Took me awhile to see it!
You actually sat through the entire movie?
I called it “Yawns with Rest of Audience.”
Actually, I missed the first and the last 20 minutes or so. It was a bit overblown and pretentious, you’re right, but I loved the cinematography.
Magua. And that’s Wes Studi, a terrific actor. Like Danny Trejo, an incredibly nice, soft spoken guy who can play the most chillingly-evil characters in film.
A good question, and one that is never answered in the movie. There were various longer (some MUCH longer) cuts of the movie which presumably answered that question, but it was a bit awkward.
Overall, I think this movie gets a LOT more hate than it deserves. I’ve always found it compelling and remarkably watchable, as well as epic and powerful.
I thought the film was vastly overrated when it came out, but it was well-made and there’s nothing particularly wrong with Kevin Costner’s performance. Unfortunately, it now stands as the first of his Messiah trilogy (along with Waterworld and The Postman), so it has suffered an inevitable backlash.
I’m a sucker for Indian movies, so I’m willing to overlook a lot of the weak points and just appreciate the better ones. But, Kevin Costner is not a good actor in this movie, and I find his nasal voice really irritating as a narrator. I’ve picked up a few Lakota words over the years, and especially enjoy a chance to hear it spoken, and to try and understand it some.
The thing about the horses is that there was supposed to be a contingent of soldiers at the fort when he got there, and something really bad happened before he arrived, although we never really know what it was. Remember all the caves dug into the side of the hill?
Wes Studi is really good in this film, and he seems to be the go-to guy when Hollywood needs an Indian-- you see him in all sorts of westerns.
I submit that the hate comes from its winning Best Picture over Goodfellas.
It’s got a beautiful John Barry score, and Costner won the Oscar primarily because he made this film out of sheer force of will (nobody wanted to touch it, and it was branded “Kevin’s Gate” long before Waterworld was).
But it does fetishize Native American culture, and the fact that he pairs up with a white girl is a cop-out (heck, if an Indian wife was good enough for Jeremiah Johnson and Little Big Man, why not DwW?). Still, it’s not a bad movie, and it is quite touching at times–but it is overlong and John Mace nails it with Costner’s anemic voiceover.
It always bothered me that he looked down his nose at the Robert Pastorelli character, who seemed a bit oncouth but harmless enough (and then is killed by “the good guys”), and that every other Union soldier was crass and horrible. I guess after 80 years of mistreatment within the western genre, a little payback is in order, but the manipulation is so transparent that it gets a little unseemly after a while.
In retrospect, beating the Scorsese film has not helped its cause, and I’d argue that Costner’s Open Range is a far better film on just about all counts.
I mostly bumped this thread, though, because the film is the subject of my most recent blog entry (see the sig). 
Well the first 20 mins are kind of important.
I think there are dead animals in the water because the water is poisoned, by the white soldiers, because they are too stupid to live in harmony with nature, because they are white and they are soldiers.
DWW is a terrific film. I’ve never seen Goodfella’s and even though I like Mr. S. I have no desire to see it.
I have a question about this film for anybody who has seen the deleted scenes/director’s cut (which i have not). There’s clearly a backstory about the barking mad fort commander who commits who proudly admits he has pissed on himself and then commits suicide, and about the abandoned camp that Talks-With-a-Monotone goes to and where he meets the Sioux. Do the extra scenes address any of these issues?
My favorite western about Indian/white interactions in the old west is and will remain Little Big Man however. Yes, it romanticized the Cheyenne and played fast and loose with history, but then it was a centenarian who was telling it the way he remembered it and so some tall-telling was to be expected. (Plus Chief Dan George is on the short list of actors I’d hope God would look like, Faye Dunaway was still great and not yet playing a crazy Faye Dunaway type in everything, Allardyce Merriwether [Martin Balsam] was the greatest pragmatist in westerns, and I think Little Horse was the first openly gay character ever portrayed as a respected member of a society on primetime network TV* [though Jack’s sister, who may or may not have been a lesbian, was less so].)
*By network TV I’m referring to the film’s broadcast on television in the 1970s.
Dances with Wolves was about an hour too long. And the ending sucked ass.
Nobody lives in harmony with nature. At least, humans don’t.
I recommend Goodfellas; definitely a better movie.
I saw DwW in eleventh grade English. The only thing that really sticks out for me is that at one point the teacher walked down the rows of desks, passing out tissues. We all looked at her, confused. “You’ll need them,” she replied simply and walked back to her desk.
Then Two Socks was shot and the whole class started bawling.
Oh, and also a guy passed out during the boot-pulling-on scene at the beginning. I had never seen anyone faint before. He just fell over. I was pretty close to it, but his faint kept me distracted from the gore on screen enough to stay upright.
I enjoyed the movie immensely, even with ol’ “I must now show my ass to the Indians” in it. Stands With Fist was a hottie, the Indian characters were terrific, and the supporting cast of soldiers first-rate.
Eleventh grade? :dubious:
I grew up in the mountains, and I have to say that as a 4th or 5th grader when that and Glory were released, I don’t think any guy in my class would have done anything but cheer for more gore. (The guy getting splattered in Robocop was also a favorite.)
I admit, I LIKED “Dances With Wolves” quite a lot.
And in my opinion, if it had won the Oscar in most years, it wouldn’t inspire such vitriol and venom. I mean, there are LOTS of much worse movies that have won Best Picture, but do you see anyone frothing at the mouth over “Out of Africa” or “the Last Emperor” the way they do over “Dances With Wolves”?
The difference is, “Dances With Wolves” beat out Martin Scorsese and “Goodfellas.” And THAT is something self-styled cinephiles will never forgive or forget.
I wonder which film has more backlash. Dances or Titanic.
Yeah. Eleventh grade. Some people (me included) get dizzy at the sight of blood/needles/surgery in movies. And Two Socks was really the only likable character for the longest part of that movie.
Two Socks is the wolf, right?
It must be over ten years since I saw this movie, but I seem to remember liking it. Then again, I always like hated Kevin Costner movies. It’s kinda creepy.