Film Critique - Dances with Wolves - Movie Review Example

?Film Critique – Dances With Wolves Film Information The movie is d Dance With Wolves. The director was Kevin Costner. It starred Kevin Costner,Mary McDonnell, and Graham Greene. The production year was 1990. The film features both the Sioux tribe in a prominent role, and the Pawnee tribe in the secondary role. The period of time that this film covered was approximately 1865. The cast consisted of Native Americans, and the film was shot in Kansas and Oklahoma. Synopsis of the Movie In this movie, the main character is John Dunbar. He has been assigned an army post in the back of beyond by a man who was apparently insane. The insane man killed himself, so nobody knew where John Dunbar went.Moreover, there was a guide who took Dunbar to the post, and he, too, died, at the hands of a Pawnee Indian. Therefore, the guide couldn’t go back and tell the others where John Dunbar was. Also, when Dunbar arrived at the post, the previous men who were at this post had all left. Apparently, the insane man had not sent reinforcements to the post, as he should have, so the men who were at the post left, thinking that reinforcements were not coming. This was how Dunbar came to live with the Sioux Indian tribe. He was lonely, at first, but the Medicine man of the tribe, Kicking Bird, came to see him at his camp, and told the others about Dunbar. Kicking Bird trusted Dunbar immediately, because he felt that Dunbar could be some kind of bridge between the Indians and the white man, as the Indians were well aware that the white man was on the move and soon would be invading their camp. Wind in His Hair, a young, angry Indian, did not trust him at all. Nevertheless, when Dunbar brought back Stands With a Fist, who was a white girl that was living with the tribe, and was attempting suicide following the death of her husband, Dunbar was looked upon the tribe less suspiciously by everybody. Then, when Dunbar came into the camp to tell the tribe about him spotting buffalo, he attained mythical status, and everybody wanted to be his friend from that point on. Dunbar then started living with the tribe. He learned the language and married Stands With a Fist. However, Dunbar was captured by the army when he went back to his original post to retrieve his diary, thinking that the diary would be used to find the Sioux tribe and kill them. The Sioux brothers of Dunbar ambushed the Army men who were taking Dunbar to be tried for treason and probably hanged. Dunbar knew that his presence in the tribe made the entire tribe a target, and put everybody in danger, so he knew that he had to leave. With a heavy heart, he and Stands With a Fist left the tribe. In the captions, it was made known that the entire tribe had submitted to the white man’s rule 18 months later. Themes One of the major themes that ran all the way through the movie was the white man’s disregard for nature and animals. Through this theme ran an undercurrent that the white man had no regard for life, period. The theme of having general disregard for nature, thus having a general disregard for animals, was subtly introduced in the character of John Dunbar’s guide. This guide threw a tin can into the prairie, and by the way that Dunbar looked upon this action, it was clear that Dunbar did not approve of this. The theme was touched upon much more clearly in a subsequent scene – there were dead animals in a pond, all of them shot to death. It wasn’t clear why these animals were killed – they apparently were not killed for their hide, or their meat, because the entire carcasses were left to rot in the water. They apparently were killed only for sport. The next instance where the audience was shown that the white man had no respect for animals or nature came during a scene where there were thousands of buffaloes rotting in the sun. They were stripped of their hides and their tongues, then left on the prairie to rot. This was an insult to the Indians – they depended upon the buffalo for the meat, the hide, the organs, the bones, everything. They did not waste any part of the animal that they hunted, and the fact that these men wasted most of the animal showed the stark difference between the respect that the Indians gave towards these animals, in contrast with the disrespect that the white man gave to the animals. The theme was later on portrayed when Dunbar and Kicking Bird went to an abandoned house. The place had been abandoned for at least a week, and there were animal carcasses everywhere. Once again, it was unclear why the animals were killed – their carcasses were intact. They were not needed for the food or for the furs, yet they were killed. Finally, the killing of Two Socks brought the theme home and was the most devastating instance of all. Two Socks was the wolf who Dunbar had patiently befriended. Two Socks was a very tame wolf, and was very interested in being with Dunbar. As much as an animal can be a friend to a human, Two Socks was a friend to Dunbar, and Dunbar was a friend to Two Socks. In fact, Two Socks was killed because he was so tame – Two Socks tried to follow his friend, Dunbar, when Dunbar was being hauled away by the army men who invaded Dunbar’s camp. When he watched from a distance, not trying to run away, the army men tormented the poor wolf and killed him. They killed him just because they could – Two Socks was bothering nobody, nor would he bother anybody. The men didn’t bother to try to take Two Socks’ fur or bring him along for food – Two Socks’ carcass was left to rot in the sun, like the buffalo and other animals before him. Two Socks was only killed for sport, nothing more, and this showed a profound disrespect for life. The theme of having disrespect for animal life showed not only that the white men disrespected animal life, but that they disrespected life, period. The army men had no respect for the Indians who were on the prairie, even though these Indians showed no aggression and were peaceful. The Indians who took in Dunbar had a mind to try to make a pact with the white men, but this obviously was not the plan for the white men. The white men wanted only to conquer the Indians, not live peacefully with them. Therefore, the white men didn’t respect the lives of the Indians, just like they didn’t respect the lives of the animals. In fact, they probably thought of the Indians as being the same as those animals that they so mercilessly killed for no reason at all. This was the mindset that was sought to be showed by the filmmaker – that a race that doesn’t respect animal life will not respect human life, either. The movie, through the portrayal of the white men as being savages, and the Indians as being gentle people, who cared for each other and were kind and respectful to Dunbar and everybody in their tribe, showed that the filmmaker did have an agenda. Perhaps this was an agenda that was offensive to some people, but the story had to be told, and the best way to tell the story was through stark contrast. The white men were bad, and the Indians were good – and this brings home the treatment that the Indians suffered while the prairies were being settled. The agenda of the filmmaker was to show the Indians in a different light – previous movies typically portrayed the Indians as being savages and being the enemy. This film shows that Indians were not savages – they loved one another, the children acted like children, they grieved their losses, and they had a beautiful and close-knit community. Their lives were peaceful and were not geared towards violence or destruction, for the most part – one exception was one scene where the Sioux were rejoicing over killing some white settlers. This was a new side of the Indians that perhaps has been neglected by filmmakers over the years. Another part of the agenda that the filmmaker evidently wanted was to show how unfair the white man was to the Indian. The Indians, now called Native Americans, are scarce now, because of the systematic genocide that our country has perpetuated upon them. While there are some that would think that this was a necessary evil – we had to wipe them out, because, if we didn’t, our country couldn’t be built and we couldn’t have progressed in the manner that we have. This is undoubtedly true, but the filmmaker wanted the audience to know what kind of price was paid for this progress – the lives of these peaceful Indians were destroyed, and so was their way of life. Conclusion This movie was a touching portrayal of a way of life that existed once, and is now gone. Gone because the white man made it so. The Indians in this movie were just like any other human being – they laughed, played games, gambled, made love, grieved lost ones, and helped one another. Yet, they were not allowed to exist. They were inconvenient, so they had to be conquered by the much more dominant white race. This was an injustice, and the movie showed how unjust it really was. Reference Dances With Wolves. 1990. Dir. Kevin Costner. Perf. Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell and Graham Greene. Search Light Pictures. Read More