Alejandro González Iñárritu hits us over the head with an amazing film about a mountain man who fights for survival in the frigid wilderness. This film is called “The Revenant”, and boy is it breathtaking to watch. All of the shots are beautiful making all frames into grand photographs thanks to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki who gets amazing shots in places where you have to be crazy to get. The cold icy water is one of them. You can’t pay me to get in that water-as the actor or the cameraman!
Something in this movie I saw that really impressed me and love is there are very few cuts in each scene. The lack of cuts made me more involved and connected to the what I was seeing on screen. It reminded me of “Gravity” (2013), which Lubezki also worked on. And with Inarritu’s direction, we get a first person view of what life was like in the frontier in the 1820s. A period in American history that we haven’t seen on film too often. It was as if we went back in time with a steadicam! Inarritu is by far one of my favorite directors working today because of this film. He’s so good at film making.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal as Hugh Glass is downright intense. He defies the laws of nature by staying alive amid the freezing temperatures. His expressions on his face reflect what he’s going through physically. I couldn’t tell if he was really in pain or only acting. This kind of method acting is what DiCaprio does best to get into his roles. Having him go through everything we see him go through on film adds grit and ambiance to the protagonists making us root for him even more. This is by far my favorite role of his because of the physicality he puts into it. He has so many things trying to kill him. A grizzly bear, the Arikara, the French, the weather, and fellow trapper John Fitzgerald played by fellow method actor, Tom Hardy. DiCaprio doesn’t have that many lines, but it’s necessary to get the full emotions of him going through this crucible.
Just for fun, here’s a list of all the things Dicaprio as Glass does in this film:
- Loads and fires a muzzle-loading rifle
- Swims in ice cold rivers
- Eats buffalo liver
- Rides a horse up a mountain
- Falls off a cliff
- Guts and inserts himself in a horse’s carcass
- Crawls through the forest
- Crawls up a mountain
- Climbs up a mountain
- Climbs down a mountain
- Catches and eats a fish raw
- Seals a wound in his neck with gun powder
- Gets attacked and fights off a grizzly bear
- Speaks Pawnee
- Gets his hand stabbed
- Gets into a knife fight with Tom Hardy
- Fights the Arikara
Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Revenant”
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