DANCES WITH WOLVES
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Kevin Costner ascended quickly in Hollywood, and leveraged his clout aggressively and intelligently. After his breakout supporting role in 1985’s Silverado as the irrepressible Jake, he spent the next few years playing leading men who no less magnetic. In successive years from 1987 to 1989, Costner played the incorruptible Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, the poetic veteran baseball player in Bull Durham, and the obsessed farmer in Field of Dreams. Then, after that terrific trifecta, he took advantage of his Hollywood status and signed on to direct, as well as star in, Michael Blake’s screenplay adaptation of his own Civil War-era novel in 1990’s Dances with Wolves. It’s a film of epic length, and actually works as an epic Western – at a time when the genre, as well as such overtly sentimental stories, were somewhat out of vogue. Co-stars include Mary McDonnell and Graham Greene.