“The Revenant” walked away from the Golden Globes with wins for Best Picture and Best Director, while favorites “Spotlight” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” left empty-handed. Now the film’s 12 Academy Award nominations– the most of any movie this year– have stretched the buzz of this film even further from its competitors.
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s most recent movie is earning even more praise and accolades than his Best Picture-winning film “Birdman” received just last year. The award circuit is not usually apt to anoint the same filmmakers in back-to-back years, and since George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” is an equally, if not more, impressive action film, the whole situation is a little surprising.
This film has been a long time coming. Rights to Michael Punke’s novel of the same name were acquired in 2001 before it was even published, and prior to Inarritu’s taking over the project in 2011, a completely different set of filmmakers and actors were attached to the film, including Christian Bale.
The film’s title comes from Punke’s novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge. One can find a deeper meaning, however, within its etymology in the French verb “revenir” (meaning “to return”), as the driving force behind the plot is protagonist Hugh Glass’ (Leonardo DiCaprio) hunger for revenge.
Glass is a 1820s frontiersman familiar with the wilderness and Native Americansn – two things with which many of his comrades are not. His men leave him for dead after a bear attacks him brutally, not once, but three times – a spectacle which alone probably earned the movie its Visual Effects Oscar nomination. Responsible for Glass’ desertion and undoing is two-faced criminal John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and the rest of the film follows the great lengths to which Glass’ blinding desire for justice motivates him to hunt down Fitzgerald.
Glass’ character is plunged into an intense emotional and physical journey and a neck injury from the bear attack leaves him only able to communicate via grunts and physical expressions. The nonverbal connection DiCaprio is able to make with audiences during his primarily solo scenes is not the only thing impressive about his performance.
After a lengthy and diverse acting career, DiCaprio has called his portrayal of Hugh Glass the hardest role he’s ever played, and for good reason. He learned how to speak Native American languages Pawnee and Arikara, build a fire, shoot a musket and devour a raw slab of bison liver, despite being a vegetarian. DiCaprio’s performance has earned him a Golden Globe, SAG, Critic’s Choice Award and his sixth Oscar nomination (fifth for acting), and all the signs seem to point to DiCaprio’s finally acquiring a well-deserved golden statuette of his own.
Although DiCaprio and Hardy’s performances are outstanding, the film crew is what made “The Revenant” the most nominated film of the year, specifically the work of Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (“Birdman,” “Gravity”). With “Birdman” it was the continuous filming technique, and with “The Revenant” it was the use of natural lighting only. Inarritu and Lubezki wanted to make the 1820s wilderness look as realistic as possible, meaning the cinematographer had only a few hours a day to capture and create the visual work of art that audiences get to experience in this film.
Lubezki’s visual aesthetics are frequently interrupted by hardships, both natural and man-made, encountered in the 1820s Rockies by Glass and his men. The only difference is that, where most films turn the camera away from things like murder or bear attacks, “The Revenant” zooms in, leaving nothing to the imagination, and vividly depicts gruesome scenes that are hard to look away from.
Complaints about the unfeasibility of the way Glass endured the elements with his injuries may be eased by the fact that the story was, in fact, fictionalized.
The filmmakers took many liberties with Glass’ story, including his motivation for revenge on Fitzgerald. In the film, Hugh Glass married and fathered a child with a Native American, which provides an interesting lens through which to view the American frontier settler vs. Indians culture that the real Hugh Glass story did not include. However, the opportunity seems to be lost, as the plot’s exploration of it was short-lived.
Inarritu’s dedication to conflict and mayhem makes for the exciting and exhausting journey that is “The Revenant,” all the way until the climactic, though unimaginative, final showdown.
