Well, we’ve made it to the 1990s! When I think about the ’90s, the decade in which I spent a large part of my childhood and teenaged years, I just get all nostalgic. Man, it had to be one of the best decades (if not THE best) of the twentieth century. The ’90s were full of color–big, loud color. The pop/rock music was too catchy. The TV shows too irresistible. The clothes too much fun. The technology not yet dominating our lives. And the movies were epic.
Of course, the 1990s were not all sunshine and roses. There was the Gulf War. There were bombings at the World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City. There were race riots and a crazy guy in Waco, Texas. There were Hurricane Andrew and the Storm of the Century. There were JonBenet and O.J. There was that whole debacle with the American President and his intern. There was Columbine.
Still, although it might not have seemed so at the time (or at all for our parents who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s), the ’90s may very well have been the last “age of innocence” in America’s history; for as much as we hoped the good times would continue, 9/11 smashed any illusions we ’90s kids had about our living in a mostly safe world.
This week’s BP Dances with Wolves (1990; Tig Production, Orion) also chronicles a rose-colored time that is fast approaching a change that the film portrays as irreversible and devastating. Set in the 1860s on America’s Western frontier, Dances with Wolves tells the story of a man who falls in love with the past that is disappearing all around him–the simpler ways of life of the Native American tribes, the thunder of buffalo stampedes, the wide open prairies–as the encroaching white settlers and former Civil War soldiers slaughter this past for their amusement and to satisfy their need to dominate. It’s a story of transformation, released during a time that was seeing its own changes (not all of them negative as 1990 witnessed the release of Nelson Mandela, the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the reunification of East Germany and West Germany).
Kevin Costner’s film went on to win 7 Academy Awards out of its 12 nominations: Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) for Michael Blake’s adaptation of his own 1988 novel, Directing for Costner, and Best Picture (it failed to win Art Direction, Costume Design, Actor in a Supporting Role for Graham Greene as Kicking Bird, Actress in a Supporting Role for Mary McDonnell as Stands with a Fist, and Actor in a Leading Role for Costner as Lieutenant John Dunbar). Dances with Wolves was the first Western film to win Best Picture since 1930/31’s Cimarron, another film that chronicles both the wildness of the American West and its subsequent dominance by white settlers from the East. Both movies are breathtaking at some parts and horribly upsetting at others (more in the weekend’s post about why I probably will never watch this film again)–and this is a trend we will see in many (if not most) of the BP winners of this decade. Although the times back then seem simpler to us now, the BP films the ’90s spawned are anything but light and innocent. They are deep and emotional. I’m looking foward to sharing them with you all–but I’ll just keep my Kleenex box close.
For more thoughts on Dances with Wolves, please check out this weekend’s post!