...Dances with Wolves Tera Butler ENG225- Introduction to film Professor Daniel Burrello February 8, 2015 Dances with Wolves Westerns are stories of life and adventure in the American West a time period and way of life everyone should reflect on. Dances with Wolves(1990) is one of the most truth brought forward Westerns of our time, as it explores the ending of the Civil war and the embarks on the New Frontier that ultimately changed the way of life for most all Native Americans. This film is compiled with drama, love, loyalty, courage, and racism all with lasting impact on its audience. Directed by Kevin Costner in a simple cinematographic technique that allows the audience to experience the characters every move. This movie was written by Michael Blake and directed by Kevin Costner who also is the lead actor throughout the film. Other actors include Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney Grant, and Floyd Red Crow Westerman. The story starts with a wounded Civil War soldier about to have his foot amputated when he makes an attempt at his life by stealing a horse and running recklessly across the open battlefield nearly getting shot. The build from this scene is that the soldiers fighting see his act of desperation and encouragement and a distraction and use the fact that the enemy is so focused on shooting him off his horse that they never see the final attack coming. The end of this scene Kevin Costner...
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...Dances with Wolves Dances with wolves is a movie based upon John J. Dunbar’s experience going back to an old fort and along the way he met indians and learned their ways of living. Also he met a white women that was taken in by the indians and John married her. John created a strong relationship with the indians. He taught them his language and they taught him theirs. As for the name of the film, the indians gave John the name dances with the wolves. This was brought up from a wolf following John around during the movie and was loyal to him. John lived with the indians in their forts for many months. John went back to his fort and when he got there he saw that American soldiers had set up there and attacked John when he arrived. They interrogated him and were going to put him to death. Just in time the indians saved John and he safely got home. John and his wife left and as the movie was ending they closed with the American soldiers finding the indian troops and were said to have destroyed all their forts and wiped out the indian population. This movie focused on seeing indians from a different perspective and not just savages. Though this movie was one of the top movies on the board when it first came out, the historical facts aren’t very accurate. To start off the American soldiers did murder lots of indians but they didn’t completely wipe out their population, there are still indians alive today. Also when John found the women she just became widowed and it is a ritual...
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...Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake was published in 1986 after many years of rejection after rejection. This two-hundred-eighty-five page historical fiction novel tells the beautiful and awe-inspiring tale of young Lieutenant John Dunbar and his love for the vast open prairies of South Dakota. But, what is perhaps even more wonderful is the people who inhabited the land long before white men ever thought to settle it. This extraordinary tale shows the prejudices of whites against Indians and one man’s attempt to bridge that gap and save the land and people he has grown to love more than life itself. Dances with Wolves takes place in the year 1863 at the tail-end of the Civil War when morale runs lower than resources. Lieutenant John Dunbar is sent with supplies to a desolate Fort Sedgewick. Upon his arrival the fort has been abandoned, its men gone back to the East Coast. Ever vigilant to his duties, Dunbar holds the fort, hoping that they will return and reinforcements arrive. All is for naught, his presence at the fort is not known by anyone, save himself. As time passes he soon finds himself in the company of an older wolf, Two-Socks. The two form a strange friendship and Dunbar finds peace and beauty on the prairie he has never felt before....
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...Dances With Wolves Dances with wolves is an important motion picture which gives us a look into the lives of Native American culture, and white America. The movie promotes acceptance and tolerance for the Lakota culture. During the film the humanity of the Lakota people and their familial bonds and tribal culture is introduced to us. These different people that are established in nature are threatened with running into the white civilization and having everything they know ripped away from them. Little do they know that they will run into a white settler who will teach them white ways, introduce them to new technology and english words, practice their own culture as well and live together in harmony, without superiority getting in the way. At first when we are introduced to John Dunbar a Lutenient who is positioned at a white soldier fort alone, it assumed that the indians are not too far off from the post, and the two cultures will eventually clash and could potentially end in a battle. We see the Lakota Sioux tribe who are friendly and accommodating, and the Pawnee Indians who numerous tribes are not accepting of other cultures even the Lakota which is surprising due to the fact that they are both indians. The only reason the Lakota Indians feel as though they have to ever fight is because the pawnee is threatheing their well being. At first when the Lakota discover that their is a white man positioned at a post close to their own homes, two leaders are sent their not...
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...A Western film written, directed and acted by Native Americans is a hidden gem. Too often, Indians are portrayed from a white man’s point of view, which causes misinterpretations and stereotypes of Native culture. Even in movies where the white director highly respects Indians, they are bound to overlook important details or fallback on palimpsest. In Dances with Wolves (1990), a Sioux uses the butt end of a rifle to fight off the soldiers before John Dunbar tells him to shoot the gun with the other end. In reality, the Sioux tribe is known for having great warriors, some were even better with a gun than white settlers. Smoke Signals (1998), the “first feature-length movie written, directed and acted by American Indians” (James Sterngold), fully broke the cycle of producing movies that were merely a “photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image” (1, Kilpatrick) of Native Americans....
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...the late 1800’s. In one lecture, we discussed some key terms and we also went over the Privilege Score Index. In the following lecture, we discussed more key terms such as: Mise-en-scène, ethnicity, and epistemology. The film, Dances With Wolves, is about a man by the name of John Dunbar, who is sent an outpost in the west and eventually befriends an Indian tribe and becomes...
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...JUNGLE BOOK by Rudyard Kipling The stories of Jungle Book are stories told in the third person by a narrator, as one might tell bedtime stories to children. Only in "The White Seal" and "Servants of the Queen," is the narrator actually mentioned, and then he is not identified. The reader gets the sense of a wise older narrator, one who is intimately familiar with Colonial Indian and the jungle therein, but not of it, as a British colonial officer would be. The narrator, for the most part, is impartial and allows the stories' characters to tell the story. Only occasionally does he interject, such as at the end of "Tiger, Tiger," when he tells us that the rest of Mowgli's story is a story for grownups. This is also true at the beginning of the "White Seal," where the narrator tells us of the winter wren that originally told him the story. The narrator does not share his opinion of the story and the characters' actions. The reader is left to draw his own conclusion. Kipling is a product of his 19th century British colonial experiences, and the British/ Native and Indian caste class differences are alluded to in several of the stories. In "Toomai of the Elephants," the reader is told that Big Toomai works for the government, but it is to Petersen Sahib, a white man, that he reports. Additionally, whereas Petersen's interaction with the boy, Little Toomai, is undoubtedly well meant, it still carries a vaguely condescending tone. This difference is also evident in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi...
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..."St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" Werewolves are usually thought of as malevolent blood thirsty creatures. Karen Russell's magical realistic style puts a spin on the well know supernatural creature by showing them as young undomesticated girls."St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" is a tale about wolf girls who are sent to a boarding school to learn how to act like acceptable human beings in modern society. Although the girls' parents were werewolves, they did not inherit the dominant werewolf trait, because the gene regularly skips a generation. This tale is narrated by Claudette, it follows her experience through her point of view at the boarding school. This short story is broken into several unique stages. Each stage the girls progress through soon brings them closer to being a proper domesticated human. In "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves", Karen Russell illustrates the adolescent struggles of finding your personal identity in modern society. She demonstrates this through the different stages the girls go through as well as slipping in representations of conformation, religion, peer pressure, and depression. Stage one in this short story is when the girls and their brothers first arrive at the boarding school. Soon...
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...In Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, a group of girls are taken from their home in the wilderness where they live as wolves to St. Lucy’s Home where they undergo extensive training to become more civilized. Mirabella is the youngest of the girls in the program and is the only one to not learn how to act appropriately from the nuns. Mirabella represents individuals resisting conformity to societal norms as she stays true to her roots under pressure and harassment from her peers and authority. As Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” progresses, Mirabella becomes more ostracized amongst her sisters and peers as she is the only girl who does not deviate from her identity as a wolf-girl. According to psychological research by Herbert C. Kelman, compliance, which is a form of conformity, is described as individuals adopting “the induced behavior because they expect to gain specific rewards or approval and...
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...Yup'ik Yurapiaq and the Quyana (Thank You) Song In the National Museum of American Indians, were many pieces of art ranging from ancient pieces to the more modern contemporary pieces that stored a lot of history within them. The Native art is not only expressed through paintings but also through sculptures, clothing, materials used by American Indians during a special time period or tribe, and objects that were left by Native tribes. One of these art pieces that stood out to me was the clothing worn by the Yup'ik tribe during a ceremonial dance in order to honor their ancestors. The Yup'ik tribe originate from Southwestern Alaska and are known as Eskimos. The piece of clothing worn during these ceremonial dances is made using several kinds...
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...Hood. In the fork tale, the forest is a place of the unknown, wildness and chaos, elevating the likelihood of encountering obstacles like wolves. Because of this uncultivated aspect, the path is crude as well, not easy to follow. During Red Riding Hood’s journey to her grandmother’s place, she is hindered by the Wolf when she...
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...Three little pigs dance in a circle singing "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?" Little Red Riding Hood barely escapes the cunning advances of the ravenous wolf disguised as her grandmother. Movie audiences shriek as a gentle young man is transformed before their eyes into a blood-thirsty werewolf, a symbol for centuries of the essence of evil. Such myths and legends have portrayed the wolf as a threat to human existence. Feared as cold-blooded killers, they were hated and persecuted. Wolves were not merely shot and killed; they were tortured as well. In what was believed to be a battle between good and evil, wolves were poisoned, drawn and quartered, doused with gasoline and set on fire, and, in some cases, left with their mouths wired shut to starve (Begley 53). Convinced that they were a problem to be solved, U.S. citizens gradually eradicated gray wolves from the lower 48 states over a period of 25 years. Today many people are convinced that the elimination of the gray wolf was not only an error, but also a detriment to the quality of life in this country. There has been a public outcry to rectify the situation created by the ignorance of our ancestors. However, in seeking to address a situation created by the human compulsion to control nature, it is crucial to discern how much human interference is necessary. Human control must be tempered by respect and restraint. Programs designed for the protection and restoration of wildlife must reflect deference for the...
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...slavery and discrimination. Indians have been enslaved for a long time during the history of mankind. From the textbook, we learned a lot about European colonialism and its victimization of Africans and Indians followed as the dominant paradigm. Indians are commonly depicted as succumbing in large numbers to survivors with the survivors facing with the dispossession of their lands and their assets. Indians, treated as the commodities by bargaining, or even the livestock, were flogged and whipped by the colonists and slaveholders. They didn’t own the human rights or dignities. All the views I learnt about Indians are the dark shadow of the society in ancient time. However, a movie called Dances with wolves impressed me a lot and entirely changed my view about Indians. Dances with Wolves, directed by Kevin Costner, is a historical movie picturing civil war and westward expansion during the 1800’s, filled with stereotypes of ‘White men’ and ‘Indians’ that are...
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...St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves When humans live in a new and different culture, they will forget their old culture. In “St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves,” by Karen Russell, the three girls are changing their wolf identity to human identification. In stage three the girls are adapting to human identification but Mirabella in not. Mirabella was not forgetting her old lifestyle because she thought that wolf identity is more superior than human identification. The nuns were worried because the other girls were able to follow directions and behave, “Mirabella, battling a racon under the dinner table while the rest of us took dainty bites of peas and borscht. Mirabella, doing belly flops into the compost” (Karen, 244). Claudette's...
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...Josh Smith Dr. Tom Jones English 101 December 5, 2006 The Big Bad Wolf • Three little pigs dance in a circle singing "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?" • Little Red Riding Hood barely escapes the cunning advances of the ravenous wolf disguised as her grandmother. • Movie audiences shriek as a gentle young man is transformed before their eyes into a blood-thirsty werewolf, a symbol for centuries of the essence of evil. Such myths and legends have portrayed the wolf as a threat to human existence. Feared as cold-blooded killers, they were hated and persecuted. Wolves were not merely shot and killed; they were tortured as well. In what was believed to be a battle between good and evil, wolves were poisoned, drawn and quartered, doused with gasoline and set on fire, and, in some cases, left with their mouths wired shut to starve (Begley 53). Convinced that they were a problem to be solved, U.S. citizens gradually eradicated gray wolves from the lower 48 states over a period of 25 years. Today many people are convinced that the elimination of the gray wolf was not only an error, but also a detriment to the quality of life in this country. There has been a public outcry to rectify the situation created by the ignorance of our ancestors. However, in seeking to address a situation created by the human compulsion to control nature, it is crucial to discern how much human interference is necessary. Human control must be tempered by respect and restraint...
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