The American Civil War is gradually turning in favor of the Union Army, but victory isn’t happening soon enough for depressed Union military man John J. Dunbar (Kevin Costner). He attempts to commit suicide by riding unarmed against an outpost of Confederate soldiers, but Dunbar’s little stunt inadvertedly backfires (i.e. he isn’t killed by enemy fire) and instead inspires his fellow Union soldiers to attack the Confederate troops and be victorious. Promoted to Lieutenant and consumed by a desire to see the American frontier before it disappears, Dunbar asks and is granted permission to take over abandoned Fort Sedgewick by a slightly-odd Union Mayor named Fambrough (Maury Chaykin). Dunbar goes about the business of repairing and making Fort Sedgewick a working/living facility, and is unaware when Mayor Fambrough kills himself without reporting to anyone up the Union command chain of his assignment. Although lonely and desolate the isolation from civilization turns out to be the best cure Dunbar could have ever asked for to chase his blues away. The Lieutenant that only a few months prior wanted to kill himself finds he’s at peace watching beautiful sunsets and crossing eyes with a wolf that keeps coming around Fort Sedgewick.
Also around Lieutenant Dunbar’s Western outpost: Indians! Initially hostile based on what he’s been taught about their alleged savagery and hostility toward civilized (AKA white) men, Dunbar gradually comes to accept and befriend his Sioux neighbors. From wise old leader Ten Bears ("The X-Files’" Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman) to exuberant Smiles A Lot (Nathan ‘Chasing His Horse’ Lee) and smart warrior Kicking Bird ("The Doors’" Graham Greene II) to the gal that catches Dunbar’s eye, Stands With A Fist ("Independence Day’s" Mary McDonnell), the ways of the Sioux teach the Union Lieutenant to mistrust the motives of his own people. Dunbar loses himself so much into the culture and language of the Sioux (who give their white-skin neighbor the Indian name ‘Dances With Wolves’ because of his tease of the wolf that keeps eyeing him in Ch.21) that, when fellow cavalry soldiers come knocking on Fort Sedgewick’s door, the rogue Lieutenant is taken prisoner and considered a traitor by his own people. A couple of soldiers in particular, Timmons ("Murphy Brown’s" Robert Pastorelli) and Sergeant Bauer (Larry Joshua), relish being able to beat up Dunbar as much as the other Indians that they can get a hold of.
Winner of seven Academy Awards as the Best Picture of 1990 (including one for star/producer Kevin Costner as Best Director), "Dances With Wolves" has aged pretty well in the 13 years that have passed since I’ve seen it. That’s right, I saw this movie in theaters when I was 17 years old and haven’t seen it again until MGM’s recent re-release of this epic as an affordably- priced Special Edition two-disc DVD set. Costner’s vanity project doesn’t come across as that at all. Direction and acting are workmanlike, never attempting to steal attention from someone or something in order to give Costner’s Dunbar character more face time (though the man’s ultra-pure morality toward the Sioux borders on becoming a pondering stereotype as the movie reaches its third of four hours). The movie’s signature scene, a horse-mounted hunt involving 3,500 buffalo heads (Ch.19), continues to be a thrilling pre-CG feast of the senses that is guarantee to give the speakers of any entertainment center a workout. At its best moments "Dances With Wolves" doesn’t involve action scenes or dramatic moments, but just the vast North American landscape unfolding in all its majestic glory.
Dean Semler’s Award winning cinematography is postcard and history book perfect. I doubt the average Joe will stay awake through every minute of this Special Edition’s new 236 min. running time, and yet the movie is just so damn well edited (by Neil Travis), scored (by James Bond veteran John Barry) and paced that even diehard Kevin Costner haters will admit the man knew what he was doing. "Dances With Wolves" remains an entertaining cinematic attempt at giving the plight of Native Americans some weight by reducing the typically good white American men from Hollywood Western movies (including Costner’s own stints in "Silverado") into one-dimensional monsters without morals. It’s sad that in contemporary culture the reduction of one group of characters to as shallow a stereotype as the one Native Americans were subjected to in the early days of cinema and TV has to be regarded as advancement, but what can I say? Until a better Western about the convergence of one man with his destiny as a friend of the Sioux Indians is made (which is doubtful given today’s play-it-safe Hollywood mentality) "Dances With Wolves" stands tall and proud as a representative of a bygone era of Hollywood filmmaking: the thinking man’s epic!
The Disc:
Already available on two previous DVD releases (now discontinued) that had no bonus material but featured strong picture/sound, the new Special Edition of "Dances With Wolves" sacrifices its predecessor’s DTS soundtrack in order to accommodate the Never-Before-Seen Hour of Additional Scenes into a two-sided DVD-18 ‘flipper’ disc. You wouldn’t be able to tell from watching the Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) Video Transfer on this release that "Dances With Wolves" ever was ever a three-hour motion picture. The restored footage looks just as crisp, clean and vibrant as the movie most of us remember watching these past 13 years. Except for very minor grain or dirt specs on infrequent moments this is a pristine and very clean print, which enhances further cinematographer Dean Semler’s majestic shots of well-chosen locales meant to represent America circa 1864. English Subtitles are also included, which shouldn’t be mistaken for the already-subtitled scenes in which Sioux Indians speak in their native Lakota dialect (courtesy of Sinte Gleska College language instructor Doris Leader Charge, who appears in the movie in the small role of Pretty Shield).
It’s unfortunate that the powers-that-be at MGM Home Video didn’t use branching technology (ala Artisan’s "Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Ultimate Edition") to allow those viewers that would prefer to watch the original version of "Dances With Wolves" to do so, but that’s Costner-sized ego for you. Even more unfortunate is the sacrifice of the previous DVD release’s DTS soundtrack (which I haven’t heard but have been told by friends is demo-quality stuff) in favor of an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack that is, from what I could hear, a little hollow and antiseptic in the way it reproduces John Barry’s score and the many Foley effects. The movie’s signature buffalo stampede scene (Ch.19) stills gave my speakers a workout though, and the dialogue (English as well as Sioux) remains understandable throughout its 236 min. running time. MGM should have gone with a three-disc set in order to accommodate the existing DTS soundtrack and the original version though; I wouldn’t have minded paying a few extra bucks for an opportunity to have the definite DVD version of "Dances With Wolves" (instead of a good but incomplete Special Edition version).
Speaking of sound, this Special Edition of "Dances With Wolves" comes with Two Commentary Tracks that are excellent opportunities for the people most involved with the movie to speak their minds. Director/star/co-producer Kevin Costner and co-producer Jim Wilson have their cake and eat it too in the first commentary. Love him or hate him because of his well-documented ego, Costner deserves all the praise he received for ultimately delivering such a low-key epic in an era when such movies were deemed all but dead. Dean Semler (Director of Photography) and Neil Travis (Editor) start slow and with too many dead spots in the second commentary, but they get better and reveal many interesting behind-the-scenes stuff (of interest primarily to movie freaks) as the movie trucks along. ‘The Creation Of An Epic’, an 81 min. retrospective documentary that comes in its own separate disc (with sub-dividing chapters that covers specific portions of the filmmaking process), complements the already-informative commentary tracks rather well.
Other Special Features in this Special Edition two-disc release: the Original ‘Making of Dances With Wolves’ Featured’ (21 min. of not-as-cliché-as-you-might-think, behind-the-scenes material), a Photo Montage (9 min. of pictures set to John Barry’s majestic music score), an Original Music Video (a lame 4 min. remix of Barry’s score set to an even lamer behind-the-scenes video montage), a Poster Gallery (five), TV Spots (two), and Theatrical Trailers for "Dances With Wolves" (duh!), "Platoon" and the recently-released Director’s Edition of John Woo’s "Windtalkers" (which we’ll be reviewing here on PSXNATION as soon as Brian returns from his medical leave). We also have to mention MGM Home Video’s Special Packaging & Four-Page Color Booklet for this Special Edition DVD. Through clever layouts and a neat design the packaging gives the illusion that the keep case in which the two discs come in are part of a booklet. Very neat, indeed.
bottom line:
“Dances With Wolves” purists will forever lament the absence from this Special Edition of (a) the original three-hour version that actually earned the seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) back in 1990 and (b) the DTS soundtrack from its previous DVD incarnation. Other than these two missteps though, “Dances With Wolves” is finally ready to take its place in every DVD connoisseur’s collection (next to “Braveheart”) as one of the last American epics to come out of Hollywood that didn’t feature a truckload of CG effects shots. It’s sad that Best Director winner (and once uber-hot star) Kevin Costner’s best work these days can only be found in DVD commentary tracks from his previous hits than on the big screen. No matter, “Dances With Wolves” remains as magnificent and timeless a classic as it was 13 years ago. Buy it and, like us here at PSXNATION, relieve the magic!
By - J.M. Vargas
