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thedullwoodexperiment

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Tag Archives: South Dakota

Dances With Wolves (1990) – The Special Edition

13 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Drama, Favourite movie, Fort Sedgewick, Graham Greene, Kevin Costner, Lakota Sioux, Literary adaptation, Mary McDonnell, Review, South Dakota, Western

D: Kevin Costner / 234m

Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman, Tantoo Cardinal, Robert Pastorelli, Charles Rocket, Maury Chaykin

After being wounded during a Civil War battle and receiving a citation for bravery, First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Costner) is offered his choice of posting in the Union Army. He chooses to be sent to the western frontier, and shortly after arrives at Fort Hays. There, he’s assigned to a remote outpost, Fort Sedgewick, but when he reaches it he finds it deserted. Electing to stay there anyway, Dunbar settles in despite the threat of marauding Indians in the area, and begins rebuiding and restocking the fort. Time passes and no other troops come to support him, but Dunbar is happy with the solitude, although his Sioux neighbours begin to take an interest in him. Deciding it would be a good idea to make contact with them, Dunbar sets off towards their camp. Along the way he encounters Stands With a Fist (McConnell), a white woman adopted when she was a child by the tribe’s medicine man, Kicking Bird (Greene). As he gets to learn more about them, Dunbar comes to understand and appreciate their way of life – so much so that when the Army finally arrives at Fort Sedgewick he sides with the Sioux against them…

Made at a time when the Western was in a moribund state, and clocking in at just over three hours on its original release, Dances With Wolves was the kind of production that had “risky” stamped all over it. It was Costner’s first time as a director and star, much of the dialogue was in Lakota Sioux which meant subtitles, and the pace – the opening sequence aside – was nothing if not languid. That it struck a chord with both critics and audiences alike was something of a miracle, and one that prompted the producers to release a Special Edition cut in cinemas in 1991. There will always be those who believe extended cuts are unnecessary, and often they’ll be right, but here the decision to add fifty-two minutes to an already hefty run-time isn’t as gratuitous or ill-advised as it is elsewhere. What the special edition does is to allow the audience to spend more time with the Lakota Sioux, and to discover more about their way of life, and why it proves so attractive to Dunbar. The movie, so attuned to the racial politics of the time, explores the Lakota Sioux community in much greater detail in this version, and the extra footage provides greater depth to many of the individual Lakota characters. Such immersion makes Dunbar’s decision to live with them all the more credible, and it creates a greater bond between the audience and the characters as well.

With its raison d’être thus established, the special edition needs no further defence for its existence, and so the movie can be enjoyed for its breathtaking South Dakota scenery, its elegiac feel, knowing sense of humour, gripping action sequences, and perhaps best of all, a beautifully textured and emotionally resonant score by John Barry. In assembling all this, and making it both visually arresting (thanks to DoP Dean Semler) and dramatically insightful, Costner has made a movie – and a Western at that – that manages to transcend its simple storyline and become a moving exploration of one man’s search for a meaningful place in the world. Dunbar’s journey is an heroic voyage of self-discovery, and Costner’s assured direction (working from a script by Michael Blake based on his novel), ensures that we go with him on his journey, our own curiosity piqued by where it might lead him. His relationship with Stands With a Fist, at once comical and earnest, awkward and tender, is enchanting and yet tinged with a sadness due to the nature of her placement with the tribe, and McDonnell’s feisty, layered performance is a joy to watch. The movie has come under fire for being yet another example of the white man as saviour trope, but this is to completely misread the narrative: what makes this distinctly different, and for its time quite innovative, is that it’s not Dunbar who saves the Lakota Sioux, but the Lakota Sioux who save Dunbar.

Rating: 9/10 – a triumph in every sense of the word, Dances With Wolves is a perfect example of a movie that takes its time in telling its story, and by doing so, proves more powerful and impressive than expected; entertaining and insightful, it’s also a movie that bears repeated viewings, as even in its extended form, there’s much that can be missed in a single viewing, and that’s without the pleasure of being reacquainted with such a great story and a great cast of characters.

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The Rider (2017)

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Brady Jandreau, Bull riding, Chloé Zhao, Cowboy, Drama, Head injury, Lilly Jandreau, Pine Ridge, Review, South Dakota, Tim Jandreau

D: Chloé Zhao / 99m

Cast: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Lane Scott, Cat Clifford, Alan Reddy, Derrick Janis

Following an accident at a bull riding event, Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) has a metal plate in his head and recurring moments when the motor function in his right hand seizes up. Living with his father, Wayne (Tim Jandreau), and younger sister, Lilly (Jandreau), who has autism, Brady knows he has to take it easy, and that a return to the rodeo circuit isn’t going to happen any time soon, but being a cowboy is the only thing he knows how to do. His friends all seem to think his return to bull riding is a foregone conclusion, and Brady hopes they’re right, but as time goes on, and his motor seizures don’t improve, he takes to breaking in wild horses instead. Inevitably, Brady starts to ride again, but this proves to be a problem as well, and he collapses while out on a horse he’s bought after breaking it in. Still wanting to live the life he wants to lead, and on his terms (and despite medical advice and his father’s counsel), Brady decides to enter the next rodeo event, and return to doing the one thing he’s good at…

In her follow up to Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), writer/director Chloé Zhao returns to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota (and some of the same non-professional actors she used before), and again uses real life incidents – Jandreau suffered the head injury depicted in the movie – as the basis for a story that examines and explores what it’s like to have your livelihood taken away from you when your personal situation is already pretty bleak. Brady and his family live on the edge of poverty, with his father wasting much of his wages on gambling and alcohol, and along with many others on the reservation, opportunities that would enable Brady to start again are slim to non-existent. Having nothing else that can motivate him as much, Brady clings on to the idea that he can continue to be a cowboy, but he’s somehow forgotten that being a cowboy isn’t just about staying on a bull for eight seconds, it’s a way of life – and he’s already living it. Zhao highlights Brady’s pride and resilience, and his determination to resume the life he’s used to, but she also shows how this isn’t as good for him as he thinks. Sometimes, Zhao makes clear, letting go of our dreams is better for us than trying to live them.

Once again, Zhao uses the backdrop of the South Dakota Badlands to reflect the mood and tone of the material, its sprawling vistas and huge skies providing a sense of freedom that can’t be achieved through the characters’ daily lives. And once again the movie is beautifully photographed by DoP Joshua James Richards, his trenchant eye for intimate compositions amidst the rolling hills and grassy plains offering an elegiac feel to the narrative, and underlining the mythology of the cowboy. There’s sadness and pessimism here, and disillusionment too, but there’s also hope, and in the unlikeliest of places, such as the brain-damaged form of Brady’s friend, Lane (Scott), and the relationships Brady is able to form with horses. As with Songs…, Zhao focuses on the good things in her main characters’ life, the things that truly matter, but which we often don’t recognise, or worse, take for granted. She’s rewarded (again) by a number of terrific performances from her non-professional cast; the realism they bring adds to the sincerity and honesty of Brady’s story. Though necessarily downbeat because of the declining social structure of reservation life, this is ultimately an intelligent, thought-provoking, and above all, moving, portrait of an important turning point in a young man’s life.

Rating: 9/10 – directed with confidence and skill by Zhao, and offering a pensive yet richly detailed examination of a way of life that still holds meaning for many living in the American Midwest, The Rider is a beautifully realised movie about loss and hope that is simply breathtaking; simply told but with a scope that puts it in a league all its own, Zhao’s sophomore feature is an immersive, exceptional movie that, like its predecessor, shines a light on a corner of America that rarely recieves such illuminating attention.

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