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Sunkmanitu Tanka Ob Waci

During a recent free HBO and Cinemax preview through Direct TV, they were showing a number of fairly popular, and good movies, some Sally and I hadn’t seen on the big screen. Many of the featured films received Academy Awards in one or more categories and others received numerous nominations for Oscars. Still others were highly acclaimed and were excellent movies. Included were “American Sniper,” “The Theory of Everything,” “Unbroken,” “St. Vincent,” “Draft Day,” “The Judge,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” and one of my favorite older films, “Dances with Wolves.”

I know many of these movies will reach regular television someday. I’ve already seen one of the aforementioned films on regular television, but a big advantage of movie channels is that programming is without commercial interruption, and you can watch them theater style, just on a smaller screen.

This being Thanksgiving time, and thinking about the often-told story of the Pilgrims and Indians giving thanks for a good harvest, it seems seasonally fitting to talk about one of the movies included in the preview, a movie featuring a relationship between a cavalry soldier and Native Americans.

“Dances with Wolves” is one of those movies, which I have to watch whenever it comes on while I’m surfing for something to watch. It was one of several Kevin Costner movies made during a stretch when it seemed like he was churning out new films every couple of months, most of them being near three hours in length, if not longer. His list during this time included “Field of Dreams,” “Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves,” “JFK,” and “Dances with Wolves,” a film which he starred in and directed, which won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Adaptive Screenplay, Best Original Musical Score, Best Director, and Best Picture, along with receiving five other nominations for Oscars. It’s hard not to watch it every time it comes on the small screen.

There’s so much I like about Dances with Wolves. First, it’s that it co-starred Mary McDonnell, who attended Fredonia State University the same time I did. I never met her, but like to ride her coattails of success in movies and television, telling people we were fellow SUNY Fredonia Blue Devils in 1974.

Another great thing from the movie is John Berry’s original musical score. There have been times when I’ve had to drive considerable distances alone, and I’d slide the DWW soundtrack cassette tape (don’t laugh, I graduated to cassettes from my eight track player, famous in my first car rocking the world with Iron Butterfly’s “In A Godda Da Vida”) into my car’s tape player, turn up the volume and, in some parts of the score, imagine myself alone on a plain somewhere riding a horse with the wind in what’s left (not much) of my hair, or I visualize myself watching a family of wolves interacting with each other in their habitat. After the film was released, and the music score went on sale, I purchased it and would also use excerpts from it as background music for sessions of our annual Wax Museum, which my classes performed for many years during my career. It was/is music that let(s) you escape to the beauty and peacefulness of the plains, and appreciate the serenity and wonders of nature. It was/is music to think by, contemplate by, and music to which you could/can slow down and relax both body and mind.

My interpretation of the story of the movie was twofold. It was a meeting of two worlds of people, each with their own opinions about the other, though not really knowing each other, and their gradual and eventual appreciation for and a changing of feelings about each other. That didn’t mean all from each side would be appreciated, exemplified in how many cavalrymen still thought of the Plains Indians, and how the Pawnee still thought of white men and even other Native American people. But it showed how anger and hatred could be turned into trust, appreciation and friendship, shown when Wind in His Hair, who hated Lt. John Dunbar when they first encountered each other just because he was a white man, came to be his friend and who, in the last scene of the movie, sat on his horse atop a cliff professing his friendship, now and forever, to Sunkmanitu Tanka Ob Waci, in front of his tribe and anyone else who heard the echo of his voice. It also showed the trust, respect, and love that evolved between Kicking Bird and John Dunbar from their early attempts to communicate with each other, to the invitation of Lt. Dunbar to go on the buffalo hunt, to Kicking Bird asking Lt. Dunbar to watch over his family while the men of the tribe went to fight the Pawnee, to the exchange of gifts and words toward the end of the story when Kicking Bird said, “We come far, you and me,” and Dances with Wolves replied with, “I will not forget you.”

Secondly, the movie showed an appreciation of nature and how man, nature and nature’s creatures can and should co-exist. It was shown when John Dunbar cleaned up the mess of Fort Sedgwick he encountered when he arrived. It showed in the relationship between Dunbar and Cisco, Dunbar’s horse which took him across the field during a battle between Blue and Gray, making the lieutenant a hero in the eyes of a cavalry general. It showed in the way Cisco kept breaking away from captors and kept returning to Fort Sedgwick and Lt. Dunbar. It showed in the way Lt. Dunbar talked to Cisco throughout the movie, and how he reacted when the horse was shot by cavalrymen later in the story. It showed in the sadness of the Sioux when they encountered the waste of dead buffalo scattered across the prairie, killed only for their tongues and hides. And it showed in the evolution of trust between Lt. Dunbar and Two Socks, the lone wolf that kept appearing at Fort Sedgwick and on the plains, a trust which developed into a friendship and respect between the two, evidenced in how Two Socks finally took food from the hand of Lt. Dunbar, and later played with him on the plain, within sight of Lt. Dunbar’s Sioux friends, prompting the Indians to begin calling Lt. Dunbar “Sunkmanitu Tanka Ob Waci” translation Dances with Wolves.

I think two scenes, one with Kicking Bird and Dances with Wolves exchanging gifts and feelings for each other, the other with Two Socks finally trusting Lt. Dunbar enough to take food from his hand, were the real story-telling parts of the movie and both scenes can be related personally if we look at them in terms of our own existence.

I like trying to come up with possible themes and meanings of songs, movies, poems, and books. I tried to use many in teaching if it pertained to something curricular, or could help students become better people. That’s why I use them so much in this forum too. But even if you don’t want to try and analyze what you read, hear, or watch, “Dances with Wolves” is an entertaining, moving, compelling movie which I’m sure many, if not most, would enjoy, if they haven’t seen it. And even if they’ve seen the film, it’s a great movie to watch again on a cool fall evening, or a cold winter night, with a bowl of hot soup, chili, or stew, with a fire in the fireplace (if you have one). Turn up the surround sound if you have that and escape to the time of the Plains Indians and the great western civilization. Wolakota! (from the Lakota language.) Translation: Peace!

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