Back in 1990, Kevin Costner directed, produced, and starred in an epic war film which also happened to be his directorial debut – Dances with Wolves. Little did he know that the film would go on to receive a whopping twelve nominations at the 63rd Academy Awards and win seven out of those. Clearly, the film was loved by many.
However, films about war often have a few inaccuracies here and there even after filmmakers try their absolute best. Dances with Wolves is no different. Last year, a Civil War historian picked a few war films apart, explaining what actually happened in reality. When he came to Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves, he proved a very common misconception wrong.
Civil War Historian Picks Apart a Major Scene in Dances with Wolves
While Dances with Wolves managed to beat Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas at the 1991 Oscars, there is one man who is not a big fan of the film’s inaccuracies – Civil War historian, Garry Adelman. Appearing for Insider’s How Real Is It? series, Adelman took a dig at a very major scene in Kevin Costner’s film.
In Dances with Wolves, Costner played the role of Lt. John J. Dunbar and the film begins with him on the brink of having his leg amputated. In the scene, the two men operating on his leg reveal that they would have to perform the amputation without ether, a very important painkiller. While pointing out the inaccuracies, Adelman stated that the lack of preparation was simply not true.
“One of the greatest myths of the Civil war is that Civil War surgeons are sort of sawing through people’s bones without any sort of painkiller and no preparation while they scream through their surgeries, only biting on a bullet or a stick or something. And that’s just not true. Most of those amputations were conducted with the use of morphine or ether, a substantial painkiller that would allow surgeons to carefully prepare for the amputation by cutting away the muscle, leaving a skin flap, and then sawing through the bone with a saw so sharp that it wouldn’t take that long.”
Adelman added that amputation was the most common surgery during the Civil War as it allowed the surgeons to stop a wound from turning into an extreme danger.
A Couple More Things That Didn’t Impress Garry Adelman
Thanks to Adelman, a huge myth has been busted. However, that’s not all he pointed out during his examination of the film. In one scene, the camera pans to soldiers having half their bodies hidden behind barriers that were simply not safe enough and had space between slacks which would easily allow a bullet to hit them.
About this, Adelman said,
“If I’m in an open field I would be tickled pink to have half my body covered by some slats in a fence. I would prefer a big boulder, don’t get me wrong, but I’m going to be happy for anything I can use that gives me more chance to live and gives my troops a better chance to repel the enemy.”
Next, Adelman talked about the inaccuracy in weapon usage when it comes to moving targets.
“Hitting a moving target laterally is probably not easy for anybody except the best shooters. Certainly it is possible, but unlikely, you know that he could make it through such a hail storm of bullets, yeah it seems pretty unlikely to me.”
Well, there you have it. These are the three complaints Adelman has with the Oscar-winning war film. As for the rating, the historian would give these particular clips a six out of ten. Not too shabby, right?
You can stream Dances with Wolves on Prime Video.
