Dances with Wolves, review

Costner The Pawnee according to Kevin Costner

The Sioux according to Kevin Costner

Dance with Wolves

Now i know that i promised to get working on some actual books, but due to school work, i'm limited in time. So I figured that i'd post some of my homework reviews, because at least thats something. Bear in mind this is homework, so it isn't very good comparatively, but I'm never going to review this movie otherwise.

Lieutenant Dunbar’s native name “He who Dances with wolves” sums up his role in the film. Dunbar’s interaction with both the natives and the wolf is the central object of the film, and parallel each other in their relationship, following the same formula. The natives watch the strange new comer, and there are a few tense moments when they first come into contact, as the wolf comes a bit too close and the Sioux try to steal his horses. After that, the Sioux make some cautious advances for a parlay, and the Dunbar starts to become more comfortable around them. Later he approaches them with his own attempts to parlay and starts to live among them. Eventually, he basically becomes one with the natives and joins their tribe, or in the case of the wolf his “pack”. In effect, Dunbar is dancing with wolves, in that he is playing with a normally dangerous or “savage’ entity, and in doing so he gains its acceptance and finally almost becomes one with them (a slightly more accurate if less poetic name would be “running with wolves”). The film tries to compare the Native Americans to the Wolves, like wolves they are a close-nit, “wild” people who live apart from “civilized” society. The Wolf has negative and positive connotations traditionally; on one hand wolves are a symbol of fear, or danger, dangerous, savage pack animals that strike fear into the hearts of normal men. The Pawnee are portrayed this way as little more than a bunch of ruthless savages. In the film it is only they who partake in the “typical” Indian behavior, kidnapping women, attacking other tribes and scalping white people. On the other hand, they are also associated with the “noble savage”, a primal, powerful hunter who is famous for their loyalty to their family and their great hunting skills. This role is clearly displayed by the Sioux, who, in contrast to the Pawnee, are shown in a universally positive light, as a group of enlightened people’s who live off the land and enjoy a powerful community spirit.
The film’s portrayal of the Native Americans is interesting. It was applauded when it showed the Natives in a positive light. And yet, it actually is just as black and white in its morality as the “typical” western, just opposite. Instead of showing the Native Americans as inhuman villains and the whites and enlightened goods, the film simply does the opposites, with the portrayal still being as simplistic and woefully inaccurate as the very western style it tries to avert. The whites are universally ruthless, selfish, barbarians who value nothing but their own greed, while the Sioux are basically walking saints, who live and enlightened superior culture that the greedy whites can’t hope to understand, with the exception of our Ubermensch main character.

The film’s portrayal is honestly, quite patronizing, in how it goes out of its way to show the Sioux as good and civilized that it actually quite insulting to the audience. The main character in particular acts totally out of character for a 19^th century American. From the beginning he is already a essentially a superman, he is totally untouched by his societies bias and already essentially an enlightened white who embraces the Native American culture with hardly a second thought. Its simplistic and unrealistic, making the whole movie feel forced and is far too obvious in its message, in the way it paints the Union as evil and uncivilized (as demonstrated in the final confrontation between Dunbar and the Union soldiers, or the scene where the Buffalo have been murdered for their hides and left to rot (its worth noting that in real life, Native American tribes, desperate for money did that as well, through that was mostly the BlackFeet). The film also misses the essential point when it comes to the study of the Native Americans, their weaknesses. Anyone who’s studies the extremely depressing history of the Naïve Americans, knows that their inability to organize or work together, so that every group was doomed to inevitable failure when it came to resistance because the whites would just divide them and destroy them. Glamorizing a culture isn’t healthy nor is it effective, because we don’t actually learn very much about Sioux culture or life style other than the general native American stereotypes, IE they chase Bufflo, live in tents and get killed by white people. Through they should be given credit for using their language in the film.

The film also neatly breaks the Native Americans into two groups, the “Good guys” and the “Bad guys”, IE the Sioux and the Pawnee, with one having all of the Native’s good traits and the other possessing all of their negative traits, which is a truly simplistic way to handle morality. A more complex and compelling way to show the Naïve Americans, not to mention a more historical accurate one, would be to show the Native Americans not as some sort of superior perfect peoples, but instead as a separate culture with their own faults and flaws. The Sioux were a close nit brave peoples certainly, but they were also just as ruthless and brutal as the Pawnee, if not more so, as they didn’t gain their large territory through peaceful methods, and were quite vicious in their attacks on whites, even those who had never personally harmed them. A better film would show them a noble, brave and complex culture, but also make it clear that they are still people, not a symbol of perfection. The Pawnee I feel also have been done a disservice, since there culture is just as legit as the Sioux. In short, the film’s portrayal, like its metaphor
The creation of a film such as Dances with Wolves is inventible. With the western genre so intergraded into our culture, along with the massive romanticism of the west, cowboys and the Native American wars, it is to be expected that some director will try to turn the genre on its head with a cunning subversion and a more “accurate” portrayal. Unfortunately, the Director in this can is Kevin Costner, and we instead just get a movie full of sloppy metaphors and forced spirituality. While the film should get credited for its intentions, and its wonderful landscape, the style, the storytelling and the methods are extremely ham handed and badly handled. In conclusion, it isn't a bad movie, but it lacks any real talent apart from being set in some cool landscapes and having some cool Native American Actors, so its like a paper that tries to be orginal but only just gets the passing grade (68%)

from

EE