I had the privilege last week of seeing an unfinished print of The Revenant, Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu's follow-up to Birdman. Inspired by true events and Michael Punke's novel of the same name, the film chronicles the almost unimaginable ordeal of fur trapper Hugh Glass (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), who was mauled by a bear and left for dead by his men in the frozen wilderness of 1823 America ... only to survive and then seek his revenge. Hugh Glass was basically a real-life Chuck Norris joke -- only no one thought it was very funny when he showed up half-dead and looking to kick some serious ass.
While I am not allowed to review the film yet, I can tell you it's one hell of a filmmaking feat by Iñárritu. Shot by Emmanuel Lubezki using only natural light and employing many complicated tracking shots, The Revenant's shoot is already the stuff of legend. It filmed in the remote wilds of Calgary and Argentina (yes, they really went all the way there for snow) to double for the American frontier. You can practically get hypothermia just watching the movie it looks so damn cold and miserable out there. But as grueling as the shoot was, what ends up on the screen works -- beautifully, brutally -- in fully immersing you in another time and place. You are there, fighting to survive against both man and nature.
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While I am not allowed to review the film yet, I can tell you it's one hell of a filmmaking feat by Iñárritu. Shot by Emmanuel Lubezki using only natural light and employing many complicated tracking shots, The Revenant's shoot is already the stuff of legend. It filmed in the remote wilds of Calgary and Argentina (yes, they really went all the way there for snow) to double for the American frontier. You can practically get hypothermia just watching the movie it looks so damn cold and miserable out there. But as grueling as the shoot was, what ends up on the screen works -- beautifully, brutally -- in fully immersing you in another time and place. You are there, fighting to survive against both man and nature.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...