Inside everyone is a frontier waiting to be discovered.
I have to say I love this film.
Funny seeing this film again after recently seeing Avatar, nicknamed "Dances with Smurfs", at the cinema. The revisionist take on the Western here reaches an apex, with the army officer protagonist, Lieutenant John Dunbar (Kevin Costner), arriving from the Civil War torn east coast, having volunteered for this post, (naively?) wanting to experience "the frontier" before it disappears.
The story stands up very well, and is more sophisticated than may appear at first glance. Dunbar's courage is established at the outset, contrasting with the malaise of the rest of the Union troops, in an act of (possibly fever-fuelled) bravado that pre-figures the bravery of the native American warriors later in the story, counting coup.
The early part of the story functions mainly to establish the crappiness of white Americans, who are almost all either cowardly, deranged, or boorishly ignorant, strengthening the contrast with the character of Dunbar, and the American Indians he meets, heightening their bravery, dignity, ferocity and/or humanity.
The scene where he reports for duty to his superior officer is very interesting too. It functions as a sneakily innocuous bit of staging, with the deranged officer apparently living in a fairy tale, so that Dunbar receives his orders as if he were a medieval knight being sent on a crusade.
As well as courage, further character-building devices include the contrast between Dunbar, with his appreciation of nature and his literary and artistic ability, revealed through the first person narrative voiceover and his use of a journal, and his boorish undignified guide, with his poor personal hygiene, his childish practical jokes.
At three hours in length, the style is unhurried.
Costner plays it just right. Mary McDonnell (brilliant too later in her career as the President in Battlestar Galactica) is luminous in the role of Stands With A Fist, and does a great job of playing someone reaching for a language they haven't spoken since they were a small child, even later speaking it with curious inflections, as would someone for whom it was a second or foreign language.
The native American actors are great, in particular Graham Greene as Kicking Bird, also the chief, Ten Bears, played by Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman, and Kicking Bird's wife, Black Shawl (Tantoo Cardinal), and the Pawnee villain (Wes Studi). Their makeup and costumes are really impressive.
- Rating: Exceptional
- When seen: 21 Aug 2010
- Where seen: Home
- More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia
Amendments: Added writer tag: "Michael Blake."; actor tags: "Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.
No comments:
Post a Comment