Dances with wolves: film analysis and cultural impact

Dances With Wolves

From the early ages of film, directors were keen on providing their viewers with movies that could entertain, thrill, fascinate and transport them into a different world. Several genres of film have entered and left the spotlight as being favorites for the public, and some actually managed to keep the audience interested. Westerns are known to have been a hit until the late twentieth century. However, as time passed, people have started to lose interest in them and they became outmoded. Some movie producers haven't abandoned the production of Westerns and the genre has had some successful come-backs in the recent years. Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves is a typical western that follows most of the rules that such a movie should.

Most westerns have their action set in the second half of the nineteenth century, subsequent to the American Civil War. The west of the U.S. during the time had been a place filled with all sorts of people from thieves and miners searching for gold to sheriffs and bankers. Weapons had been a common sight during the period as everyone needed them in order to protect themselves. Most Native-Americans that initially lived in the east had been pushed back to the west. As a result, clashes often broke out between new-comers and angry Indian tribes.

The director of Dances with Wolves follows an episode from the life of a former lieutenant in the Union army, John J. Dunbar. The lieutenant is played by the director himself, Kevin Costner. Because of the accidental act of bravery that he commits during the war, Dunbar is rewarded with medical help for the problem that he has with his leg, and, with the chance to choose where next post is going to be.

Dunbar chooses to serve on the western frontier, but he is followed by bad luck, as the only people that know where he is have perished and he is alone in the middle of nowhere. He starts to arrange his posts accompanied only by his horse and a wolf. He is stopped by a group of Sioux Indians wanting to steal his horse. Dunbar and the Sioux band eventually end up becoming friends and learning things from one another.

The white man joins the Sioux tribe and begins spending more time with them than at his garrison post. He ties a friendship with Kicking Bird, played by Graham Greene, and with Wind in His Hair, played by Rodney Grant. After several days spent with the tribe, Dunbar gains the trust of the tribe's leader.

The most forceful connection that Dunbar has with a member of the tribe is that between him and Stands With a Fist, who he earlier saved. Stands With a Fist is a white women that has lived among the Sioux tribe since she was stolen from her parents. The woman makes the bond between Dunbar and the tribe members even stronger as she acts as an interpreter for him.

As Dunbar returns to his garrison, he finds an aggressive group of soldiers unwilling to admit his statute as a soldier in the U.S. army. Both his horse and wolf are shot and killed and Dunbar is being captured and taken to Fort Hayes where he is supposed to be executed. A party of Indians intercepts the convoy, murder every U.S. soldier, and save Dunbar. As the movie ends, Dunbar takes Stand With a Fist and leaves the tribe because he is aware that his staying in the group of Indians will pose a threat for them.

Costner managed to make an extraordinary Western in an era when such films are a thing of the past. Dunbar is presented as a man that loves life and all the good things about it. He expresses a sentiment of extreme pride when he prefers to die rather than have his leg amputated. Most people have returned to their homes after the war with the desire to have a normal life and a well-paid job. Dunbar, in contrast, chooses to remain in the military to protect an abandoned U.S. garrison on the western frontier. Total isolation does not seem strange to Dunbar and he immediately adapts to life in solitude, interacting only with Cisco, his horse, and Two Socks, his wolf. The Indians name him Dances with Wolves because he frequently plays with Two Socks.

In spite of wanting to make a typical Western, Costner has added some special touches to the script which changed some patterns that normal Westerns had followed. Most early Hollywood Westerns pictured Indians as savages that attacked white settlers. Indians were considered to be against civilization and against all that was perceived to be good. The Sioux tribe in Costner's movie breaks away from the standard image of savage Indians and they prove to be a highly cultured race. The fact that Costner had his actors speaking the Lakota language, instead of bad English as Indians from other Westerns did, also contributes in making the natives seem more intelligent.

Instead of bringing civilization in the west and being a supporter of the Manifest Destiny, Costner ended up joining the Sioux tribe. He did so because he learnt that civilization was in fact perverted, while Indians were authentic free people at peace with the world.

The director manages to transform the west in a fairy-tale land where nature is thriving without any intervention from the white people. The fact that Indians speak Lakota and Pawnee adds a drop of reality to the story and the audience is virtually taken away from their initial picture of a movie from the Western genre.

Costner improved the picture of the standard Indian shown in Westerns, but he did not manage to finish his job. While Costner's Indians are shown to possess a great amount of intelligence and great organizational skills, they do not express any kind of feelings. Most of the time they are numb and the only member of the tribe that forms a closer relationship with Dunbar is Stand With a Fist, who is also white.