The Revenant (2015)

Yes all that stuff was great, but sadly let down by the total unbelievability of certain events and incomprehensible delivery of dialog.

 

Whoops!

 

Are you sure? I'd be willing to wager on it. The bear attack is near vomit-inducing and I'm willing to screen that part for anyone you can find who is able to come my way. It is very realistic and rather frightening. Sure, you can watch it on an airplane seat-back, but is that a fair representation!?

 

It's all good. I really enjoyed your post though. Great insight into the film and your observations are spot on.

Cheers

 

I saw it in a crummy commercial theater, yes. I've watched it several times on my tv since it's been run on HBO and I have it on Blu Ray. I've probably seen the movie maybe 10 times now.

 

It's generally accepted that the longest one can survive in that approx temp of water (5c) is 30 minutes, which is within the John Tanner experience in the film. I didn't have any believable issues on that, those guys (pioneers) had to adapt and endure extremes or else they died. Personally, if the water less than 17C I run very fast in the opposite direction
And if you like survival stories, this one may be to your liking, a man surviving 6 hours in 5C cold water plus a 3 hour trek afterwards in very cold weather Guðlaugur Friðþórsson - Wikipedia »

 

The bear scene was very well done, although I actually found it to be nowhere near as gruesome or shocking as everyone was making it out to be. I guess as a seasoned horror-film veteran, a splash of blood or a few deep gashes to person's body are relatively PG-rated stuff to me. Still a fantastic movie, though.

 

I've seen some intense gore myself so we're both desensitized to some degree.

My point stands and I'm willing to prove it to any member in my area or any who visit. Like most here, I've watched movies on airplanes, on tablets, in commercial theaters, on regular TV, on modest panel display home theater, and finally in my current set-up. When it comes to critical analysis, this experience has proven to me that screening a film very close to how the film execs (and those who made the film) would is more valuable than one might imagine. I certainly wouldn't invalidate all opinions derived from sub-par screenings, but I just think it's important to be mindful. Additionally, I'm not commenting on level of enjoyment necessarily. Clearly, a film screened on a smartphone can leave a unique impression in any number of circumstances.

The bear scene, both image and sound, is exceptional when screened in a reference set-up. I wouldn't hesitate to use it as demo material for those who enjoy that sort of violence.

 

That was amazing.

 

The confusion is that the same cinematographer, Chivo Lubezki, photographed both Gravity and The Revenant and Birdman, and he won Oscars for all three. In some ways, they have similar styles, particularly the wide-angle lenses and the long continuous takes. If I can offer one small criticism of Revenant, it's that I think they kind of overdid the wide-angle lens thing. Watching a 15mm lens for 2 hours+ is kind of rough, particularly with the endless tilts up to show the towering trees overhead and all that kind of stuff. I think it was a little bit "show-offy." Having said that, the lighting was exceptionally good throughout, and I think more credit needs to be given to the VFX crew and the color crew (the latter headed up by Steve Scott at Technicolor).

 

I watched There Will Be Blood on a plane on a tiny screen with abhorrent sound and this film at home on a large television. I was utterly transfixed by the former and mostly bored stiff by the latter...as is the case with all the Inarritu films I have seen (21 Grams, Birdman, The Revenant).

If we're a better film critic, I would be able clearly communicate what is missing from this director's film among all the technological wizardry and style. I'll leave it at that.

 

Chivo gets panned on every Terrence Malick film he is nominated for, but always wins for other films. Makes me wonder about the politics of it all ....

 

This could have been much better, but it fell into a lot of annoying Hollywood clichés. A chase scene where the hero should have been killed, but survives. Main villain virtually impossible to kill. Hero took a close shot at him but missed (even though he's portrayed as a winner and does win over and over). Long drawn out final fight scene where both take hits over and over that should have killed or disabled them. It just seems like it was bold and creative often enough that it was almost like a director/writer who wanted to be bold, but conservative powers ordered that he be more conventional in certain spots. Just speculating - that's just how it appeared to me.

 

I only see great reviews for him. Chivo has a very good reputation and to me, just judging by the work, he's in the top 5 working DPs in the world right now. My only quarrel was with how he kept insisting in interviews that The Revenant was "naturally lit," and in reality it took a half-dozen technicians three months to light it all digitally with VFX at Technicolor. This only came out after Chivo (deservedly) won his Oscar.

If you have a half an hour, here's a presentation showing the software used to do the lighting and color grading on The Revenant, and it gives you part of the idea of just how much went on technically in order to create a film that looked like it wasn't lit per se, and took place in 1823:



I've watched this a half-dozen times, and I'm really, really impressed by the work that went into this thing to make it look so good.

 

Having just watched the Blu-ray, I think The Revenant is an unrelenting, downbeat film that runs about 20 minutes too long, many of the characters are hard to empathize with, and it's a very tough story to take. From a literary standpoint, you can criticize the film because they claim it's "based on a true story," but in real life, Hugh Glass never had a native-American wife, he never had a half-Indian son, nobody killed his wife, nobody killed his son, nobody died at all, he never jumped a horse off a cliff, but he was really left for dead. When he finally reached the guy who left him for dead, all he wanted back was his rifle -- that was the only quarrel he had with the guy. Glass agreed with him that it made sense to leave him behind, because it looked like he actually was going to die.

But that wouldn't have made a melodramatic movie... so Alejandro Inarritu changed it.

My joke is, "they should do a double bill of Hateful 8 and The Revenant, and run the theater at about 40 degrees just to add to the effect."

 

I guess what I meant is that Chivo does great work for The New World/The Tree of Life/To the Wonder/Knight of Cups but never wins awards for them. Yet, many of the techniques he employs is used in other films to which he wins, deservedly.

 

"large television"

Amazes me the lengths to which grown adults will go to avoid the possibility that they were wrong in their first impression. I'm telling as frankly as I can. You are welcome to screen either Birdman or The Revenant in my theater and I'll wager that you will at least slightly 2nd guess yourself. While expect only a fraction of a percent to pursue a proper viewing environment (a very rare thing), I think its fair to expect some open mindedness considering the typical underwhelming viewing environment.

 

Thanks for invite. I haven't gone to any lengths at all to defend my first (and only) impressions of these films. No doubt though, I am highly skeptical that any system or viewing environment could sway my opinion in any way.

Btw, "large television" - I think there is a big difference between this and an airplane, no? The point was that I came to the conclusion that the film viewed in a plane was a much better film/more liked than the one seen in a much better environment. To me, it says a lot about what I value most in films.

 

I agree but at the same time it was too long and boring.

This was how I felt about Barry Lyndon, although that film was more boring than this one.

I still want to see it again.

Just for the record I have an 8 foot wide front projection set up. Nice looking blu ray.

 

Right, after all that stupid talk about the bear scene ("OMG DID DICAPRIO GET RAPED BY THE BEAR??!!") I was expecting much worse too.

 

Impressive!

 

It is a sign of an age old consistency in my book that if you were bored with Barry Lyndon, you would also be bored with The Revenant.

Perhaps worthy of a sad line in an epitaph. "Alas though, he was very bored with Barry Lyndon"

 

Who are "they"? you can criticise "they" whoever they are, but the film is clearly
"Based in part on the novel by Michel Punkte"
as stated on 2.26.46 , as part of the film credits.

 

Pretty, pretty good...

 

And the novel does not have these violent details. It's invented in the screenplay, which is credited to Mark Smith and Alejandro Inarritu.

I don't expect any historical film to be an exact documentary of true events, but this explains why a lot of stuff people found unbelievable simply didn't happen. But the stuff you could believe did happen: the guy was attacked by a bear, he did survive in the wilderness for months under horrific conditions, and he did make it back to civilization. But everything else was invented for the film. I find it interesting that those events are the ones that people have the most trouble with in the film.

Note also that in real life Hugh Glass lived another ten years beyond the time of the film, which (to me) is not implied by the ending. There are a lot of "alternative facts" going on here.