Dances with Wolves (1990)
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 180m
Director: Kevin Costner
Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene
Synopsis:
A union soldier granted an honourable discharge from the Civil War requests a posting to the frontier before it passes into history, and there makes friends with the Sioux.
Review:
What at the time seemed a momentous epic is in fact another 'return to nature' Western offering little that is new (cf. Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, A Man Called Horse). Its narrative sweep is full of longueurs, moreso in the extended edition, and the colourless narration is an atmosphere killer. However, it does offer a persuasive picture of what the frontier must have been like, and give as credibly sympathetic a portrayal of the native American as has been committed to film (though there are now good Indians and bad Indians - the Pawnee); in these twin achievements one can concede the value of a gently unfolding structure. There are some extremely well-mounted sequences, some gutsy action - less impressive on the small screen - and overall it is a superb achievement by Costner as director, combining Ford's directness with landscape and props with Leone's emotive camera angles. Unfortunately he forgets to direct himself, and his bland performance gives little for the splendid Greene and McDonnell to bounce off: an epic without an epic hero, you might say (he kills a buffalo and a guard in the course of the film).
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 180m
Director: Kevin Costner
Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene
Synopsis:
A union soldier granted an honourable discharge from the Civil War requests a posting to the frontier before it passes into history, and there makes friends with the Sioux.
Review:
What at the time seemed a momentous epic is in fact another 'return to nature' Western offering little that is new (cf. Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, A Man Called Horse). Its narrative sweep is full of longueurs, moreso in the extended edition, and the colourless narration is an atmosphere killer. However, it does offer a persuasive picture of what the frontier must have been like, and give as credibly sympathetic a portrayal of the native American as has been committed to film (though there are now good Indians and bad Indians - the Pawnee); in these twin achievements one can concede the value of a gently unfolding structure. There are some extremely well-mounted sequences, some gutsy action - less impressive on the small screen - and overall it is a superb achievement by Costner as director, combining Ford's directness with landscape and props with Leone's emotive camera angles. Unfortunately he forgets to direct himself, and his bland performance gives little for the splendid Greene and McDonnell to bounce off: an epic without an epic hero, you might say (he kills a buffalo and a guard in the course of the film).
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 180m
Director: Kevin Costner
Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene
Synopsis:
A union soldier granted an honourable discharge from the Civil War requests a posting to the frontier before it passes into history, and there makes friends with the Sioux.
Review:
What at the time seemed a momentous epic is in fact another 'return to nature' Western offering little that is new (cf. Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, A Man Called Horse). Its narrative sweep is full of longueurs, moreso in the extended edition, and the colourless narration is an atmosphere killer. However, it does offer a persuasive picture of what the frontier must have been like, and give as credibly sympathetic a portrayal of the native American as has been committed to film (though there are now good Indians and bad Indians - the Pawnee); in these twin achievements one can concede the value of a gently unfolding structure. There are some extremely well-mounted sequences, some gutsy action - less impressive on the small screen - and overall it is a superb achievement by Costner as director, combining Ford's directness with landscape and props with Leone's emotive camera angles. Unfortunately he forgets to direct himself, and his bland performance gives little for the splendid Greene and McDonnell to bounce off: an epic without an epic hero, you might say (he kills a buffalo and a guard in the course of the film).