Revealing mistake: In the extended version of the film during the buffalo hunt, there is a shot of a buffalo making a turn and in the distant horizon, you can briefly see a modern radio tower on top of a hill.
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Directed by: Kevin Costner
Starring: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant
Continuity mistake: When Kevin Costner gets hit on the head by the top frame of the door, he is knocked out unconscious. Yet, when he gets back up after regaining consciousness, the blood from is head had been running down his nose. Don't you think that as he was lying down in a horizontal position, the blood would run down over the eyes towards the ears?
Continuity mistake: The piece of meat that Dunbar offers the wolf changes shape and size dramatically throughout that scene.
Trivia: The wolf in the film was played by two different wolves. Neither knew how to howl, so a third wolf had to be brought in for the howling scene.
Trivia: Kevin Costner had a nasty fall from his horse during the buffalo hunt scene, and everyone freaked out, because since he was the director, the star, and the producer, production would have shut down. Fortunately, he was fine.
Trivia: For his portrait of the Indians (which was radically different from all the earlier movies), Costner was made an honorary tribe member of the real-life Sioux.
Lt. Elgin: Spivy! You bash that prisoner one more time, I'll put those shackles on you.
Major Fambrough: Sir knight? I've just pissed in my pants... and nobody can do anything about it.
John Dunbar: The strangeness of this life cannot be measured: in trying to produce my own death, I was elevated to the status of a living hero.
Question: Why did Dunbar's superior kill himself as Dunbar was being taken to his new post?
Answer: Dunbar's superior supported the British ("The King is dead... Long live the King" said with a heavy British accent) and was likely a closet-case Redcoat his entire US military career. It was not rare and many suicides were a result of that.
This claim is not supported by the movie. "The King is dead. Long live the King" is a common idiom referring to the passing of power to someone new. It most definitely does not literally refer to the English King. The movie is set in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. As for your assertion that there were a large number of English loyalists in the Union Army three generations after the Revolutionary War seems highly unlikely. Can you cite evidence of this?
Question: Maybe I just missed something, but what's going on with Dunbar's military superior that he meets at the fort out west? He seems to think he's a king or something, referring to the frontier as the "realm" and Dunbar's travel companion as a "peasant." At the end of the scene he salutes Dunbar very sarcastically and then shoots himself. What does any of that have to do with the story?
Chosen answer: It shows that the officer was mentally disturbed, and he was the only one in the fort who knew about Dunbar's assignment. It sets the story up so that Dunbar could live with the Indians without the Army interfering with his life (No one expected any communications to or from Dunbar).
Answer: So why was his journal so important to him? He knows lots of soldiers and many other whites are coming.
Answer: Because it documented his time at the fort and with the Indians and also what he learned from them during the period when he arrived before the Army did show up - This would have been crucial if there had been any trial which there was not as the Sioux rescued him from the situation.
Question: When did the moustache get shaved off in the movie and why?
Answer: He shaved it as he began spending more time with the Lakota. Native American tribes rarely accepted facial hair. As you can see, none of the other Lakota men have any. He also grew his hair longer as an abandonment of his military lifestyle.
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Answer: He was mentally disturbed and was depressed about being assigned to a "dead end" post with no chance at advancement. Dunbar, the hero, choosing to be assigned to the frontier, just pushed the poor soul over the edge.
Mark English
In a word, the disease syphilis. The urinary tract problems and the Insanity are possible side effects.
What are you basing this on? What in the movie indicates that he has syphilis?