This film is an excellent tool for exploring what happens when people meet. It can also stimulate discussion about methodology in the study of religion. Set in South Dakota in 1865, civil war hero Lt. John Dunbar requests to be stationed at an isolated outpost, which he finds deserted. He wanted to experience the frontier while it was still there. The previous occupants appear to have perished in the harsh conditions. At least, there is no sign of them. Watching his arrival, Sioux Indians speculate that he will share the fate of earlier white intruders. Listening to their comments, it is clear that they thought white men stupid and ill equipped to cope with the severe conditions of their own familiar and much loved landscape. However, Dunbar survives, even befriending a wolf, which he calls 'Two-Socks'. The Indian name he later receives, Dances With Wolves, recognized his relationship with Two-Socks. Next, contact with the Indians gradually evolves into friendship, especially with the 'holy man', Kicking Bird and with Stands With A Fist, a recently widowed woman. Stands With a Fist is a white woman who, captured as a child, has been raised by the tribe as one of its own. There is no direct reference to Sioux beliefs, although Dunbar interrupts what looks like a religious ceremony when he announces his sighting of the long awaited buffalo.
Scenes of the wanton and random slaying of buffalo by white men (and the shooting of "two socks") contrast sharply with the Sioux's 'harmonious' relationship with the land. 'harmony' is the tem Dunbar uses to describe the Sioux in his journal, where he records in word and pictures the story of his encounter. He also records how eveything he had been told about 'these people', especially that they were 'thieves and beggars', was untrue. After marrying Stands With a Fist, Dunbar is about to travel with the Sioux when he realizes he has left his Journal behind and returns to the military Post to retrieve it. Unfortunately, soldiers have finally arrived. Mistaking him for an Indian, Dunbar is captured and beaten. When the soldiers realize that he is actually an officer, they charge him with desertion. His real crime, though, seems to have been "going native", which is represented as a type of treason, perhaps as much cultural or racial as political. The officer offers Dunbar a change to be 'reevaluated' by serving as an interpreter in the search for hostiles and to recover hostages (such as Stands With a Fist), The soldiers joke whether they should 'salute or shoot' Dunbar. Dunbar refuses, replying in the Sioux tongue. "There are no hostiles', he says. While he is en route for court martial. His friends rescue him. However, Dunbar soon leaves, determined to try to mediate between the two worlds to which he now belongs and because he now feels that his presence may now endanger the tribe. The chief, Ten Bears, thinks him wrong to leave; the man the soldiers are looking for, he says, no longer exists. Now there is only a Sioux called Dances with Wolves.
Questions
In the film, who appears the more 'noble' - the Indians, or the soldiers who capture Dunbar?
Does Dunbar betray the army or desert his post? Are the charges against him justified?
Does Dunbar commit 'treason' against his 'own kind'?
How does Dunbar begin to appreciate the Sioux way of life?
Evaluate the film as a tool for exploring encounter between people - between 'us' and 'Others'.
Identify scenes that you think illustrate typical 'problems' associated with first encounters and scenes that you think contain lessons on how to develop an informed and accurate knowledge of the Other.
Are the Sioux portrayed 'sympathetically' in this film? Are you aware of other films that give a different, less positive picture of American Indians? Characterize that image.
What does Dunbar mean when he says that he learnt who he really is among the Sioux?
Is it accurate to speak of Dunbar as belonging to more than one world? Does he begin to see the world through more than one pair of eyes?
© 2001 Clinton Bennett