I noticed no threads about this film.
I must say its one of my alltime favorites.
What other Native-americans films do you like/enjoyed/hate/love/would you compare.
(I have uppermost respect for Michael Mann and Daniel Day-Lewis but I really didnt enjoy Last of the mohicans...)
: )
Caught the last part of
Dances with Wolves on TV the other night and discovered I still don't like it any better than the first time I saw it. My major objection (other than Costner's acting and directing) is that after the Civil War battle scene in which he inspires a heroic Union charge and the commanding officer has him taken to his own doctor with the promise not to amputate his leg, every "white" man you see on the screen with the exception of Costner is a low-life scum. (I still don't understand that scene in which the post commander shoots himself after Costner leaves--it makes no sense whatsoever and does nothing to advance the plot.)
Other than that, there are all sorts of holes, inaccuracies, and just plain foul ups in the story line. Mad Magazine did a parody of it,
Dunces with Wolves, that was more entertaining than the movie. I did like the woman who played Costner's love interest, however. She looked a lot like a lady I used to date.
Although you didn't like it, Mann's remake of the
Last of the Mohicans has several very accurate scenes of the Indians, French, British, and colonists in the French and Indian War. Lots of colorful little bits going on in the background that no one explains or calls attention to. Like the original Randolph Scott script they worked from, both films are much different than the original book, but Mann's soundtrack was interesting and the locations where it was shot were beautiful. I liked that remake much more than the original film and especially more than
Dances.
Another pro-Indian film that was accurate in many ways although a spoof is
Little Big Man. It portrays the plains Indians very much as they really were. An extremely good film that portrays the early contacts between the French and the tribes of the Northeast is
Black Robe. Accurate as to Indian dress and morals and the lodge houses of those tribes.
One film that really captured the deep-seated hatred and warfare between the Comanche-Kiowas and settlers on the Texas frontier in the 19th century is
The Unforgiven, a film from the 1960s starring Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn not to be confused with Clint Eastwood's
Unforgiven. You also get some of that feeling but not nearly as intense in
The Searchers, which I and some others think is probably the best Western ever made. One film that captures a lot of the Indian costumes and lodges seen in some of Catlin's early drawings of the Mandans and some of the behavior documented by many pioneers is
A Man Called Horse. Richard Harris is over the top, as always, and his character is out of step at times, but it's entertaining and accurate in a broad sense and some details.
The character of Blue Duck in the
Lonesome Dove series is an accurate representation of Indian and half-breed outlaws in the Indian Territory in the late 1800s.
Uzana's Raid and
Major Dundee capture some of the savageness of Apache raiding parties in the 1800s.