There was probably a period of time when I could’ve gotten away with not seeing “Dances With Wolves,” the 1990 Best Picture winner, for a little while longer, but the film has gained some attention of late with a Blu-Ray release, comparisons to “Avatar” and Kevin Costner having his first good role in years in “The Company Men.”
Even at three hours in length, the film absorbed me wholly and was quite simple to watch. Its plot is simple and not as poetic or profound as say, Terrence Malick’s Pocahontas story “The New World,” but it’s a gorgeous looking Western with a strong story telling presence. Any comparisons between this and “Avatar” are exaggerated, for while that film is very much a fish-out-of-water parable about Native Americans, the Iraq War and the environment (no intention of overselling James Cameron’s epic), “Dances With Wolves” is very much a story of identity and internal discovery.
The visuals often go with the territory in these Westerns, but it’s gorgeously photographed, often recalling the imagery in John Ford movies and in my opinion, even a bit of Ingmar Bergman. In the middle chunk of the movie as Kevin Costner as John Dunbar is left to act on his own and communicate sometimes wordlessly with the Sioux native Americans, his horse and a friendly wolf, the movie very skillfully learns to show rather than just tell, and the film comes alive in charming anecdotes, vivid color and lively set pieces.
The parts I strongly disliked however were the opening half hour and closing half hour, or more accurately, any scenes that had other white people in them. I found these moments to be shockingly hollow and one-dimensional. In fact, the entire movie is somewhat one-dimensional, touching only on themes of self, noble valor and freedom (all overly evoked by John Barry’s Oscar winning and often over the top score), but whenever a white man other than Kevin Costner is on screen, the film seems routine with Hollywood ideas of good and evil. The film seems to need to remind us just how AWFUL other white people are, introducing us to the worst stereotypes of hick, racist soldiers with a disdain for anything and anyone not wearing an American uniform. At the beginning, Dunbar’s peasant guide is unbearably annoying with his cloying comic relief, and at the end we see no depth in characters who want to do nothing more than kill and destroy all of Dunbar’s prized possessions solely because they can.
That’s not to say the film is long. It truly sucks you in, allowing watchers to escape into that epic scope. It’s not exactly a performance film, but the chemistry and essential communicative bonds for this story are all there.
It’s a little hard to imagine how staggeringly successful the film was. It swept seven Oscars in a year when “Goodfellas” was nominated for Best Picture, and it elevated Kevin Costner from A-lister (he had already starred in “The Untouchables,” “Bull Durham” and “Field of Dreams”) to legend. “Dances With Wolves” was his directorial debut, and he would never recreate that level of success. More accurately, his reputation would be tarnished by a series of disastrous flops including “Waterworld” and “The Postman.”
But this movie became the pinnacle of race morals in regards to native Americans, and it has yet to fall from that stature. With that, it is still highly deserving of the Oscars it received and its place in the pantheon of great Westerns.