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Kevin Costner's directorial debut is this seven Oscar winning epic that tells a simple story with sweeping vision. Costner plays Lieutenant Dunbar, a Union officer who becomes an accidental hero of the Civil War. Offered the posting of his choice, he chooses the frontier because, "I want to see it before it's gone."

Posted to an outpost in the Dakotas, he slowly comes into contact with the curious local Sioux, who are fascinated by his relationship with a wolf he's befriended and named "Two-Socks".
As the two cultures meet and slowly learn about each other, a process hastened by "Stands With A Fist" (Mary McDonnell), a white woman who joined the tribe as a girl when her parents were killed, he comes to appreciate their way of life and they to accept him. Dunbar marries his interpreter and joins the tribe in a buffalo hunt (one of the films most stunning sequences) as well as in warfare against the Pawnee, who are threatening the Sioux's land. And in the process, he learns about himself and sees the world in a different way. But the frontier cannot escape the white man's attentions forever...

Costner does not rush his story and much of it is told in vignettes that push the narrative without rushing it. His first encounter with the wolf (Costner insisted it was a real one rather than a lookalike half breed), the first meeting between Dunbar and the Sioux leader, Kicking Bird (Graham Greene in an outstanding performance) and the delicately growing love between Dunbar and Stands With A Fist are shown for as long as they are needed and not for as long as the average attention span dictates. The ravishing camerawork of Oscar winner Dean Semler captures the impossible simple beauty of white snow and blue sky while Costner's direction has a confidence and flair that, in Westerns, has possibly only been surpassed by John Ford. It does make his subsequent directorial fall from grace with the over budget Waterworld and the rightly panned The Postman all the stranger.

Keywords:

Adventure, Drama, Western, Sex, Based-on-Novel, Oscar Best Picture, Movie, Film, Movies, Films, Oscar Best Actor Nominee

Additional Information:

(1990) (USA) (4 Star)

Cast:

Kevin Costner	.... Lt. John Dunbar
Mary McDonnell	.... Stands With A Fist
Graham Greene	.... Kicking Bird
Rodney A. Grant	.... Wind In His Hair
Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman	.... Ten Bears
Tantoo Cardinal	.... Black Shawl

Supporting Cast:

Robert Pastorelli	.... Timmons
Charles Rocket	.... Lt. Elgin
Maury Chaykin	.... Major Fambrough
Jimmy Herman	.... Stone Calf
Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse	.... Smiles A Lot
Michael Spears	.... Otter
Jason R. Lone Hill	.... Worm
Tony Pierce	.... Spivey
Doris Leader Charge	.... Pretty Shield

Directors:

Kevin Costner

Writers:

Michael F. Blake

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