Let’s get this out of the way first, Dances With Wolves is a good film. It’s not the Best Film of 1990, but it’s in the top half of Best Picture Oscar Winners. It was a Cinderella story that this epic western went from being called “Kevin’s Gate” to become a box office smash and multiple Oscar winner. As viewers we’ve been on this lifelong journey of first watching the film, most people being won over by it, the backlash that skyrocketed once it beat Goodfellas for Director and Picture, and the more complicated feelings where rewatches have pointed out rookie moments or a vision by someone with what Pauline Kael called “feathers in his head.”
I wonder what the crew was thinking? First of all, no matter what the project as long as it doesn’t go against our personal beliefs we’re happy to have the work. (And sometimes even if it does…) I’ve been on shows I thought would be a disaster and they’ve gone on to hit big, and I’ve been on shows where a day comes that’s so special you can see why people at the top were excited to make this. Baked into this film is the mythologizing of Costner’s character, lighting and framing him as a fool, as a movie star and as a legend. When that person is also your director how do keep a straight face about it? And when did they know this was the correct choice?
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