The Ecological Horror of “Dances with Wolves”
Dances with Wolves tracks the evolution of Lieutenant John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) into the eponymous character, while being told from a uniquely ecological perspective. Richard White’s “Animals of Enterprise” argues that animals became a symbol of the past West and were commodified for industrial purposes, which is clearly attacked in Costner’s reinvention of the Western film. Dances with Wolves follows Dunbar from a Civil War camp to the dangerous frontier and reinvents the Western myth from one of opportunity and advancement to one of devastation and loss.
Westerns typically only use nature as a location, but Dances with Wolves presents nature as a central character. In an introductory scene in the film, horses are seen branded with “U.S,” a direct confirmation of White’s statement of horses as indispensable labor tools for the nomadic Europeans. Throughout the film, Dunbar’s horse, Cisco serves as a transitory device between European commodity, which White referred to as a “sentient tool,” and the Indian view as a respected cohabitant of earth (p.238). Dunbar serves as a pivot from frontier civilization to harmonious tribe life, as he treats animals as fellow citizens in an interconnected society, rather than “movable creatures of the biosphere” (p.238). The white soldiers in the film are concerned with one-sided victory and conquering the Western frontier, whereas the Sioux maintain minimalism in their ways. The first shot of the Sioux village reflects this: huts, horses, and rivers all remain balanced in the frame as uplifting, approving music arises. Costner’s presentation of the wolf Two Socks as friendly, playful, and dependable is the opposite of the typical wolf as a “competitor or predator on the domestic livestock” (p.269).
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White expansion does not directly kill the Indians in Dances with Wolves—the epilogue credits scene does that—but it does slaughter animals relentlessly, from Two Socks to Cisco to bison. The audience’s first glimpse at bison—eroding, poorly-skinned for pelts and laden in pools of blood—is the result of careless white men, which is in-line with White’s description of how “hunters initially did not even know how to skin the animals” (p.248). Dunbar comments, “Who would do such a thing...It was a people without value and without soul,” while devastating, somber music swells with the grief seen on Indians’ faces. White’s comment on the routine slaughter of “more bison than [whites] could skin” is clear here, as the white men of the film only relate to the natural world through violence (p.248). The Sioux viewed animals as “other-than-human persons with whom relationships were social and religious instead of purely instrumental,” however, practicing extreme moderation and respect towards the bison which they depended on for all facets of their society, from food to clothing (p.236). In the film, the sordid white men find fun and excitement out of killing and plundering the land, from gleefully shooting at Two Socks, to Spivey trying to steal Dunbar’s Indian necklace and diary.
Costner frames Dances with Wolves as a conversion story from John Dunbar to Dances with Wolves, establishing a contrast between the modest Dunbar and the excessive white soldiers. Although Dunbar fails to commits suicide at the outset while riding Cisco with Jesus-like imagery amidst Confederate gunfire, his metaphorical death as a barbaric white man begins immediately. His guide to his new assignment at Fort Sedgwick is White’s “beastial” man—a crude and selfish slouch, who Dunbar calls “possibly the foulest man I’ve ever met” (p.236). Upon investigating Fort Sedgwick, Dunbar is horrified at the destruction of the land and rotting deer, remarking “I can make no sense of the clues left me here.” Costner wisely uses a panning shot from Dunbar’s initial view to slowly reveal the horrifying scale of waste that the previous settlers left. After an extended introduction and assimilation with the Sioux tribe, Dunbar finally claims their moniker Dances with Wolves after their shoot-out with the Army soldiers at the river. After repeated beration by the soldiers, Lieutenant Dunbar metaphorically dies at the river, leaving all remnants of his former life behind in his diary floating downstream, freeing him from the strains of white civilization. Dunbar makes this clear, saying “I’d never really known who John Dunbar was. The name had no meaning,” completing his transformation from the intolerant, industrialized white civilization to the serene Indian tribe. Thus, Dances with Wolves can be seen as an ecological outcry against the senseless greed of the frontier culture that permeates industrialized America to this day.
Sean Kelso is the founder & editor-in-chief of Greyscale.
