"Dances With Wolves" is another great period piece that I can watch at least once a year, never tiring of the western frontier against mesmerizing setting and John Barry's Oscar-winning stirring music
The motion picture is told through the words and experiences of a civil war soldier, Lieutenant John Dunbar, and Costner makes it an intensely spiritual journey which challenges the individual in so many ways
After his suicidal and successful ride on the battlefield, Lt. Dunbar accidentally leads Union troops to victory against the Confederates He is allowed to select his own reassignment John opts to retreat into the wilderness, to the furthest frontier, where both the Sioux and Pawnee Indians still rule
The film perfectly captures the finest kind of American audacity when Costner rides out alone in the Lakota plains, wearing full dress uniform and holding the large American flag to formally introduce himself to his Sioux neighbors and the worst of America, the cruelty exercised by the army when it's found he's a Yankee soldier turned Indian and arrested as a traitor
But it's the gentle humor and intimate moments of the movie which give Costner's ambitious epic Western its special flavor: scenes with Dunbar and his wild wolf Two Socks not daring, at first, to eat from his hand; his funny first encounter with a peaceful man Kicking Bird (Graham Greene); his love story with a stolen white woman living with the tribe called Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell); his relationship with a fierce impulsive warrior Wind in His Hair (Rodney A. Grant); and many others as Black Shawl (Tantoo Cardinal) advising her husband on affairs of the heart
With its share of bow-and-arrow fights, joyous buffalo hunts, and unprecedented tender feelings for the American Indians, "Dances With Wolves" remains an amazing accomplishment and a magnificent tribute for a culture lost over time
The motion picture is told through the words and experiences of a civil war soldier, Lieutenant John Dunbar, and Costner makes it an intensely spiritual journey which challenges the individual in so many ways
After his suicidal and successful ride on the battlefield, Lt. Dunbar accidentally leads Union troops to victory against the Confederates He is allowed to select his own reassignment John opts to retreat into the wilderness, to the furthest frontier, where both the Sioux and Pawnee Indians still rule
The film perfectly captures the finest kind of American audacity when Costner rides out alone in the Lakota plains, wearing full dress uniform and holding the large American flag to formally introduce himself to his Sioux neighbors and the worst of America, the cruelty exercised by the army when it's found he's a Yankee soldier turned Indian and arrested as a traitor
But it's the gentle humor and intimate moments of the movie which give Costner's ambitious epic Western its special flavor: scenes with Dunbar and his wild wolf Two Socks not daring, at first, to eat from his hand; his funny first encounter with a peaceful man Kicking Bird (Graham Greene); his love story with a stolen white woman living with the tribe called Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell); his relationship with a fierce impulsive warrior Wind in His Hair (Rodney A. Grant); and many others as Black Shawl (Tantoo Cardinal) advising her husband on affairs of the heart
With its share of bow-and-arrow fights, joyous buffalo hunts, and unprecedented tender feelings for the American Indians, "Dances With Wolves" remains an amazing accomplishment and a magnificent tribute for a culture lost over time