After the Civil War a
Union soldier, Lt John Dunbar, requests a transfer to the
western frontier. He's a celebrated war hero who made a
suicidal ride across Southern lines and he now has a strong
yearning to experience the disappearing frontier. The army
grants his request and gives him command of a remote outpost.
When he arrives, he finds the outpost deserted. Instead of
returning, he remains, with only his horse, Cisco, for a
companion.
John keeps a journal
while he maintains his lonely command. He writes about the
wolf who pays him a visit each day. He names the wolf
"Two Socks" and gradually man and beast form a close
bond. He knows a Sioux tribe is aware of his presence and he
decides to make contact with them. At first he is rejected,
but the Indians become curious about this man they call
"Dances with Wolves" and they begin a relationship
that ultimately ends with John being adopted into their tribe.
John also finds the love of his life when he meets a white
woman who has been raised by the Sioux.
Kevin Costner
infuses a rare blend of masculinity and sensitivity in Dances
with Wolves/John. Through his journal we observe the tragic
plight of the American Indian as their way of life is brutally
destroyed by an encroaching "civilization". It
becomes painfully obvious who the real savages are when the
Indians reverence for life is countered with the wanton
destruction of the white hunter.
There is some form
of animal action in nearly every frame of this epic film. The
production company went to great effort and expense to stage
realistic animal scenes without harming the animals. There is
a huge buffalo stampede and hunt, which was partially achieved
with the use of fake and mechanical buffalos. The cost of
construction of these 23 fake animals was $250,000.00.
Thirty-five hundred buffalo were used for the stampede. Some
buffalo had arrows attached with clips to their fur to give
the impression that they had been struck by arrows. The fake
buffalo were run on tracks and then caused to crash and fall
to give the impression of buffalo going down. Other fake
buffalo were tossed out of the back of a truck and the cameras
recorded their falling on the ground. One buffalo charges at a
young Indian girl. It was actually a pet buffalo coming to
collect an Oreo cookie for which he has a special yen. This
scene was filmed in cuts. The buffalo that is shot and on the
ground is a mechanical buffalo that raises its head and then
is "shot" again. The buffalo liver that is cut out
of a buffalo was actually made of jello. It took eight days of
filming buffalo to get four minutes on screen. The scene was
shots in cuts and the fake and real buffalo were mingled in
foreground and background and filmed through a haze of dust.
Where a buffalo and a horse collide it is actually a
taxidermied buffalo head being held by a man. There is a
heart-wrenching scene where the carcasses of dead buffalo lie
strewn across a field, these buffalo were supposedly killed
and skinned and their tongues removed by white hunters who
left their carcasses to rot in the field. These realistic
looking carcasses were actually made of foam latex.
All horse falls were
performed by trained falling horses. When Cisco is ambushed
and killed he is merely doing a lay down and stage blood and
special effects were used for the gun shots. The bloated
carcass seen lying on the ground was fake and the vultures
observed from a distance on the carcass were mostly fake
mingled with three real vultures.
"Two
Socks" was portrayed by two wolves named "Teddi"
and "Buck". Since nether Teddi nor Buck howl, a
third wolf was used at the end of the film to howl in the
wilderness. When "Two Socks" is shot and killed the
wolf merely has a tether on his lower body. They filmed him
attempting to stand up which creates the illusion of his being
shot in the hind quarters. A taxidermied wolf was used to
portray the wolf after he had died.
Dead animals are
seen at various times throughout the film. Dead animals
hanging in a western village were actually road kills provided
to the film company by local highway authorities. A dead elk
submerged in water was supplied by a taxidermist. The dead
dogs that are seen after the Pawnee raid were supplied by the
local animal shelter. The dogs had been euthanized at the
shelter because of illness.
The production
company respected the Indians reverence for the eagle and
whenever eagle feathers were used they were fake feathers.
