Posts from WaynamoJim in thread „Dances with Wolves (1990)“

Quote from Gorch

Speaking of native Americans, last night I stayed up into the wee hours watching the four hour director's cut of "Dances With Wolves".
I know that Costner isn't popular with some people, but he made a damn fine film here. This longer edition fleshes out some minor characters, particularly the Lakota, making their actions more understandable. There's a restored scene or two showing the cavalry abandoning Dunbar's post as well as a formally deleted incident on the buffalo hunt where the tribe finds carcasses slaughtered by white hunters. The Lakota are shown having a scalp dance after they kill the hide hunters and Dunbar's reaction.
If you haven't seen this addition, which adds about a whole hour, I recommend it.

We deal in lead, friend.

Yeah, Gorch, I've seen the long version a few times now. Another extended scene added has Dunbar and Kicking Bird(Graham Greene) going on a trip to what the Sioux and Cheyenne consider their holy place, the Black Hills. There they find a camp that white trappers or whatever, where there are dead animals everywhere and just a huge mess. And both men cannot believe what they find there. Kicking Bird is hurt by what he sees as a flagrant disregard for what he considers something special that was given to them. Dunbar looks ashamed that men of his race can act like pigs.

Quote from Ervserver

Shortly after this movie came out we vacationed in the Black Hills, almost everywhere you went you saw a sign parts of the movie was filmed. Beautiful country out there, one of my fav places

We did the same thing back in 93. On the route along I-90, they had a place that had historical buildings from all over S.D. The had one set up from the movie with alot of props and photos from the film and even had the horse Costner rode. People got to pet him and take pictures with him. And just outside of Rapid City as you're going into the Black Hills, they had the buildings from fort sequence when Costner is first going out there and you could stop and check them out. Plus, there were other areas where they did the filming of the Sioux village scenes.

This soundtrack is one of the best ever done for any movie. It was done by the great John Barry who did most if not all of the James Bond films plus, Out Of Africa, Somewhere In Time, Frances, Born Free, The Ipcress File and who knows how many others. I've got this one and just like playing it over and over.

Quote from SXViper

Not to get into a debate over Costner films but "Bull Durham" I think ranks as one of his best and one of the best sports films ever.

I never cared for Bull Durham. I thought Field of Dreams was better as a sports movie. Part of the reason I don't like Bull Durham is I don't care for Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, though Robbins movie Shawshank Redemption was excellent.

If Costner had more westerns under his belt, then I would say add him but, I believe he only has four, Silverado, DWW, Wyatt Earp and, Open Range. Can't remember him appearing in any more. Get another half dozen quality ones in, then we'll talk. Personally, westerns are the only Costner movies I really like. Waterworld and The Postman were ok but, all the rest, who cares. And that includes Field of Dreams

That's just it, there was an ugly side to the soldiers back then. Most of them were only there because they had nothing else going for them. So they joined the army to live. They hated their way of life, hated their officers and desertions were very high back then. And one of the most hated officers was Custer. The only ones in his command that liked him were his officers under him. The enlisted men didn't like him because he was a hard taskmaster. If you deserted, he'd have you shot. But, he got into trouble for it and that ceased. Being in the army, whether it was infantry or cavalry was a very hard life and I think parts of this movie shows that. We all grew up on watching John Fords cavalry films that showed that as being a big adventure, romantic, colorful and all those soldiers having a blast. But really, it was not.