Best Supporting Actor 1990: Graham Greene in Dances With Wolves

Graham Green received his only Oscar nomination so far for portraying Kicking Bird in Dances With Wolves.

Graham Green plays the Sioux medicine man who encounters Kevin Costner's John Dunbar rather early on. Watching this film again I really find it a little surprising that the academy recognized him. Costner actually interacts with several Sioux, I suppose he perhaps with Kicking Bird the most, I am not so sure really that he does though, and even he does not really all that much more than the other Siouxs.

A lot of the time he really is just in the crowd of the Sioux people, and he really does not stick out at all unless he is directly speaking with Costner's character. In these scenes though Greene very much underplays the role, speaking little, showing the working of the quiet man though with small reactions like a slight smile at times. Greene is realistic enough in these scenes but he is not amazing  by any means.

Graham Greene's performance is never really that memorable, nor is his character one in the film that is unforgettable either. After watching it the first two times I barely noticed his performance, and what he did quickly faded in my memory. This time I watched it only for him, and still I had a hard to finding myself truly interested by any means, although I will admit not being interested by much in the film to begin with. Nonetheless Greene never really broke this disinterest for me, not a bad performance at all, but also not a performance I really feel needed to really be noted either.