While some critics complained about Dunbar’s “white savior” coming to the aid of his Sioux friends, audiences were absorbed by the details of their existence. Costner, Greene and McDonnell (who was just a little younger than Greene and Cardinal, who played her adoptive parents) all received Oscar nominations.Īudiences were intrigued by the real-life characters Receiving her most prominent film credit to date was Mary McDonnell, as the Sioux-raised Stands With a Fist. Grant (Wind in His Hair), Floyd Red Crow Westerman (Chief Ten Bears), and Wes Studi (as a Pawnee tribesman). Prominent castmembers included Graham Greene, a member of the First Nations of Canada, as Kicking Bird, Tantoo Cardinal, of Canada’s Metis people, as Black Shawl, and Native American actors including Rodney A.

The film was shot on location in South Dakota, from July to November 1989 Its unconventional and sympathetic emphasis is on Native American life in the Civil War era, observed by Costner’s disillusioned John Dunbar, a first lieutenant who ultimately chooses to live among peaceful Sioux and defend them from Pawnee raiders and the encroaching U.S. The project began as an unsold script, which the actor and budding director encouraged Blake to rethink as a book, purchased and published in 1988. The film was adapted from a novel by Michael Blake