Film Critique of Dances with Wolves

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Film Critique of “Dances with Wolves”
This is a wonderful movie that is set in 1863 during the civil war. The main character is John Dunbar, a Lieutenant in the United States Army, who is played by Kevin Costner. The movie begins with Dunbar in the field hospital with a severely wounded leg that the Dr.’s are planning to amputate. Dunbar decides that he does not want to live minus a leg and leaves the field hospital, takes a horse and rides across the length of the enemy lines where he expects that he will meet his death. Instead of meeting his death he somehow is missed by the folly of bullets aimed at him, and his actions inspire his troops to break the stalemate and overcome the enemy confederate troops. As a result, the commanding officer rewards Dunbar by having his personal surgeon save Dunbar’s leg, as well as grant him to be stationed at any post he desires. Dunbar wishes to see the western frontier and requests to be stationed at Fort Sedgwick.
Upon arriving at the fort, he finds that it has been deserted. He chooses to stay on by himself and take on his duty as a soldier. His identity as a Lieutenant in the United States Army is very strong and he is determined to hold the fort until more soldiers arrive. Fort Sedgwick is located in American Indian territory and it is not long before his presence is known when the holy man of the area’s Lakota Sioux tribe comes to the fort. This holy man is named Kicking Bird and the actor who plays his part is Graham Greene. Dunbar was bathing at the time and saw that Kicking Bird was trying to catch his horse so he ran up on him to stop him while being totally naked. This scared Kicking Bird and he quickly rode off back to his Sioux village.
Once Kicking Bird returned home he shared hi...

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...es. The movie took a linguistic relativism perspective at this point, shown when all of the white words had a Sioux word it could be translated into with equal meaning. Dances with Wolves would continue to immerse himself into the Sioux culture. If he had been studying intercultural communication, it would be said that he was taking an interpretive approach and perspective as “These methods require an individual to spend a great deal of time (months and even years) living and interacting with cultural members” ( Oetzel p. 23). He would even Marry Stands with a Fist.
In sum, Dances with Wolfs went through many changes that created a new identity for him. He was intensely effected by the Sioux culture in a top-down effect manner, from the Sioux cultural and societal layers, through to him as an individual. The movie ends with him being Dances with Wolves, a Sioux man.

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