Kevin Costner
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The Last Samurai (2003)
Directed by Edward Zwick
influenced by Dances with Wolves (1990)
Themes Characters Plot
They've been seen before, and they've been explored again with films like Avatar or The Last Samurai .
Dances with Wolves another obvious touchstone, the picture depicts Cruise as lovably earnest in the Kevin Costner mold, another limited actor limited to a certain kind of role, but one who seems genuinely interested and invested in his projects.
More than one reviewer has already compared The Last Samurai to Dances With Wolves in which one enlightened white man forsakes his own dastardly white ways and embraces the peaceful, noble ways of a foreign culture.
Actually, this Asianized variant on Dances With Wolves seems mostly to exist to prove the truth of those lyrics by Mr. Gilbert in (ironically enough) The Mikado the ones where Koko makes a list of people who wouldn't be missed, and includes those persons who praise "every century but this one, and every country but their own."
"Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dances With Wolves" won Oscars for their skilled indulgence of the theme, so it comes as no surprise that "The Last Samurai" should borrow liberally from both, adding finishing touches culled from the likes of Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" and the classic television miniseries "Shogun."
His Dances With Wolves-style premise of a tormented U.S. soldier who finds peace by embracing the creed of the samurai has plenty of kick, and the production has surely done its homework.
Which can be put down to the fact that I've seen "Dances with Wolves", I've watched "Pocahontas" and many other movies which run with a similar theme and although it's well constructed it didn't feel special enough to match up to what "Avatar" delivers visually.
(Most) audiences who have seen Avatar in 2009 may accuse James Cameron’s screenplay as nothing more than a rip-off of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Pocahontas (1995) and Dances with Wolves (1990).
Among other things, its clunky, unoriginal story elements recall bits from the 1992 animated feature "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest" and the Oscar-winning "Dances With Wolves" (1990).
Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter series from the early twentieth century, this science fiction tale borrows from Dances with Wolves, historical events like My Lai, and even films found in Cameron’s own catalog.
The worst aspect of Avatar is its Frankenstein’s abortion of a storyline borrowed from Dances With Wolves , so every single plot move was telegraphed in 1990.
If you have seen Dances with Wolves , you have seen this theme before, the white man migrating into territory of the American Indian.
Foreshadowing Costner's Dances with Wolves, he uselessly slaughters buffalo, cynically saying, "At least they won't feed any Comanche this winter."
Though well played by Mary McDonnell (Matewan), the character seems lifted from John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, in which John Wayne rescues his kidnapped niece (Natalie Wood) from the Indians.
He may have studied the way Akira Kurosawa splits his screen with a horizon line or sets a character a little off-center in the vastness of a plain; there are movements of cottonwoods and buffalo grass that may recall "Dersu Uzala," and figures against a flaming sunset that bring back "Kagemusha," but there are far worse directors to study if one is starting out.
News of the World (2020)
Directed by Paul Greengrass
influenced by Dances with Wolves (1990), Open Range (2003), The Postman (1997)
Themes Plot
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Dances with Wolves or Unforgiven mixed with one of the more square Hanks vehicles like Bridge of Spies or Greyhound , maybe a smidgen of True Grit (both of them) or a pinch of Lone Wolf and Cub thrown in there.
A little bit of The Searchers (1956) and a little bit Dances with Wolves (1990) aided by a familiar Tom Hanks persona to comfort and quell our anxiety in a hopeless world, Greengrass creates a universally compelling if somewhat familiar tale of empathy and woe.
It’s the kind of raw, revisionist stamp that separated Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” (1992), Kevin Costner’s “Open Range” (2003) and most of Sam Peckinpah’s Western classics from the morally right black-and-white Hollywood studio staples.
Es el tipo de sello revisionista crudo que separó Unforgiven de Clint Eastwood (1992), Open Range de Kevin Costner (2003) y la mayoría de los clásicos occidentales de Sam Peckinpah, de los básicos de los estudios de Hollywood en blanco y negro moralmente correctos.
If this sounds a little bit like The Postman , that's because it is--except in The Postman , Kevin Costner played a postman who did Shakespeare with his mule.
The Revenant (2015)
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
influenced by Dances with Wolves (1990)
Themes
(As with a lot of modern Westerns, The Revenant finds a middle ground between the racist, vilifying depictions of Native Americans in old Hollywood movies and the romanticized conception of them in films like Dances With Wolves.)
But for all its anthropological niceties, Iñárritu’s vision of Native Americans traffics in the same noble-savage clichés that render movies like “Dances With Wolves” and “Little Big Man” the regretful fantasies of conquerors.
He speaks some of the Native American tribal languages and (as in “Dances With Wolves”) provides a white man who can be our window to the suffering of the indigenous people.
He may have studied the way Akira Kurosawa splits his screen with a horizon line or sets a character a little off-center in the vastness of a plain; there are movements of cottonwoods and buffalo grass that may recall "Dersu Uzala," and figures against a flaming sunset that bring back "Kagemusha," but there are far worse directors to study if one is starting out.
The film’s revisionism was nothing new--both Ralph Nelson and Arthur Penn had turned the tables on western clichés back in 1970 with Soldier Blue and Little Big Man, respectively--but Costner and screenwriter Michael Blake (who adapted his own 1987 novel) reinvigorate the argument with depth of character and a narrative scope that allows for various shades of gray across all perspectives.
"Little Big Man" and "Windwalker" come to mind as examples of movies that treated Indians as multidimensional human beings or used native Indian languages with English subtitles.
Two decades earlier, A Man Called Horse and Little Big Man showed characters attempting to bridge the divide between white American culture and Native American tribalism, but Costner went for broke with his large-scale, Panavision epic, clocking in at three hours.
Ford's Cheyenne Autumn, in 1964, also examined government mistreatment of Native Americans.
The film’s revisionism was nothing new--both Ralph Nelson and Arthur Penn had turned the tables on western clichés back in 1970 with Soldier Blue and Little Big Man, respectively--but Costner and screenwriter Michael Blake (who adapted his own 1987 novel) reinvigorate the argument with depth of character and a narrative scope that allows for various shades of gray across all perspectives.
Yes folks we're in Mad Max, Terminator Salvation and even The Postman country as a grizzled, bible toting and quoting Denzel goes on his ‘lone wolf’ (or Littlest Hobo) mission to save humanity, one town at a time.
Unlike other attempts at showcasing how rationality is restored in a society destroyed by chaos (say, The Postman), The Book of Eli never loses sight of its strategy.
Though it cribs wholeheartedly from previous end-of-the-world cinematic observations (think of the film as a cross between “The Road,” “The Postman,” and “A Boy and His Dog”), the Hughes Brothers craft a compellingly abrasive tone of moral manipulation to embellish the traditional maneuvers of violence, as Eli defends his secret tomb from would-be thieves and crusty scoundrels.
I really like the idea of “a guy and his dog” that’s reminiscent, believe it or not, of “Dances With Wolves.”
There is virtually no dialogue, but Diesel’s sizable screen presence and our previous experiences with the character are more than enough to sustain both tension and momentum (the digital effects used to create the planet’s vistas are a bit hokey-looking at times, as is a CGI dog creature that Riddick ultimately befriends Dances With Wolves-style, but it’s all part of the movie’s self-aware lowbrow charm).
The New World (2005)
Directed by Terrence Malick
influenced by Dances with Wolves (1990)
Plot Themes
Much of the film's first hour reminded me of Dances with Wolves.
There's a lot more to it than that, of course: like all Malick films, it's a treatise on the relationship between the natural landscape and the human beings inhabiting it; it's a mild critique of the white European destruction of the Native American way of life (though neither as forthright, nor as mildewy in its political earnestness, as something like Dances with Wolves ); it is a tribute to the founding principals of the American democracy, while recognising those principals are more honored in the breach than the observance.
It's certainly a great idea, and in the hands of a fine filmmaker like Malick, one would expect something quite remarkable, especially considering the number of great films about the interaction between Europeans and Native Americans that have come before, like "Dances with Wolves" and "The Last of the Mohicans."
It’s not a serious drama or even cultural exploration like Salvador Carrasco’s “The Other Conquest,” or even “Dances with Wolves.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced by Dances with Wolves (1990)
Themes Plot
…the Avatar films remain tethered to a somewhat lazy “white saviour” narrative, heavily inspired by Dances with Wolves (1990).
…the Avatar films remain a pastiche of colonialist and white savior fantasies in the Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and literal O.G. Pocahontas legend vein…
…he achieved that very pull, even against the Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest comparisons and criticisms…
A version of the "white savior" myth (see: "Dune," "Dances With Wolves," etc.) with blue, cat-like humanoid aliens?
Although the first Avatar was often reduced to “Dances with Wolves with aliens”…
Dances with Wolves was long, yes, but it did not devote 30 minutes toward insights into the social strata of its buffalo…
Nolte impresses with his ferocious vulnerability and Woods delivers his most human performance since The Virgin Suicides , but there is a posture of icy remove to the Polish brothers' film that washes everything in the same bleached palette employed in M. David Mullan's faultless cinematography.
The movie never quite makes the case that Fawcett found an enlightened people, in the vein of Dances with Wolves, as in all likelihood he and his oldest son (tagging along to associate himself with the object of Daddy’s affections) were ultimately murdered by some faction, but we’re never in any doubt that he embodied the great exploratory zeal and bravery of the period – the era of Scott and Shackleton.
Shot by veteran Australian cinematographer Dean Semler (The Road Warrior, Dead Calm), Dances With Wolves features some of the most extraordinary footage of the open plains since Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978).
Scott's movie, by contrast, tears holes into Heller's world through which come marching some over-the-top post-apocalyptic tropes from A Boy and His Dog (1975), The Road Warrior (1981), and The Postman (1997).
An Oscar pedigree is provided by actor Graham Greene ("Dances with Wolves") who has a small role as the sheriff's deputy, Harry Clearwater.