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It's the Civil War, 1863. Lt. John Dunbar (Costner) is wounded and in the hospital unit overhearing the doctors say he needs to have his leg amputated. The doctors take a break since "He ain't going anywhere", and after they leave Dunbar decides he'd rather commit suicide than lose his leg. He forces his boot back onto his bloody leg and goes back into the battlefield with the others. He hops onto a horse and rides near the Confederate front lines, which winds up distracting them and allowing the Union army to attack and rout their enemies. After the ensuing battle, an experienced general's surgeon saves Dunbar's leg. The commanding officer recognizes Dunbar as a hero and gives him Cisco, the horse who carried him in battle, and offers Dunbar his choice of posting.
Dunbar meets with Major Fambrough (Maury Chaykin) and wants to see the frontier before it disappears due to western movement, so we requests to be transferred there. Fambrough is irreparably mentally damaged from the war as he believes he is a king and Dunbar a medieval knight, but he gets his transfer. Dunbar is paired with Timmons (Robert Pastorelli), who will bring him to his new post. Fambrough proclaims he's soiled himself. After Timmons and Dunbar leave, Fambrough commits suicide with his own pistol. Good times!
The film is narrated by Costner, incidentally, and in my opinion he's pretty terrible at it. It all sounds like he's reading. Obviously, of course he's reading, but it shouldn't SOUND like it, ya know? At any rate, Timmons is a total slob but Dunbar deals with it. They eventually arrive at Fort Sedgwick, finding it deserted and desolate. After settling, Timmons heads back. Dunbar sees no one else and nothing else except for a single wolf that roams the area. Dunbar befriends it and names it Two Socks, because the white coloring of its front legs look like two socks. Between what he's brought with him and what's been left behind by past occupants, Dunbar has abundant supplies. He explores the area and eventually finds lots of wagon remains over a hill, and several dead elk buried in the water source elsewhere. He pulls everything out of the water and burns it.
Elsewhere, Timmons is also burning a fire, having stopped on his return trip. He is spotted from a distance by a group of Pawnee Indians. The Pawnees soon ambush Timmons, killing him with arrows and scalping him. Because of Timmons and Fambrough both now being dead, Union officers have no idea that Dunbar is alone at his new post. Dunbar is unaware of those deaths and writes in his diary how he's unsure why no one else has come out there to join him.
Dunbar is bathing in the nearby lake. Upon returning to his camp, he discovers an Indian attempting to steal his horse. This Indian is Kicking Bird (Graham Greene), a Sioux, who assumes this post is empty. Bird is scared off when Dunbar returns. Dunbar then buries most of his supplies to hide them, and two days later awaits what he feels will be the inevitable return of the Indians.
The Sioux are all discussing what to do about Dunbar. Bird feels they should attempt a rapport with him. A warrior named Wind in His Hair (Rodney A. Grant) wants Dunbar dead, as the white man threatens them. Chief Ten Bears (Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman) sides with Bird. Wind and a couple others ride by Dunbar's camp the next day. Dunbar has his pistol ready. Wind rides up to Dunbar and tells him he doesn't fear the white man, this despite the fact that Dunbar has his pistol pointed right at Wind's face. The Indians then ride away. Dunbar decides that the next day, he will attempt to visit the Indian camp to start communication. On his way there, he comes across a woman under a tree, who's bloody and is carrying a large knife. It's a white woman but she's dressed in Indian clothing and speaks the Lakota tongue. The woman struggles against Dunbar's attempts to help her and eventually passes out. He takes her with him to the Indian camp. As he arrives, the Sioux all line up. Dunbar repeatedly says she's hurt. Wind approaches Dunbar, grabs the woman by the arm and drags her back to the Sioux line, telling Dunbar he should leave.
The Sioux all reconvene and Ten Bears and Bird agree that it is their turn to ride to Dunbar and establish communication. Bird and Wind make the trip with others behind them to observe from a distance. Dunbar welcomes them both and the initial word they both learn from each other is "Tatanka/Buffalo".
Ummmmmm...no, not that one.
There we go.
Dunbar refers to Wind as "the fierce one" and Bird as "the quiet one", with the latter obviously some important intelligent part of the tribe. The visit goes well and a second visit has Dunbar show them how he grinds coffee. The Indians enjoy the coffee and they REALLY enjoy the sugar, with Wind trying to dump a bunch of it into Bird's drink. The Sioux return and Bird tells the woman who Dunbar brought back that she should return to speaking English and act as a translator between them and Dunbar. This woman is Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell), who was captured and raised by the tribe when she was a child. Her family had been massacred by Pawnee but she had escaped. She is also recently widowed, which is why she attempted suicide as Dunbar came upon her that day. Stands is reluctant but eventually agrees to act as a translator.
Bird rides to Dunbar's camp and gifts him with a buffalo hide. Dunbar waves to the other Indians observing from afar, which he had done in the past to no response, but this time they wave back. Dunbar is invited to visit the Sioux camp, and when he does Stands stammers English to translate between he and the Indians. They all learn each other's names. As Dunbar is riding to the camp, he comes across a buffalo stampede. The Sioux have been looking for buffalo recently and Dunbar is excited to alert them of the stampede, but when he arrives at the camp yelling about the buffalo, most of the Sioux (who are engaged in a ceremony) attack him since they don't know who he is. Eventually Wind and Bird save him from harm.
Dunbar aids the Sioux in tracking down the herd and becomes a hero to the tribe. He also finds himself attracted to the lifestyle and customs as they are very united and grounded. Both sides are also improving on their language learning. During a celebration later, Wind and Dunbar exchange clothing items. Dunbar is eventually given the Indian name of Dances With Wolves as they witness Dunbar's interaction with Two Socks. Dunbar tries to assuage the Sioux fears of more white men coming even though he knows it's inevitable. Dunbar is invited to join a war party against the Pawnee, who have been threatening invasion lately. Bird instead asks Dunbar to look after his family during this. In the process, Dunbar and Stands continue to bond. Stands is the "adopted" daughter of Bird and his wife. Stands tells of where her name came from, as well as how she came to be a member of the Sioux tribe. They both know they're falling for each other, but Stands runs off. The next day she looks for him to apologize, but he's already returned to his camp. At the lake, Dunbar finds Stands waiting for him. They get all carnal.
While Dunbar and Stands are going another round in his Sioux tent, they hear a commotion outside. The Pawnee have been sighted and are coming to attack. Dunbar returns to his camp to get the supply of rifles, and the Sioux successfully fend off their attackers with the weapons, which are quick and get the job done easily. One Pawnee kills a Sioux only to find himself surrounded by Sioux and later killed in revenge.
Bird's wife tells him that it is obvious that Dunbar and Stands are in love. In response, Bird goes to Stands and tells her she's no longer in mourning for her first husband, which is to say he approves of the union. Dunbar and Stands wed and he abandons his post, living with the Sioux full-time. Dunbar later tells Bird the truth about how he expects many more whites to come onto the scene and invade their land. Ten Bears decides they will all move to their winter camp. Dunbar realizes his diary is still at Fort Sedgwick so he goes to retrieve it since it would give away everything about the Sioux camp. Upon arriving there, he sees that soldiers have taken over the fort. The soldiers see Dunbar and, since he's dressed in Indian garb, assume he is an Indian. They kill his horse and capture him.
As the Sioux are traveling, Bird senses that Dunbar is in trouble so he sends two Indians to check on him. At the fort, Dunbar tells Lt. Elgin (Charles Rocket) he was a Union lieutenant and asks about his diary, which contains information about him being posted at Fort Sedgwick. He's accused of treason and ordered to bring them to the Indians. In response, Dunbar speaks only Lakota, renouncing his English name and using only the name of Dances With Wolves. One soldier, Spivey (Tony Pierce), is reading the journal and uses a page of it for toilet paper. The two Indians see Dunbar is captive and return to their tribe to update them.
The soldiers begin to transport Dunbar and also use Two Socks for target practice, eventually killing him. The Sioux have witnessed this and, as the soldiers cross the lake, attack and rescue Dunbar. The journal, however, floats off in the water. At the Sioux winter camp, Dunbar says he must leave and talk to white men who will actually listen to him in regards to the Sioux. He also advises that the Sioux move their village. Ten Bears says that Dunbar no longer exists, he is truly a Sioux now, Dances With Wolves. Stands tells her husband that she will go where he goes. There are several jump-cuts showing that more soldiers are on the way, being led there by Pawnee. One young Sioux, Smiles a Lot (Nathan Chasing Horse), had found the journal in the water and retrieved it, and he gives it back to Dunbar. Everyone says their goodbyes, with Wind In His Hair crying out from a clifftop that Dances with Wolves will always be his friend. The soldiers eventually arrive at the winter camp but find it empty, with just a lone wolf in the distance howling. An on-screen epilogue says that 13 years later, the last of the free Sioux were surrounded and decided to "submit to white authority."
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Costner really threw it all to the wall in playing the Dunbar role. He did all of his own horseback riding scenes, including during the buffalo hunt when he would shoot his rifle without holding the reins. In the early scene of him willingly sacrificing himself to the Confederate army, he spread his arms out as if to say "Here I am, shoot me", which was an unplanned touch that surprised the hell out of the stunt coordinator. Costner had one close call where in one scene he was knocked off his horse and nearly broke his back....Mary McDonnell played Graham Greene's adopted daughter in the film, but in reality she is 2 months older than he is.....Two different trained wolves were employed for the Two Socks scenes. I call them "trained" but in reality, the wolves were rather fickle when it came to performing scenes as Costner desired....Costner's director's cut of the film is 236 minutes. Orion Studios wanted the film to come it at no more than 140 minutes. The two sides compromised at 180 minutes.....Michael Blake, who wrote the 1988 novel this film was based on, initially wrote a script for this in the mid-1980's but was unable to sell it. Costner and Blake had worked together previously so they had a relationship, and Costner advised Blake to turn the script into a novel instead, which would improve its chances of being picked up for movie rights. It worked.....Most of the buffalo seen in the film were real bison, as opposed to animatronic (a handful were) or CGI (which barely existed yet). Two of the buffalo were lended to the crew by Neil Young, who owned them.....A 2001 novel sequel, The Holy Road, has been in "developmental hell" in Hollywood for several years. Costner has stated he will not be a part of it. Viggo Mortensen appears to be in line to play Dunbar if that film ever gets made.....The Lakota language is gender-specific, but in making the film the crew decided not to overcomplicate matters and just use what wound up often being the feminine version of words and sentences. Some Sioux who watched an early screening of the film couldn't stop laughing at Costner's character speaking feminine Lakota.
Dances With Wolves never topped the box office chart, but it had a very long and successful run, bringing in $184M+, well beyond expectations. The AMPAS feted the film with a dozen nominations and 7 wins. Categories that saw the awards go elsewhere were Art/Set Direction (Jeffrey Beecroft and Lisa Dean), Costume Design (Elsa Zamparelli), Supporting Actress (McDonnell), Supporting Actor (Greene) and Lead Actor (Costner). Wins came for Original Score (John Barry), Film Editing (Neil Travis), Sound (crew led by sound engineer Russell Williams II), Cinematography (Dean Semler), Adapted Screenplay (Blake), Director (Costner) and Best Picture. The top prize was won over Awakenings (good, but schmaltzy, film), Ghost (less good and more schmaltzy film), The Godfather Part III (pales in comparison to the earlier installments) and Goodfellas (which in my view was by miles the best film of the year).
I wasn't too fond of Dances With Wolves. It's not awful, it's just slooooooow. The first 30 minutes or so completely had me lost, and I had a hard time getting into it in general until finally Dunbar and the Sioux started to communicate, but even then I just kept finding myself checking my watch. 3 hours was too long for this movie. I damn sure won't be rushing to check out the director's cut.
My mom and I will watch it and let you know what's different, my love!
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