“The film is more than the instrument of a representation; it is also the object of representation. It is not a reflection or refraction of “reality”; instead, it is like a photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image. (Kilpatrick) Although films have found their place in society for about a century, the labels they carry, like the stereotypes Native Americans are known for, have their roots centuries ago (Kilpatrick). The Searchers, a film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, tells the story of an American Civil War veteran and how, after returning home, he would go after the maligned Indians who killed his family and kidnapped his young niece. After struggling for five years to get her niece, now a young woman, back, she is saved by her own hands. Likewise, Dances with Wolves is a Western film directed and starred by Kevin Costner. It is also set during the American Civil War and tells the story of a soldier named John Dunbar after a suicide attempt; he unwittingly leads the Union troops to triumph. Then, at his request, he was sent to a remote outpost on the Indian border "before he disappears." There, the contact with the natives is eminent and thus shows how, through these contacts, this soldier transforms into another Indian who belongs to the Sioux tribe and who is now called Dances with Wolves. While John Ford and Kevin Costner both emphasize the desire to apologize to indigenous people, they use similar themes such as stereotypes, miscegenation, and the way characters are portrayed; conversely, these two films are different in the way the themes are developed within each film. John Ford's The Searchers was intended to be middle of paper......because of how their roles interact with the Native American people in the film. As a result, both films depict Native Americans from the perspectives of non-Native filmmakers. Although they used manufactured stereotypes in their illustrations of indigenous people, their depiction was revolutionary in its time. Each of the films adds in its own way a new approach to the representation of indigenous peoples, their stories unfold in part differently. These differences lead us to view indigenous people not only as one-dimensional beings, but also as multifaceted beings, as Dunbar says: “they are just like us.” Finally, it is a feeling of fairness and respect on the part of non-native populations towards native Indians. Works Cited Jacquelyin Kilpatrick, Celluloid Indians. Native Americans and cinema. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999