A decade after Michael Cimino’s Western epic HEAVEN’S GATE (which is not all that bad a film) declared the genre dead, Kevin Costner effectively and perhaps single-handedly revived the genre with DANCES WITH WOLVES, a film that was made for around $18 million (some of which with Costner’s own determined financial input) and eventually became one of the biggest box-office hits of its’ initial release year, before winning seven Academy Awards at the 1991 ceremony.
Based on a novel by Michael Blake, DANCES WITH WOLVES is the story of an Army Lieutenant, John Dunbar, who is rewarded for a heroic act in 1863 after lifting himself off an operations table during a Civil War battle with the threat of leg amputation.
His reward is a post at Fort Hays, deep in Lakota Sioux territory, when he begins to make way with the local tribesmen, attempting to understand the people and culture of the frontier which is in imminent danger of losing its’ beauty and power to progress.
He also meets and falls in love with a local woman, Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell, INDEPENDENCE DAY, GRAND CANYON) and because of his own relationship with a stray wolf he calls Two Socks because of the white fur on its’ legs, Dunbar is renamed Dances With Wolves. However, his old Army colleagues are visiting….
Regarded as a significant contribution to awareness and education, DANCES WITH WOLVES revitalised the Western Genre in a different way and elevated Costner to superstardom.