Leonardo DiCaprio Suffers for His Art in ‘The Revenant’

In Movies & TV by April Snellingsleave a COMMENT

The story of famously durable frontiersman Hugh Glass has proved to be one of America’s most lasting legends. The first embellisher was most likely Glass himself, who reportedly enjoyed spinning a tale and took an active role in engineering his own myth.

Every era seems to rediscover Glass and recast him in its own image. He was the subject of an epic poem in 1915, a bestselling book in 1954, and a mostly forgotten Richard Harris film in 1971, along with numerous articles, TV shows, and books along the way. In recent years, Glass has become Internet famous thanks to his inclusion on clickbait lists of notable badasses—a sort of rallying cry for a generation that has produced legions of privileged urbanites who favor bushy beards and flannel.

It’s that most recent iteration of Glass that shows up in The Revenant, a film that delights in both the majestic beauty and gore-soaked brutality of the American frontier. This version of Glass is one of the most interesting so far—he’s an icon of stoic manliness, stripped of mountain-man braggadocio and weighted down with existential suffering to match the physical trials he endures.

Who better to play this conflicted creature than Leonardo DiCaprio, who sprouted a Brillo beard to cover that famous baby face and subjected himself to relentless torture at the hands of director Alejandro González Iñárritu, all in the name of verisimilitude?

His prolonged suffering makes for a riveting cinematic experience, and that’s not a backhanded compliment. The Revenant is exactly the sort of movie that makes the “not for all tastes” caveat such a useful one for film reviewers; it’s nearly three hours of non-stop violence and ugliness, punctuated by moments of breathtaking beauty and, it must be said, a fair amount of navel-gazing. I loved it. I also understand why others might hate it.

The Revenant isn’t particularly concerned with historical accuracy, at least when it comes to recounting Glass’s story, but its broader plot points hew fairly close to what we think we know. In 1823, Glass is part of a 100-man fur-trading expedition that travels up the Missouri River into territory that has not been settled by Europeans. The Revenant picks up in the middle of their journey, just minutes before the party comes under attack by Arikara warriors. It’s a harrowing scene that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. It’s visceral, dizzying, relentlessly gruesome, and technically stunning, playing out in long, incredibly choreographed takes.

It’s the first part of a one-two punch that launches the movie into the meat of its simple plot. Glass survives the raid, only to be nearly mauled to death by a bear shortly afterward in a scene that’s entirely free of the close-ups and choppy editing that usually mark such on-screen attacks. It’s both frightening and gut-wrenching, and it’s probably a good thing that the movie never manages to top that level of intensity.

The film settles into something a little tamer and more contemplative as it chugs along. The grievously wounded Glass can’t make the journey to the relative safety of a frontier fort, so the sympathetic Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) assigns two men to stay behind and care for him until his seemingly inevitable death. Glass’s biracial son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), and a young trapper named Bridger (Will Poulter) stay behind for honorable reasons; the villainous Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) does not. In short order, Fitzgerald and Bridger are on their way back to the fort, and Glass is left to dig his way out of a shallow grave and fend for himself, without weapons or provisions, as winter sets in.

The Revenant will likely be remembered as much for its torturous creation as for its monumental technical achievements, so it’s hard to say how much of DiCaprio’s performance is acting and how much is simply filmed suffering. Either way, his commitment to the role is incredible, and he disappears in it; he’s nearly mute for a large swath of the picture, communicating only in snarls, grunts, and wheezes. It’s saying a lot, then, that Hardy—who’s only slightly more intelligible with his marble-mouthed grumbling—steals so many scenes.

The real star of the film, though, is cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who brought his trademark long takes and fluidly mobile camera to the unspoiled wilderness of Canada, America, and Argentina. The Revenant occasionally becomes a victim of its own grandiosity and loses some of its intensity in its final hour, but, if you’ve got the stomach and the patience for it, it’s a remarkable and haunting piece of cinema that should be experienced on the biggest screen you can find.

April Snellings is a staff writer and project editor for Rue Morgue Magazine, which reaches more than 500,000 horror, thriller, and suspense fans across its media platforms. She recently joined the lineup of creators for Glass Eye Pix's acclaimed audio drama series Tales from Beyond the Pale, an Entertainment Weekly “Must List” pick that has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

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