"Dances with Wolves"--why does the officer piss in his pants?

Cafe Society
1

Dances with Wolves is one of my favorite movies because it has many realistic moments*.

But one part of the plot was just weird: when the Army officer orders Kevin Costner to travel to the abandoned army outpost, then pisses in his pants and commits suicide. Huh ? What the hell was that for?
The plot have worked better by treating that scene seriously. Instead of an officer acting like a buffoon, why not have a serious and intelligent officer say to Costner " I’m sending you to an outpost on the far frontier…Go out there… and tell us what you learn."

*I especially like the various scenes filmed inside the tepee, where I feel like I’m seeing the way the Indians really lived…examples :
–The nervous meeting in the main teepee where several people forcefully expresss their ideas about how to respond now that the white man is arriving, but then fall respectfully silent when the chief utters his decision.
– The scene where the soldier rides up to the Indian village for the first time, and a terrified mother grabs her children to protect them.
– A very small, but real, moment: the scene where the 2 Indians go into the army outpost, and one of them tastes sugar for the first time. His look of surprise at the new taste, and then the way he drops a handfull of sugar back into the sack, totally unaware of western social customs

2

He wasn’t acting like a buffoon, he was mentally disturbed. That’s why he shot himself.

3

Mentally disturbed and, one presumes, piss drunk.

I always assumed he’d shot his second in command and reported him MIA.

4

At least he wasn’t pissed off.

5

I believe the point was that Costner’s orders are never recorded so no one knows he’s at the outpost so he’s on his own.

6

This.

7

okay, I suppose that’s a valid point. But it’s too minor an issue to explain the oddity of the scene.
I’ve seen the movie several times, and I never noticed that there were no written orders. But even so, it doesnt really matter. Costner was sent out there with a “peasant” driving a heavy wagonload of supplies. The wagon driver’s salary and all the barrels of supplies had to be paid for by the army, right? So there would have been some kind of “paper trail”, even by 19th century standards.

so what?–buffoon, or mental case…either way, it doesn’t fit the plot of the movie. A serious scene like I suggested in the OP would add atmosphere, add a bit of forewarning, a bit of suspence, a hint of foreboding adventure to come. The pissing/suicide scene just doesnt fit with the rest of the movie, and just spoils the atmosphere for a couple of minutes…

8

I think the scene is also meant to punctuate how crazy war can be and the effect it can have on people. We’ve just seen Dunbar himself do something crazy and near-suicidal as he charges up and down the field in front of the enemy soldiers on his horse. The officer who sends him to the frontier is just a bit more “far gone” than Dunbar had been. It is an odd scene, but I think it adds rather than detracts from the movie.

9

I read the novel once and the story is that nobobdy knows that the protagonist went to see the frontier; I don’t remember the details, this is about twenty years ago, but in the novel the writer has another twist to make this happen. However in the movie, they need to make it short and let the guy shoot himself. But for him to shoot himself you need a reason and the reason is that he is crazy, which is proven by pissing his pants. – This is IIRC plus my thoughts.

I never liked the scene in the film, it was kinda cheap and I was curious whether it was in the book too, but once again, it was better set up (IIRC).

10

I disagree. You don’t think it adds a bit of suspense and foreboding that Dunbar has just been given orders to travel to some obscure outpost and no one will know he is there except for a mentally imbalanced officer who then shoots himself in the head?

Here’s the scene on YouTube for reference.

11

I always assumed there were some deleted scenes here that would make it more explicable. Does anybody know?

12

I would remove the ‘near’ - Dunbar was trying to be killed outright rather than submit to a saw doctor.

The officer shooting himself worked for me, and its function in the plot is clear.

Movies depict unlikely events because those are the stories worth watching.

13

That guy was also killed, so you would assume that the entire wagon and its paper trail was written off as lost to the Indians.

There were. There’s a Captain from the base who was worried about the suicidal officer, and after he shot himself the Captain ran into his office and stood in the doorway with a despondent look on his face.

14

I thought we discussed this before and all I could find was this. But I think it helps.

15

Actually, the scene where the C.O. shoots himself is historically accurate in the sense that the suicide rate among soldiers posted on the frontier was high. A good novel to read for background on what life was like for those men is Evan McConnell’s Son of the Morning Star. Insanity, drunkenness and suicide seemed to rise the farther out one was from civilization.

Bri2k

16

It’s been a while since I saw the film, so I can’t remember if there was a basis for this. BUT

I thought the officer was only somewhat crazy, but was also an alcoholic spiralling the drain.

‘So, you wanna go west? Who gives a crap! I refuse to take anything seriously now that my life has turned to shit! By the way, my body is so damaged I’ve lost control of my bladder! Nothing but happy days ahead for me! I think I’ll eat a bullet after I finish this cake.’

17

Yes this is true, and not only for soldiers. A lot of plains settlers went nuts just from the sheer isolation they endured. Imagine living in some sod shack for months on end and seeing nobody but whoever lived with you. No TV, no electricity, no communications. You probably didn’t have many books because they were expensive and you traveled lightly to get where you were. You didn’t have enough daylight to read by, working backbreaking work all day, and it was pitch black at night. Maybe you might have candles or a lantern, but you wouldn’t want to waste those either. Plus cow shit for fires, mmmm nice!

18

Maybe he was syphillitic? Another possibility from his behavior… syphilis was probably pretty common at that time and he might have been at the end of the disease in dementia. They also used mercury or compounded mercury to treat it sometimes which just worsened the symptoms. Maybe that’s what the writer’s and director had in mind, to realistically depict the kind of people you might find in those times, which might include a substantial number of crazy syphilitics, usually in later age and standing or rank, as it might take up to 25 years to emerge as a latent symptom.

19

I think the only point of the scene is to show that a posting at an isolated frontier base will drive some men crazy. And now Costner’s going out and leaving even that behind, how will he deal?!

20

Considering these were enlisted men in a frontier town, likely with brothels, it might be that most of them might have gotten syphilis. It would also seem to reinforce the general idea that this was like the “Siberia” or “Alaska” of military outposts, probably the misfits and rejects, crazy, and their like stationed in Scalpin’ BFE.