# Dances with Wolves - Score (Oscars 1991)



## HansZimmer

While we await the end of the voting of the Talkclassical best film score award - 1990 , I begin to put together the material for the year 1991.

In 1991 to win the Oscar for "Best Score" was the film Dances with Wolves, which among other things also won the Oscar for "Best Story".
John Barry is the composer and orchestra dictator.


The film is set in the American Civil War. John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) is a soldier in the Union army and finds himself alone in an outpost in the wastelands of the West.
The only life form that keeps him company is a wolf (to whom he will give the nickname "Two Socks"), until he meets some people belonging to a tribe of indigenous Americans.

John is then repeatedly invited to their village and falls in love with their people and their way of life. The natives rename him "Dances with Wolves", a reference to "Two Socks". They ask him if one day the territory in which they live will be filled with white men and he lies saying no, but he knows very well what the fate of the natives is.



The American Film Institute put it in 75th place on the Best 100 American Films chart and I think the score reflects the rest of the work.

You can listen to the whole score in this playlist: playlist

In the video here below you can listen to the best parts of the suite.






Below instead I put the video of composer John Barry who is called on stage to take the Oscar.


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## mbhaub

I enjoy that l-o-n-g movie and the score is very appropriate. It troubles me how much scorn the John Dunbar theme has received. It's been called insipid, purile, predictable, uninspired and worse. I think it's beautiful because of it's simplicity; the underlying harmony may be elementary, but it fits perfectly. But then, I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to Westerns!


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## MAS

I recall that I heard part of the score playing in a record store and it brought me to tears.
I hadn’t yet seen the movie but always admired John Barry’s music. When I saw the movie, the music made an even bigger impression


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## NoCoPilot

All I remember about the movie was 1) it was L-O-N-G and slow, to the point where you consider killing yourself to get out of it, and 2) isn't there a love interest? Some woman who lives with the tribe? Is she supposed to be Native American? She doesn't look Native American.


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## Forster

"The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1956." (Wiki)

So this film couldn't have won that Oscar.


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## NoCoPilot

"Best Adapted Screenplay" was among the seven it won.


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## BrandonLG

I watched this before we went to SD. Good music.


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## HansZimmer

NoCoPilot said:


> All I remember about the movie was 1) it was L-O-N-G and slow, to the point where you consider killing yourself to get out of it, and 2) isn't there a love interest? Some woman who lives with the tribe? Is she supposed to be Native American? She doesn't look Native American.


@NoCoPilot no, the woman is white. She was adopted from native americans because her parents were killed when she was a child.


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## HansZimmer

Forster said:


> "The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1956." (Wiki)
> 
> So this film couldn't have won that Oscar.


@Forster

I still use "best story" because it's simple to understand for people who are not familiar with the world of Academy Awards. The award has been splitted in two parts and renamed. "Best writing" is the correct name.


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## Forster

NoCoPilot said:


> "Best Adapted Screenplay" was among the seven it won.





HansZimmer said:


> @Forster
> 
> I still use "best story" because it's simple to understand for people who are not familiar with the world of Academy Awards. The award has been splitted in two parts and renamed. "Best writing" is the correct name.


According to the Oscars own website, the title of the award for that year was

WRITING (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) 

I see no reason to to simplify the title for "people who are not familiar [etc]."


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## pianozach

NoCoPilot said:


> "Best Adapted Screenplay" was among the seven it won.


Yeah, it was the darling of the 1991 Oscars: Nominated for 12 Oscars, winning in *seven* categories. The three acting categories in which it was nominated did NOT win. 

Generally the category WRITING (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) is colloquially referred to as "*Best Adapted Screenplay".*

The Score was also a winner at some of the other awards groups; the Grammys, the Golden Globes, and The BMI Awards.

It's worth noting that at the Academy Awards it was up against

*Avalon - Randy Newman
Ghost - Maurice Jarre
Havana - Dave Grusin
Home Alone - John Williams
*
While the Grammy Awards it was up against only two of those

*Avalon – Randy Newman
Awakenings - Randy Newman
Edward Scissorhands – Danny Elfman
Havana – Dave Grusin
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – Michael Kamen*


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