DANCES WITH WOLVES

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: political correctness, violence, nudity, sexual content

Rated:

Twelve years ago the ever-politically correct film Dances With Wolves swept the Oscars, thumbed its nose at historians, and became a classic merely for its sense of arousing "white guilt" in our bad treatment of the American Indians. If you can overlook the gross historical inaccuracies and content issues, you could enjoy the story for its own merit... but that's hard to do.

Jon Dunbar (Kevin Cosner) is a lieutenant of the Civil War who has just barely resisted going "under the knife" for a foot infected with gangrene. Limping out of the tent when the doctor's back is turned and stealing a horse, he rides away, determining to kill himself by riding full-force in front of the enemy encampment. But instead of being killed, he is hailed as a hero, since he draws enemy attention and firepower and allows his men to take the opposing force by surprise. In thankfulness, the doctors are ordered to do everything they can to save his life... and his leg. But what's more, he's asked where he would like to be posted next. Desiring to see the prairie "before it's gone," he asks to be sent to the Dakotas. But there's something strange about his post... his guide and the fort commander are odd people, secretive and unwilling to divulge anything, and his commanding officer kills himself after sending Dunbar off on his assignment. Since he was the single figure of authority who knew of Dunbar's destination, the man is "lost" in military records... and no one is sent to join him at the lonely prairie fort.

His one companion is a beautiful gray wolf whom he slowly befriends... but the prairie is a dangerous and deadly place to live, particularly alone. There are the hair-raising Pawnee, who brutalize and scalp pioneers for kicks, the pack of wolves that run the wild, even buffalo who stop for nothing and no one in their way. But soon everything changes when he's introduced to a Sioux Indian tribe... one day while walking, he comes across a young white woman (Mary McDonnell) raised by Indians who is cutting her wrists in a show of mourning for her newly departed husband. In stopping her suicide, he is brought into the tribe.

From here on in, it takes a less passive turn and strays into political correct themes. White men are the enemy, since it fights the Indians, forces them off their lands, hunts their buffalo merely for the pelts, and abuses animals. Indian women, according to the film, are amazingly respected and liberated, cared for by gentle, compassionate husbands. Outspoken and actually listened to, they have quite a voice at the tribal meetings. Uh-huh. I never heard that in history class. They also conveniently forgot to mention, as the Indians are mourning the loss of a herd of buffalo, that the natives often drove entire herds over cliffs just to get meat from a few. What's even more amusing... an Indian witch doctor that actually encourages Dunbar to wait in having children, as if they have control over the situation! That's what women were for in the Indian tribes... bearing children! They were also notorious for selling their women in trade for other things... particularly horses. Pardon me, but the "white man" brought to the natives many modern conveniences and the religious concept of compassion. In truth, yes, our white ancestors did treat the Indians unjustly, but we must not forget what the Indians did to many settlers. It was a give and take game of bloody violence and long-reaching greed that both parties were responsible for.

Preachiness aside, Dances With Wolves is a very brutal and violent film. We see the scalped bodies of settlers along the trail, as well as some actual scalpings (only partially seen) by Pawnee warriors. The skinned bodies of a buffalo herd are left to bake in the sun; the Indians chase down and kill other animals for food. The battle scenes are graphic, filled with flying arrows and bloody gunfire. A war hospital is strewn with bloodied figures, many of which who are in the process of having body parts amputated. The film, in its extended "director's cut" is over three hours in length; an hour and a half of actual dialogue and development... the rest is violence.

There's also a disturbing amount of language, nudity, and sex, and quite frankly I don't know where the dividing line between a PG13 and an R rating would be. God's name is profaned often, along with other mind profanities that litter the English part of the film. (The rest is filmed in the actual original languages, and read in subtitles.) We see brief backside nudity as Dunbar skinny-dips in the pond and is taken by surprise by intruders; he dashes screaming up the bank. There are two scenes of intimacy, one between the chief Indian and his wife and a later, a more graphic love scene between Dunbar and the woman he saved. It moves very slowly with long spaces of time in which nothing happens... we watch Dunbar walk around on the prairie, toss meat scraps to the wolf, and repair his house. Yes, it's beautifully filmed and deserves a handful of the Oscars that it received for excellence, but the truth is Dances With Wolves does more to convince us that the Indians weren't actual savages than entertains.