HOW DID DANCES WITH WOLVES PULL THE UPSET OVER GOODFELLAS?!

In 1991, most of America thought that Goodfellas was going to win the the award for "Best Picture" by a landslide. Shockingly, that was not the case. What made the award ceremony so shocking was that the film Dances With Wolves had pulled one of the biggest upsets, or arguably the biggest upset in Oscar history. Dances With Wolves was only the second time that a western genre film won the "Best Picture" Oscar award. Goodfellas is about A young man who grows up in the mob and works very hard to advance himself through the ranks. He enjoys his life of money and luxury, but is oblivious to the violence and problems that he causes. A drug addiction and a few mistakes unravel his climb to the top. Dances With Wolves is about Civil War soldier who develops a relationship with a group of Native Americans. Attracted by the simplicity of their lifestyles, he chooses to leave his former life behind to be with them. The Native Americans decide to give him the name Dances With Wolves (OMG, THE MOVIE TITLE!) Later, he becomes a welcomed member of the tribe and falls in love with a woman who has been raised in the tribe. Tragedy takes place when Union soldiers arrive with designs on the land. These two films are difficult to compare because each film is very different in several ways. Obviously, I am going to argue that Goodfellas should have been awarded "Best Picture" of Dances With Wolves. 

I have probably watched Goodfellas more than ten times since I first watched it. I absolutely love that movie, and I can possibly recite it line for line. Martin Scorsese (absolute genius) does a great job directing all of his movies, hence why he is one of the most well known directors of all time. The plot of Goodfellas is spectacular and really intrigues the audience. Starting the film with the Billy Batts murder scene and Ray Liotta saying his famous quote, "For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster" was great because it makes the audience question why they brutally killed that guy in the trunk (Batts). After that, it goes back in time, which Scorsese likes to do in his films. Going back intimate makes the audience get a better understanding of how certain events lead up to important scenes. As soon as the movie begins, the audience automatically knows Liotta is the main character (Henry Hill), which makes them focus more on him and what he has to deal with rather than De Niro (Jimmy Conway) and Pesci (Tommy De Simone...) despite them being the other two main characters. Henry wants to become a gangster and he eventually does. However, he is not like the other gangsters. Unlike the other guys, Henry is a nicer person, less serious and not as violent. Henry displayed himself as having more brains than braun, well ... until the end of the movie. Towards the end of the movie everything fell apart because him and his wife (Karren Hill) got involved with coacine. Everyone in the mob turned their backs on him and was out to get him, so he had to rat them out in order for him and his family to have a safe life. At the very end, he reverts back to an average Joe who is not involved in any crime. So to completely summarize Henry Hill's role as a character: He stared off as a normal kid, then he became a mobster and had tons of money, but then he went back to being a normal person after everything came crashing down. 

When I watched Dances With Wolves, I did not really notice anything about the film that was "Best Picture" award worthy. I will admit though, it wasn't bad. One comparison I can make is just like Henry Hill,  Lieutenant Dunbar leaves his old life behind to join a new group of people. Another comparison I can make is how the Indians took him in as one of their own after giving him a name. It reminded me of when the mob took in Henry and after time, he earned respect from the boss (Paul) , and was given important tasks to accomplish such as heists. One last comparison I can make is when he fell in love with a woman and everything fell apart when Union soldiers arrived. 

Overall, these films somewhat compared to each others story lines despite the differences in time periods, characters and circumstances. Everything else that I can think of contrasted from each other. I can definitely see how some people liked the movie, but I just think its ridiculous how it won over Goodfellas. I think the length of the movie was one of the main aspects of it winning the prestigious award. The movie is an astounding three hours and fifty six minutes long. However, the movie is quantity of quality for the most part in my opinion. One of the most crucial scenes in the movie (the buffalo scene) was unrealistic according to history and because they know no words of each other's languages. Dunbar, the white Union soldier, tries to pantomime a buffalo. Wind in His Hair (name of character) looks at Dunbar and says he's crazy. But Kicking Bird (name of character) thinks he understands what Dunbar is trying to say. They finally exchange the word for "buffalo" in each other's languages. This scene is a crucial moment in Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves," a film about a white soldier who goes to live with Native Americans and learns their civilization. In real life, such contacts hardly ever took place in the 1800s. The American culture back then was nearsighted, lacked curiosity and racist. The people saw the "Indians" as a race of ignorance, thievery and they were to be killed on sight or removed from their territories. Pretty much what had taken place during the "Trail of Tears" under president Andrew Jackson. A white American soldier would have never even attempted to speak or interact with a Native American during this time period according to what I have learned in history throughout the years.

However, despite these two films greatly contrasting from each other, these two films share a certain message of importance. The overall message of the two films is that good things do not last forever. Henry Hill started as a nobody, became a somebody and the reverted back to being a nobody or a "schmuck" as Liotta said at the end of the movie.  For Dunbar, he started off as a soldier for the Union, left the army, joined a tribe of Native Americans, and then everything fell apart for him as well. Despite Goodfellas being the better film, Scorsese and the cast were thrown to the wolves ...