I still remember the awe with which this movie was received when it was released, and being specifically struck with the gumption it must have taken for Kevin Costner to reveal his own bare buttocks (gasp!) on screen. Some years after its release, I sat down to watch it with some friends on a battered VHS tape. I fell asleep a quarter of the way through.
At least twenty-five years later, I can appreciate what I was unable to at the time. The slow, vaguely European way the camera makes love to the scenery, in particular, was probably what put me to sleep at that first viewing, but finds a sympathetic audience in me now. Unfamiliar as I was with the way indigenous people were usually treated in film, the novelty of a respectful treatment that gave agency to its subjects was also lost on me at that time.
But I have missed the sweet spot where I might have truly appreciated this film. I am too old and jaded to accept lovely cinematography as a justification for a film; to me it is now merely frosting. Likewise, I have become far too aware of the realities of Native American life to accept what was, at the time, rather a progressive approach. The film is not as deplorable in its treatment as its predecessors, but still bears the marks of the white gaze, the noble savage trope, and the sanitization of complex issues. This film probably earned its accolades at the time, but while I am now prepared to stay awake for it, I cannot bring myself to bestow laurels today.
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