A Good and Decent Man

 

"When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home." Chief Tecumseh

Noting the passing of Canadian actor Graham Greene.

 It was before dial up...

Pat and I married in the spring of 1992. Technologically speaking, it was the stone age.

Some friends gave us a week in their condo in Steamboat Springs. We did some cooking, we did some touristing and then we decided to watch a relatively new movie called Dances With Wolves. So...

It being the Stone Age, we went to a local VHS rental store, got a small portable player and the movie and sat in front of a small TV in the living room. In 2025 we would have just streamed it down to a laptop, but... No laptop, no wifi, no streaming. A tape, a player and a TV.

The story was about Lieutenant John Dunbar, a Civil War hero who takes a post in the West, to see the frontier, "Before it's gone." Upon arrival, he and his travel companion Timmons ("The foulest man I've ever met") discover that the post is abandoned. Timmons is killed on his return trip to the fort from which they set off. Dunbar is alone, and forgotten. That's when everyone's world changes.

Graham Greene plays a Lakota Sioux tribe's medicine man - Kicking Bird - who is empathetic to the soldier's lonely plight. He and Dunbar build a friendship, two men trying to find meaning in a deeply changing world.

The on-screen relationship works, in large part, because the character Greene crafted is a good and decent man. One can easily make the case that Greene is acting from the heart, that he embodies the many virtues he has imparted in the character he plays. Even primarily speaking a language not his first, he conveys a warmth that makes him the sort you'd like as a friend.

Mr. Greene had many roles over the course of his long career, but Kicking Bird was my favorite. It may be unfair to distill down a person's achievements into just one most meaningful to the observer, but...

Dunbar is trying to ask his new neighbors, over coffee, if they have seen any buffalo. Kicking Bird does not know what that means. A pantomime takes place, with Dunbar mimicking the snorting, stomping creature of the plains. At the moment of revelation, Kicking Bird's face lights up in delight. Two men from vastly different backgrounds and cultures have found their first word in common.

The best acting reveals truth. May he find eternal peace.