Dances With Wolves (1990)

I remember a Far Side cartoon that depicted a meeting of the ‘Didn’t Like Dancing With Wolves Society’, basically it was three people in a room complaining that the Buffalo looked fake. Such was the enormous across the board approval this film received upon its initial release. Kevin Costner was at the height of his career at the time and surely that helped, but it also a superbly crafted ‘intimate’ epic, that came along at one of those rare junctures when Americans were taking a critical look at their own past (or so says producer Mike Medavoy). I even remember talking about this film in class during elementary school, but it is only now that I have finally seen it, and I too loved it.

Though similar territory had been covered in the early 50’s western Broken Arrow, staring James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, this is a yet better examination of the white man who befriends, and comes to identify with the American Indians more intensely then with his own race. Costener’s performance is perfect, hitting all the right notes. You see this troubled soul develop in his love and appreciation for the Sioux that live near the small frontier outpost he’s assigned to run alone. Though the film takes about an hour to really get started, during which initial stretch the pace seems languidly slow moving, it becomes completely enveloping there after, as the viewer finds ones self growing to understand and love this small tribe of people (and by the end kind of hating white people). Strong performances all around with Mary McDonnell both cute and charming, and Maury Chaykin delivering a brief but memorably weird performance as the crazy Major Fambrough. Mustn’t forget Graham Green as Kicking Bird, and the wolf for that matter. In short outstanding. Five out of Five. Later remade as The Last Samurai.

Note: Graham Green could play Bill Richardson.