As Costner bows out of YELLOWSTONE? It’s time to remember his greatest achievement. Reinventing both the western and the epic. By fusing those two genre templates.
1990/1. Nobody expected it to be a hit or critical success. But? DANCES WITH WOLVES was a game changer. The ultimate revenge on those who thought it clever to dub the film ‘Kevin’s Gate’ and almost wish it a flop.
Now. Do I rate Costner as a leading man? No. He was fine as nice, wholesome, upstanding farmer boys/cops/baseball players/crusading lawyers. But woeful at anything more subtle or sullen. Yet undeniably, empirically: GREAT in action in a manner many ‘movie stars’ today are not.
So yeah, though I didn’t care much for Kev’, I got why girls adored him and why he brought in the box office dollars.
Why did he stall a bit in star power? Well, his halo slipped imho. USP of nice/holier than holy, kinda disappeared. Also, he confused ‘epic’ with ‘long and boring’ and made increasingly dull and drab films whose poor reception ought to have sent a message. ‘Just because a film doesn’t make money doesn’t mean it’s not a success’ (actually, Mr Costner, that is EXACTLY what that means).
Anyway. He’s sweet. I like it. Sweet. 😉 (some may get that reference).
Whatever reservations one might have about Kevin, though, there is NO DETRACTING from DANCES WITH WOLVES. It won Oscars, all round, deservedly so. Yep, I rate it higher than GOOD FELLAS. Sorry! The sheer ambition and scale of landscape photography, editing, and action is sublime. At the same time, one gets a revisionist western and inverted take on ‘Cowboys and Indians’, years before anyone went ‘woke’. It is literate, warm, moving, complex, beautiful stuff. If you have not seen it/ Do so. Immediately. On your biggest of big, widest of wide screen. And blast out that amazing score from John Barry at his best.
There was some sequel talk which never progressed, though I have pitched the notion of Kev directing /adapting Brian Friel’s play, TRANSLATIONS (tackles similar themes of colonialism gone wrong, via love of language and land, plus Costner almost made a MICHAEL COLLINS movie once so..he’s interested in the Irish subject matter).
DANCES WITH WOLVES: A MUST SEE/ OWN. see the frontier. Before it’s gone..
