Dances With Wolves

Dances with Wolves was written by Michael Blake Based on his novel of the same name. Jim Wilson, long-time friend and former collaborator of Blake and Costner, served as co-producer. The trio first met in 1981 during the filming of Stacy’s Knights, a low-budget gambling adventure set in Reno, Nevada, which marked Costner’s first starring role. Five years later, Blake, an aficionado of American frontier history, began sharing his ideas with Costner and Wilson for a story about a white man’s adventure with Native Americans.

Intrigued by the concept, Costner urged Blake to develop the story in book form. Blake followed the advice and, in 1987, Dances with Wolves was published. Although the book was not on the best-seller lists, Kevin Costner and Jim Wilson had long before decided that the richness of the book – the very visual style of writing Blake utilized – should be translated to film. For those who now read the novel, they say it’s really a “first draft” outline for the screenplay.

Costner was looking for a property to direct and saw Dances with Wolves as the ideal vehicle, one in which he could also star. Blake then adapted the novel, which Costner calls “a work of true inspiration.” Adds the actor, “I’m always so impressed when people really do great work. I had the pure joy of reading and developing a story that was so clearly written from the heart.”

Costner and his associates scouted nine states from Canada to Mexico before deciding to shoot Dances with Wolves in South Dakota. The state’s access to numerous Native American communities for the many extra roles required in the film, as well as large herds of buffalo and horses, eventually became the most important elements in determining the locations.

The buffalo, which played such an extraordinary role in the legacy of the West, has been driven to near extinction. But research found that the world’s largest privately owned herd of buffalo, some 3,500 strong, existed on Roy Houck’s Triple U Ranch, just west of Pierre. Houck’s 55,000-acre ranch worked not only for the buffalo sequences but for many of the movie’s other requirements. Ultimately, almost h alf the film was shot there.

Carefully monitored to avoid any misuse or harm, various trained animals were brought in to perform some of the film’s more unusual effects. Several domesticated buffalo, including “Cody” and “Mammoth” (owned by Neil Young), were loaned to the production for a stampede scene. During this scene the buffalo, supposedly struck by spears, fall from a full run and are trampled by other buffalo. In this case, the huge but docile “Mammoth” was safely rigged with a strap, to look as if a spear went through him. Articulated buffalo – essentially look-alikes built from sculptured wire and fur coverings – were used to portray the animals falling and being “trampled” by the oncoming herd.

It was, however, the support and cooperation of the local Native Americans that beat at the heart of the project’s success. With much of the film’s action set in the village of the Sioux tribe, upwards of 150 locals were needed as extras throughout the shoot. The community, which embraced the project for its fair and genuine treatment of its heritage, was eager to participate. Several area journalists, who served as spokespeople for the community, openly praised and endorsed the script as one of the few honest cinematic portrayals of Native Americans losing their culture and identity to the white man.

Perhaps the film’s boldest stroke of authenticity is in the use of the actual Lakota language by its Native American characters. Doris Leader Charge, an instructor of Lakota language and culture at Sinte Gleska College, a small community school located on the Rosebud Reservation, was hired to help translate the screenplay into Lakota and to act as dialogue coach and technical advisor. The teacher was also eventually cast as Pretty Shield, a Sioux matriarch.

From sets and props to costumes, hair and make-up, director Costner was meticulous in his efforts to accurately depict the people and the period. During pre-production, the film’s various designers traveled to reservations throughout the West and Midwest, gathering historical information. They also combed libraries, archives and museums for rare pictures and data with which they could accurately recreate the Sioux world.

Casting Dances with Wolves presented yet another challenge. While New York film and stage actress Mary McDonnell played Stands With a Fist, and Robert Pastorelli of TVs Murphy Brown was cast as Timmons, adhering to the film’s utterly realistic approach required looking beyond New York and Los Angeles for appropriate actors. An extensive search throughout the U.S. and Canada revealed a wealth of Native American talent including Rodney Grant (Wind In His Hair), Graham Greene (Kicking Bird), Tantoo Cardinal (Black Shawl) and Floyd Red Crow Westerman (Ten Bears).

The musical score for Dances with Wolves was composed and conducted by multiple Academy Award winner John Barry (Born Free, Midnight Cowboy, The Lion in Winter, many James Bond films and Out of Africa). Singer/songwriter John Coinman, who served as the movie’s music consultant, worked with such Native Americans as Cybert Young Bear, a member of the Porcupine Singers, to help portray the Lakota music and dance with utmost authenticity. As a result, Young Bear choreographed buffalo and scalp dances that had not been recreated in more than 120 years.

- Jeff Schwager, (from the Dances with Wolves DVD cover)

The Dances With Wolves Afterword by Michael Blake (California, January 1991)

Like most children of the fifties, my first impressions of Native American people was not very positive. Indians were widely portrayed as devils, whose destruction was purely a matter of necessity in the process of taming the West. Every publication or film I saw as a child was slanted in this way.But from the first, I sensed somehow that the story was incomplete. Late in elementary school I read a book by Quentin Reynolds that was written for young readers. I can’t remember the title, but the book was about Custer and the Seventh Cavalry and the Little Big Horn. I enjoyed it immensely and, as most boys would, I identified strongly with the white soldiers.There was something else, however, that sparked my interest for years to come. One particular Indian was portrayed in Reynolds’ book as a great warrior and leader---Crazy Horse. From the moment I read about him I wanted to know more. Perhaps it was the ring of his name or the description of his fighting spirit, but I recall distinctly that I laid the book down with the thought, I’d like to know more about that Crazy Horse.In succeeding years I never fully lost the desire to know more, but it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I encountered the Indian people again, this time in reading Dee Brown’s classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee . I was stunned, heartbroken, and enlightened.But another ten years passed before I became fully involved. In my mid-thirties I reread Bury My Heart....It was just as powerful the second time around and I found myself suddenly hungry for more of the Indian story. I started picking up other books, I read and read and read.Another ten years have passed and I am still reading Native American history. It is often a sad study of genocide, or cultural annihilation perpetrated by our forefathers in the name of growth, and of the "future generations" that we now comprise.When I think of what was lost in the trampling of the great horse culture and its people, I am made immeasurably sad. Here were a people living in rough perfection; at home with sky, earth, and plain; strong families living in societies that valued and cared for their members. Not only was most of this destroyed but what little remained was locked up on reservations in desolate territory, far from public sight.So the novel Dances With Wolves was written in part because I wanted to present some of the record of history as I see it. It was my hope that in showing what was lost, something might be regained--not the least of which could be new respect for the proud descendants of the people I wrote about, who are living yet on reserves where our ancestors confined them.Everything was so unspoiled in 1863--the year Dances With Wolves takes place--but I missed it all.

And by reading history I could imagine it only to a point. By creating Lieutenant Dunbar, I could actually live it to an extent that surpassed my expectation. I am living it still.These days I am working a lot, but Dances With Wolves still represents the best writing experience of my life. In fact, the writing itself was quite painless. Because it was my first novel, the job seemed long but dreaming everything up was a pleasure. Everything that came after the writing was hard and it has been a real lesson to get involved with business matters that have little to so with writing.After finishing the book I couldn’t find a publisher or an agent. No prospects, no money, and little to hope for. All of my submissions had met with rejection. At forty-two, I was forced to admit that all of my writing had amounted to nothing. In my own eyes I was less than a failure--I was nobody.Yet secretly I was proud of Dances With Wolves. I had written it with passion and felt it was a good and worthwhile story. Still I was unable to face friends or relatives any longer. I borrowed a thousand dollars and drifted east from Los Angeles, finally landing in the unusual town of Bissbee, Arizona, where I laid low, working odd jobs.

Though I knew I would always be writing, for the first time in many years I had begun to think of doing something else to stay alive.My work was saved from oblivion through the intervention of two lifelong friends, Jim Wilson and Kevin Costner. But I realize now more than ever it has been all of my friends through all the years that have kept me from oblivion. I have been as blessed with friends as the Comanches were with horses, and much of the success of Dances With Wolves can be directly attributed to the people who cared about me and my work.The distinguished film has thrust me into the limelight. It has been a great opportunity to communicate with people, and I try to as much as I can. We talk about the themes in Dances With Wolves and the background of the movie.

We talk about the relationship between Jim and Kevin and me and about the importance of reading and writing. We talk a lot about holding onto dreams.Because I am not able to visit with everybody personally I thought I would share my responses to some of the most frequently asked questions:

Q: Was the film true to your vision?

A: It captured the spirit of what I wrote. Many Hollywood writers who attend screenings of their films walk out wondering if they saw the right movie. In this case I am fortunate beyond my dreams.

Q: Did you do much research for the book?

A: I never did research with something specific in mind like writing a book. I read because I was curious about the history of our country during that period. I was apalled and heartbroken but I couldn’t stop reading. I never had any idea that dishonor and misunderstanding could run so deep. Over a period of years my feelings grew strong and eventually a story of my own began to form. The story grew until I felt compelled to write it. It was Kevin Costner who first suggested that I write a book. And it was Jim Wilson who persisted and finally got it into the hands of people whose business is books.

Q: Were you fair to the white people in this story?

A: I was probably too easy on them.Q: Was it difficult translating the novel into film?A: It’s always difficult but I had done adaptations before Dances With Wolves and the form of the screenplay was something I knew well. For me writing screenplays is a process of compressing the essence of a story into scenes that result in a cohesive, cinematic outline.

Q: How long did the screenplay take?

A: Six drafts over a period of two and a half years. This was largely due to the problems we had getting financed. There were lulls of inactivity that sometimes lasted months.

Q: In the movie, the Native Americans are Sioux but in the novel they are Comanches. Why this difference?

A: The Sioux (they call themselves Lakota) are one of the most numerous tribes today, and the Comanche pool would have been too small to utilize in terms of leading roles and extras. A bigger reason for the change is that the largest buffalo herd on earth is kept near Pierre, South Dakota, where the film was ultimately shot, on territory the Sioux had formerly inhabited.In the novel (which came first), I chose to write about Comanshe people largely because of their physical location. Though they all fought the Texans, several bands of Comaches lived practically invisible on the plains of western Texas. The Comanshes were and are a great people, and though there are many differences between Indians, I didn’t mind the movie change because I have found the essential components of spirit and wisdom to be the same from tribe to tribe.

Q: The movie and the novel end on very different notes. How did this come about?

A: Endings have to be right, and I believe the one I chose for the book was right. I also think that Kevin chose the right ending for the movie. It’s easy to forget that a movie has its own place in the artistic world and because of that there are huge distinctions between a film and any other artistic product.One of these is that the making of a movie is a wholly cooperative effort. There are many creative people at work and they all have strong opinions that must be valued. I wrote half a dozen endings to the film all of which I thought were strong. Which ending to use was ultimately Kevin’s shoice and I deeply respect what he did. And I deeply respect what Dances With Wolves has done as an artistic entity. The real funciton of art for me is to move people to action. That Dances is doing that is something I shall be proud of all my days.

The Reviews

Dances With Wolves. Costner's extraordinary, seven-Oscar directorial debut certainly showed humour. The subtle comedy of. say. Graham Greene. who played Sioux medicine man Kicking Bird. contrasted harshly with Costner's self-mocking pratfalls. Dances With Wolves is a wonderfully shot. Beautifully told story.

Paul Smith Computer Weekly, May 17, 2001

While violating almost every Hollywood taboo, Costner has restored some of its most cherished traditions. He has created an adventure with hot-blooded action, breathtaking scenery and a noble theme - a spectacle with the sort of wide-screen grandeur that has become almost extinct. Dances with Wolves does for the skies and plains of South Dakota what Lawrence of Arabia did for the desert. And in the middle of an unblemished American wilderness, the director has cast himself as an untarnished American hero.

He plays a soldier named John Dunbar, an environmentally friendly frontiersman who befriends the Sioux and rejects the genocidal mission of his own people. Unlike Arabia's Lawrence, however, Dunbar is curiously lacking in psychological torment. He is an uncomplicated hero, ingenuous at the risk of being boring. But his - and the movie's - straight-arrow altruism seems uncontrived. And although Dances with Wolves enshrines classic Hollywood cliches of white herroism and romance, it also portrays Indians with unprecedented respect and authenticity.

Earlier films have depicted Indians as ignorant savages. Costner's movie helps redress the balance. Without preaching, it portrays the army as barbaric, the native as civilized. Its hero is a king of the wild frontier who abdicates. In the age of David Lynch and his Twin Peaks cynicism, such single-minded idealism begs disbelief. But in Costner's case, it appears genuine. With Dances with Wolves, he has reduced Hollywood formula to an elegant equation of truth and beauty.

Brian D. Johnson Maclean's, Nov 19, 1990

Links

Dunbar

Kevin Costner Dakota Connection

Tony's Dances With Wolves Site

The Midnight Star