Man in the Wilderness

Forty four years before The Revenant, Richard Harris starred in Man in the Wilderness, a movie also based on the harrowing survival tale of Hugh Glass.  For some reason, the character is named Zach Bass and all the other fur trappers are likewise renamed.  The story opens in 1820 with the view of a keel boat being hauled through a wooded area by a long line of mules.  Captain Henry (John Huston) stands on the ship with his well-worn top hat and gazes about as if he was at sea.  Meanwhile, Bass and Lowrie are hunting.  Lowrie merely wounded a deer while Bass killed one.  While Lowrie took the one back to the camp, Bass went in search of the wounded deer but found a bear instead.  The bear mauls Bass nearly to death before half a dozen trappers arrive and kill it.  After he is stitched up, Captain Henry asks two men to stay behind and bury him when he dies.  If he isn't dead by morning, "Kill him."  Yikes, that's rather unfriendly.  It is unclear why Bass couldn't just be loaded into the boat rather than left behind.  While waiting, Fogerty and Lowrie spot some Arikara warriors and decide to flee, leaving Bass to his fate.

 

There are a lot of flashbacks to 'explain' Zach Bass, from his mother's death, his difficulty at an orphanage, his wife, his wife's grave, and his son.  It is repeatedly shown that Bass has no use for God, notably because of these prior hardships.  Perhaps the oddest scene was when, while hiding in the brush, Bass watched a squaw give birth.  Clearly, the scene is meant to kindle his paternal instincts and give him cause to return home.  It is also strange that many of the trappers believe Bass is alive and tracking them; from their perspective, this is a horror film.  That was a weak part of the film.  In theory, the trappers are constantly moving, trying to get back to civilization with their keel boat and pelts.  Meanwhile, Bass fishes, hunts, skins and tans hides to create some new clothes, builds a spear from bits salvaged from some slaughtered hunters, and hikes through the wilderness on a crutch.  How did he catch them?  Well, back to that horror film notion, no matter how slow he walks or how fast they run, he must catch them.  When Bass began his recovery and trek after those who abandoned him, he was set on revenge.  When he arrived, all the flashbacks and encounters along the way had mellowed him to where he just walked away after collecting his rifle.  He had found God and forgiveness.

 

The inclusion of a son in both versions of the tale was interesting.  Zach Bass had a toddler son waiting for him back home, a reason to survive and raise him.  Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) had a son who was murdered, providing a reason to survive and avenge him.  Also interesting is that both Harris and DiCaprio were 41 when they played the character, which is about how old the real Hugh Glass was when he met the bear.

 

Man in the Wilderness has a gauzy feel to it.  When Harris is on screen, there is a melancholy score that is nonetheless optimistic.  Sad but upbeat?  Then, switching back to the keel boat, there is a thundering ride to adventure score.  It was awkward and distracting.  Like The Revenant, the movie is only partly accurate to history.  However, since all the names have been changed, that's fine by me; it is a fictional tale based on a true story whereas The Revenant is a true story with fictional rewrites.  However, I like that Harris didn't seek revenge in the end.  Of course, he didn't have a murdered son to avenge but that was an ahistorical rewrite by the filmmakers.  In this aspect, Man in the Wilderness was truer to the real Hugh Glass.  Even so, The Revenant is the better movie.

The Revenant

It is 1823 when a band of trappers are attacked by Arikara warriors.  The survivors board a keelboat and escape.  Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is out scouting when he is attacked by a bear.  The party drag him along until they come to an impassible barrier to carry his stretcher.  While the rest of the party move on, three men stay behind: Hawk, Glass's half-breed son, Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and Jim Bridger.  While left alone with Glass, Fitzgerald attempts to finish him off but Hawk arrives.  The trailer makes clear that Glass's son is killed by Fitzgerald so it is hardly a spoiler to mention that here.  Of course, Glass survives and sets out for revenge.

The true part is that Arikara warriors attacked a band of trappers led by William Henry Ashley, killing about 15 of them.  The survivors fled, during which time Glass was mauled by the bear.  With Glass unable to travel, Ashley called for volunteers to stay with him until he recovered or, more likely, died.  Fitzpatrick and Bridger volunteered but then left the still-living Glass behind, taking his rifle.  Glass survived and spent 6 weeks crawling back to Fort Kiowa.  In the wake of the Arikara attack, Lt. Colonel Henry Leavenworth led an expedition against them; this is the Arikara War (1823) and the first military engagement between the US and western Indians.  After Glass recovered, he set out to find Bridger and Fitzpatrick.  He killed neither of them but did recover his stolen rifle.

The movie has some historical inaccuracies that bothered me.  At one point, Fitzgerald mentions how his father had been with some Texas Rangers on some trek.  Of course, the Texas Rangers were only just established in 1823 while the trapping expedition set out in 1822.  The attack by the Arikara was in May of 1823.  Glass was mauled in August.  His trip back to Fort Kiowa took 6 weeks. In contrast, the movie seems to take place in the dead of winter.  A couple of times, Glass has a vision of piles of buffalo bones; the genocidal slaughter of the buffalo didn't occur until after the Civil War.  Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) was almost 50 during this expedition (Gleeson is 32) and didn't die until 1832.

 

The movie has a good amount of suspense but is often very slow paced.  There are a lot of nature shots, staring up through trees, showing snowy mountains, epic waterfalls, and so forth.  I was reminded of the closing clips that Charles Osgood would show on CBS News Sunday Morning; perhaps he still does.  In any case, that really slowed the pace of the film, entirely unnecessary for a 2 and a half hour long movie.  There was a repeated flashback to a Pawnee village slaughtered by US soldiers.  Having created a fictional son for Glass, the film makers decided to have a fictional Pawnee massacre to explain what happened to his Pawnee wife.  There are enough real massacres that a fictional one need not be used.  Though the French had traveled far and wide in the region during the 18th Century, the loss of Canada to the British and the Louisiana Purchase cut down on their fur trapping along the Missouri River.  This group of Frenchmen are shown as murders, arms dealers, and rapists; is there a political message meant by that?

 

The acting is quite good.  Tom Hardy was particularly good as the baddie; in fact, there are times where it is easy to sympathize with him.  Though I liked DiCaprio, the script had too much mystical mumbo-jumbo, too many visions, too many voices in his head to accept.  Inarritu hammered the attachment to son and wife with such frequency that I grew tired of it.  Cut all of that and the desire for revenge is still clear as day; as with the nature shots, it was excessive.

 

Overall, a good and entertaining film.  Cinematography makes it worth seeing in the theater.