*Contains spoilers*
After watching a few morally gray revenge stories, Dances with Wolves slows everything down and actually lets you live with the characters. For the record, I watched the extended 4 hour version of the film. The extended runtime didn’t bother me at all. The extra time allows you to feel the passage of time, but in an engaging way. John Dunbar’s evolution feels organic.
Kevin Costner’s performance as John Dunbar is more on the low key side. It never feels like some big dramatic performance. It's almost awkward at first, but that makes the emotional payoff stronger because it doesn’t feel forced. It’s very naturalistic.
Visually, this might be one of the most beautiful films in the marathon so far. The plains feel massive and majestic, but never empty. The buffalo hunt sequence is incredible, but it’s the quieter shots that stayed with me. I liked the moments with people sitting by a fire, silhouettes against the sky, and long stretches of silence.
The character development is patient in a way most modern movies don’t have the confidence to be. What surprised me most is how connected I felt to everyone. Even though John Dunbar is our entry point into the story, the emotional center of the film really lies with the Lakota characters. You understand their humor, their pride, their fear. They feel fully realized and not reduced to background figures. They are complex people with their own strengths and flaws. Costner made a clear effort to treat the Lakota culture and language with care.
The ending was bittersweet. John has to leave the tribe he’s come to love, and there’s no sense that things will turn out well in the long run. If anything, the opposite. Knowing the real-life history makes it heavier. You can feel that what we’ve been watching is fragile and temporary. That inevitability gives the final scenes a lingering sadness. It’s earnest and sentimental, but it feels earned. It’s the heaviest ending yet from the marathon and it had me speechless.
My only real nitpick is the voice over. I’ve never been the biggest fan of narration in film, and while it mostly works here, (especially since it’s tied to the diary that becomes an important part of the plot), I think the movie could have trusted its visuals a little more and used less of it. Maybe that’s just Leone’s influence on me. I got used to long stretches of silence and letting the images do the storytelling.
Dances with Wolves isn’t a flashy western. It’s not trying to be cool. It’s trying to mean something. And for me, that sincerity is what makes it work.
“Dances with Wolves! I am Wind In His Hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?"