DANCES WITH WOLVES: CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS.
Dances With Wolves is the story of the "transformation" of Lieutenant John .
Dunbar, a Union Army Officer, to Dances With Wolves, a Lakota warrior. The film is .
seen from the viewpoint of Dunbar, who runs away from a field hospital as his foot is .
about to be amputated and literally invites death by riding his horse by in a suicidal .
charge at the Confederate lines. He does this to provide a diversion so that a group of .
Union soldiers can overrun an entrenched Rebel position. Miraculously, he survives and .
is decorated and given his choice of any posting. John Dunbar chooses the frontier. .
Dunbar begins a new life in a remote, isolated outpost, Fort Sedgewick, in the wilderness .
of the Dakota territory where he is the only white man around for miles. A month into his .
stay, with only a wolf, Two Socks and his mount, Cisco, for company, Dunbar .
encounters the local Sioux tribe. There is mutual distrust at first but slowly and with .
Stands With A Fist (a white woman, who as a girl came to live with the Sioux after her .
family was killed by enemy Indians) acting as an interpreter, he and the Sioux begin to .
interact and communicate and a bond is formed. In the set of charming, sensitive, .
revealing, and even at times, amusing experiences that follow, Dunbar begins to discover .
the culture of the Sioux, all of which he documents in his journal. He gradually earns the .
respect of these native people who rename him Dances With Wolves and he sheds his .
white ways in acceptance of their way of life. However, the frontier becomes the frontier .
no more as it becomes invaded by the army and as the army advances on the plains, John .
Dunbar makes the tough decision to leave the people he has learned to call his own so .
that they will not be exploited. The film ends on a tentative note, showing the fireplaces .
in the camp of the Sioux being swept away by the army. .
Dances With Wolves was the most celebrated American film of 1990s.
