Kevin Costner recounts the impressive Buffalo incident while filming Dances with Wolves

Kevin Costner still hasn’t forgotten what it was like to film the buffalo scenes in Dance with wolves. Based on Michael Blake’s 1988 book, the film follows Costner’s John Dunbar, an injured Union officer who befriends members of the Sioux tribe. While Dance with wolves is not based on a true story, it is nevertheless firmly linked to historical events. Costner was the star, director and producer, contributing significantly to the film’s $424 million in box office receipts. It won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and remains the second highest-grossing Western in history.

While reflecting on his career in a video interview with GQ, Costner reflected on one of the most astonishing scenes from the hit film: The buffalo hunt. Costner explained how he had a hard time finding the buffalo and eventually had to convince a rancher to let him hunt a huge herd of 3,500 buffalo. After six days, a buffalo even threatened to destroy a helicopter in his rage. Check out Costner’s full story below:

Well, I’ll tell you what was uncertain was,
Would we even be able to find the buffalo?
? And we finally made it to the middle of South Dakota, one, I was so grateful that they existed, and then two, I had to negotiate with the breeder, “Will you let me hunt them?” was the former lieutenant governor of the state, so he was a pretty evolved guy, but he said, “You want to hunt my buffalo?” And I was young, and he finally said, “Okay, we’re going to hunt them, we’re going to hunt them,” and that son of a bitch, I love him forever. He’s about 80 years old, he got in his truck, he has five other trucks, he has a helicopter, and
we started chasing them for six days
. And on the sixth day, all the buffaloes finally retreated. I was waiting to work that day, they had all backed up the herd, and the helicopter came down low and took on this bull, just like I’m looking at this camera, about 10 feet away, and they were doing whatever was in his power to make the buffalo run, and the buffalo did not want to run. And
this bull finally charged the helicopter
, the helicopter took off and narrowly missed him. Roy said, “They’re not going to run anymore.” They were finished. The bull finally said: “Six days are enough. » It was fast, it was scary and it was, like you said, it was beautiful. It’s something I will never forget. But if you see me leaving like this, that means you have to go. I remember after the first time we chased them, it didn’t work very well. They told me the buffalo wouldn’t come down the slope. They had to be taken uphill, which seemed a little strange, but I said “Okay” to the experts. We brought them up the first time, people were arriving. I could tell how tense it was and everyone was nervous. They went everywhere. So now all the writers met on our way back to the camera, and I realized, “Well, we didn’t have a lot of films about this, and we had 3,500 buffalo.”

The chaos of filming the buffalo hunt in Dances with Wolves

Finding the buffalo alone was a challenge

To film the buffalo, Costner first had to find a herd of buffalo, which was a challenge in itself. After all, while extremely widespread in the 1860s, buffalo have been threatened with extinction and are barely able to fill the plains as before. It was only by talking with the former lieutenant governor of South Dakota that they were able to find a rancher with a sufficient supply of buffalo. THE Dance with wolves The cast then spent six days hunting buffalo uphill on trucks, horses and by helicopter.

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Dances with Wolves ending explained

Dances with Wolves is Kevin Costner’s directorial debut about a Union officer who abandons his frontier post to befriend the Sioux natives.

The buffalo hunting process was another problem for the actors. The scene was so impressive that Costner later recalled that Native American actors had trouble remembering to shoot their arrows during filming. He reflected that “maybe a guy lost an arrow“before spending the rest of the scene simply watching the buffalo as they ran. It took several shots before they returned with empty quivers, which Costner considered a “Rite of passage“.

Filming only ended on the sixth day after a buffalo attempted to destroy the helicopter. The herd refused to run and the helicopter attempted to encourage it to continue its pursuit. Instead, a buffalo charged the pilot, who narrowly escaped a devastating crash. This event marked the end of filming for these particular scenes, prompting Costner to reflect that he “never forget” this incident, nor the filming as a whole. The bison scene in Dance with wolves continues to inspire him even decades later.

Source: GQ

Dance with wolves

Director

Kevin Costner

Release date

March 30, 1990

Writers

Michael Blake

Cast

Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd Westerman, Tantoo Cardinal

Duration

181 minutes

Budget

$22 million

Develop