THE FILM
FILM DIRECTOR: Kevin Costner
SCREENWRITER: Michael Blake
FILM STARS: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Tantoo Cardinal, Jimmy Herman, Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse, Robert Pastorelli, Wes Studi.
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Michael Blake
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1991
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1988
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Western
WORDS: Michael Blake’s novel, which he adapted into a screenplay, became the hugely successful film directed and starring Kevin Costner. Costner had known Blake from early 80s Hollywood where Blake was writing unsuccessful screenplays (only one was filmed at the time “Stacy’s Knights” starring a young pre-fame Costner). Dances with Wolves reads like a novelization but the original novel was , perhaps, Blake’s trojan horse aimed at getting the already written screenplay made into a film.
The film, and its tales of the west and native Americans I have reservations (sic) with. Putting aside his black and white approach to native American’s and the military, there is also a black and white approach to the different tribes of native Americans. here, the Sioux are heroic, while the Pawnees are portrayed as stereotypical villains. The film also has more than a passing resemblance the 1970 film A Man Called Horse (based on the short story by the Western writer Dorothy M. Johnson). Having said all that it almost kick started a western film revival, and it has its heart, if not mind, in the right place. And, it is quite panoramically epic.
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