. The journey that the main character faces is at first a relieve for him but as he gets further down the road in this journey he realizes that it is going to a pain to survive in this environment and its not going to be much fun but you gotta do what you got to do to get through life and this man does just that.

Kevin Costner made many ill-received movies; some can even be labeled as "bad" despite their "good" intentions. It's only fair then to acknowledge that "Dances With Wolves" is not just Costner's finest hour, but a peak of excellence and significance reached by the Western genre. Get "Cat Ballou" off the American Film Institute's Top 10 Westerns and put "Dances With Wolves" where it belongs. Oh, and by the way, this comes from a "Goodfellas" fan.Indeed, we know the level of 'hatred' "Dances With Wolves" generated is inversely proportional to the popularity of Martin Scorsese's gangster epic. Well, "Goodfellas" is my all-time favorite film right after the two first "Godfather" and I saw the film perhaps five times more than Costner's masterpiece, but just because it lost the Best Picture, Best Director and other statuettes, doesn't mean that I should vent my anger on the winner, so give it a break and enjoy it, regardless of your opinion about "Goodfellas", it is possible to appreciate both films. Now, I close the "Goodfellas" chapter and get back to "Dances With Wolves" because there's a lot to say about it. Costner's best contributions to cinema were based on the two most American defining themes: baseball with "Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams" and in "Dances", the vast plains of the frontier become the field of American lost dreams. As a fan of Gary Cooper and other Hollywood Western legends, Costner, along with Clint Eastwood, contributed to the resurrection of a dying genre in America's land. Although I'm not sure Clint Eastwood would have focused on a native-themed movie (his films centered on solitary characters carrying the burden of a haunting past), "Dances with Wolves" is about a young Civil War officer, Lieutenant John Dunbar, who seizes the opportunity of a promotion to get exiled in a remote outpost near the frontier, before it belongs to History.The heroic deed that earns Dunbar this peaceful job is perhaps the only moment that feels a bit Hollywood-like, after that, the story immediately plunges us into a slow but meaningful journey where left on his own, Dunbar write his memories and shares his thoughts about the landscape, his loneliness and a mysterious wolf who comes to visit him on a regular basis. At that moment, Dunbar embodies the spirit of the frontiersmen who came to unexplored lands wondering whether they were hostile or not. It's a matter of time before his presence alerts the Natives, some of them are Pawnees but a lucky hazard make them meet the wrong man and he's savagely killed and scalped.It is interesting that the first Natives we meet incarnate the negative stereotype, but it also reveals something essential about the film, it doesn't apply the reverse racism consisting on sanctifying the minorities. The film doesn't find excuses, or alibis, every people are showed on an equal level of humanity, and also, sometimes, savagery, for even the White soldiers display the most brutal and inhumane acts and incarnate that "haunting past" America carries like an Eastwoodesque character. But there's a central piece in the film, that is magnificent, which is, the mutual discovery between the Sioux and Dunbar. It goes through a wide range of emotions: puzzlement, suspicion, and then curiosity takes the most of them and they just go for it. People complain that the film is too long, well, hell yes, it's as long as it needs to make dialogue possible. Because something happens when the Sioux discover Dunbar, the movie stops being shown from his perspective and we get a whole quarter of hour in the Sioux village. During this sequence, you see the sorcerer Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) sharing his thoughts with the wise Chief Ten Bears (Floyd Westerman) or the impetuous Wind in the Hair (Rodney Grant), together they discuss what kind of sign a naked White man could be: an omen? a blessing? How can they approach him, and a whole debate goes on about his hostility. That's the film's masterstroke, for one moment, Dunbar ceases to be the subject but the object of the Sioux' community, the roles are reversed and this is why "Dances With Wolves" is important. It humbles the American perspective and takes its time to make the first exchanges possible. This moment is also essential because it tells us that the path sometimes to hostility is paved by the very struggle of communication. Even with friendly intentions, you can't sometimes understand the words, the rituals and many of them seem 'barbaric' at first glance. That the film acknowledges these differences is also a credit to its intelligence and its respect to ours.The script manages to simplify the communication through the character of Standing-with-a-Fist, a White woman, played by Mary McDonnell, adopted by the Sioux after her family was killed by the Pawnees. Her English is rusty but understandable enough to offer a right bridge of communication and naturally, there's a genuine romance growing between Dunbar and her, and it's never thrown at our faces, it takes its time so it feels natural and realistic... although the film has a lot to borrow from Hollywood, from the inspirational score to the heart-pounding battles and buffaloes' hunts. Yet, that a film found such a balance between Hollywood tradition and a documentary-like immersion in Natives tradition, makes it the perfect link between John Ford and Arthur Penn.Penn directed the underrated "Little Big Man" and it's fair to mention the film in a review of "Dances With Wolves", Penn was the first to provide an inside look on the Natives' lives and to show what looked like a genocide on the Native population. "Dances With Wolves" doesn't need to, through this three-hour experience, we're able to face the value of the loss, for it's a swan song of the Native whose resonance is as haunting as a wolf's howl.