By Kevin Klawitter
Warning: Spoilers for both The Revenant and Man in the
Wilderness are present
Watching and comparing movies like The Revenant and the
1971 film Man in the Wilderness means to consider not only the way the
filmmakers tell the story, but the nature of the story itself. The tale of Hugh
Glass and his miraculous recovery from a bear mauling has been told for nearly
two centuries in myth and for decades in various forms of literature, but what
does it really mean? What lessons can we take from Hugh Glass’s survival and
response for being left for dead by his party? Those are the questions that the
film versions are meant to explore.
I find these sorts of comparisons fascinating because it
hearkens back to a form of history and record-keeping we don’t much rely on
anymore. The idea of history as an objective record of what actually happened
is a fairly recent innovation. For the longest time, historians were not so
much interested in what happened as to what the events meant. Ancient Greeks
and Romans filtered their era’s tumultuous politics as a reflections of
quarrels between their equally ill-tempered gods. The writers of the Gospels
conflated the early years of Jesus with elements of the lives of biblical icons
such as King David and Moses not necessarily because they actually happened,
but because they helped inform a narrative of Jesus as the one true Messiah.
Looking at The Revenant and Man in the Wilderness through that lens and
divorcing ourselves from the need to bind them to historical accuracy, we see
two widely different, yet still similar stories of survival and the nature of
revenge.
What is particularly interesting is that while both
stories are fictionalized in similar ways, the feel is entirely different. Both
movies give their protagonist a deceased wife as well as a son (the real Hugh
Glass, so far as we know, didn’t have any children) who serves as primary
motivation for survival, but in entirely different ways. Zachary Bass hardly
knows his son, having been away from home during his birth and even missing the
death of his wife due to his work as a seaman and wilderness scout. We see
Bass’s own lonely childhood in flashbacks, and it becomes clear he has become
determined that his own son not go through the same torment. In The Revenant,
Hugh Glass’s son Hawk is murdered by Tom Hardy’s villainous John Fitzgerald
when he interrupts him in the act of trying to finish off Glass. Hawk was
Glass’s only remaining connection to his deceased Pawnee wife (Hugh Glass did,
in fact, marry a Pawnee woman, though the record isn’t clear if she suffered
the same fate as is portrayed in this movie), and as a result his quest for
survival is driven largely by his desire for revenge.
That revenge over being left for dead is essentially a
secondary goal for Bass says as much about the goal of the movie as is does
about the character himself. Man in the Wilderness wears its spirituality on
its sleeve, from the flashbacks illustrating Bass’s difficult relationship with
religion to Richard Harris’s Jesus-esque hair and beard, we’re clearly looking
at a redemption story more than a revenge tale. The Revenant, by contrast, is
all about revenge and survival. Glass seeks vengeance on Fitzgerald for
murdering his son, and the local Arikara Indian tribe want revenge on trappers
for decimating their land and kidnapping one of their women (one thing among
several that The Revenant does better than Man in the Wilderness is in its
portrayal of Native Americans. Man in the Wilderness makes them more sympathetic
than many Westerns, but doesn’t give them much in terms of character or
personality. The Revenant makes it clear who they are, what they want, and what
their attitudes are towards settlers).
The long, difficult struggle faced by both Bass and Glass
prior to their confrontation with those who abandoned them offers them plenty
of time to consider the ramifications of their actions, and what ends up
happening between them offers the most compelling contrast between the two
movies. The final sequences and indeed, the final shots of both movies tell
completely different stories. Zach Bass stands in front of Captain Henry, asks
him to give his rifle back, and then simply continues walking, intent being
reunited with his son (keeping in line with the movie’s religious theme, when
Glass walks away he is followed by several members of Henry’s party). It’s a
low-key, but powerful ending.
The Revenant, by contrast, ends with a brutally violent
battle between Glass and Fitzgerald, but when Glass has Fitzgerald at his
mercy, he remembers the words of the Native explorer who helped him, saying
revenge is in the hands of God, and decides that rather than finish Fitzgerald
off, he leaves him at the mercy of the Arikara tribesmen who arrived just as
the battle was ending. We end with Glass making his way back through the
wilderness, seeing a vision of his dead wife, and then staring into the camera
with a haunting and ambiguous expression. Is he considering what to do next?
Does he feel responsible for what the Arikara did to Fitzgerald? It’s
deliberately unclear and nicely subversive, undoing some of the catharsis you’d
expect to come with Glass’s triumph over Fitzgerald.
The other dramatic way the movies differ is in how they
portray the wilderness itself. Man in the Wilderness certainly doesn’t skimp on
the scenery… it was shot on-location in the south of Spain and contains some
striking imagery, including a positively Herzogian opening shot of the
cross-like bow of Captain Henry’s ship raised above the tree line as it is
carried over land by the trapping party. It doesn’t, however, portray the
environment as a character and threat nearly as much as The Revenant. Alejandro
G. Inarritu and Emmanuel Lubezki create a stark, unforgiving wilderness that
dwarfs all men who imagine they can conquer it. Survival in this landscape is a
day-to-day struggle for all people, let alone someone as hideously wounded as
Glass, which makes his journey all the more remarkable.
Both movies have some pacing issues (when a good chunk of
your story involves your protagonist crawling across the ground and grunting,
how can there not be?) but successfully overcome them largely due to the
strength of their performances. Both Harris and DiCaprio carry the stories with
little dialogue and a lot of physicality. Not for a moment are they
unbelievable as mountain men struggling through the wilderness. John Huston
cuts an intimidating figure as Captain Henry, whose amoral attitude and
relentless driving of his party is countered by his guilt. Indeed, even when
everyone else is convinced that Bass is dead, Huston remains terrified that he
will return from the grave. Tom Hardy’s Fitzgerald is a classically-styled
villain… a despicable piece of work so beaten down by life that he seems
completely incapable of feeling happiness or pleasure.
Overall, I’d easily call The Revenant a more accomplished
feat of filmmaking and would probably put Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance above
that of Richard Harris. I do have to say, however, that I prefer the quiet conclusion
of Man in the Wilderness to the bloody and violent finale presented in The
Revenant… forgiveness is something I find more fulfilling than revenge. But
both endings fit perfectly with the movies that preceded them, and they both
stand equal as portrayals of the legend of Hugh Glass.
Miscellaneous
Notes:
Ÿ1 Hugh
Glass’s story has also been portrayed on television, in an episode of the
Western anthology series Death Valley Days entitled “Hugh Glass Meets the
Bear”. In that episode, Glass was portrayed by John Alderson, a British actor
whose most noteworthy credit was playing Wyatt Earp in a 3rd season episode of
Doctor Who where William Hartnell’s Doctor finds himself trapped in Tombstone
during the events leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Ÿ2 I’ve got to
wonder if changing the protagonist’s name in Man in the Wilderness was meant to
be as much a pragmatic choice as an artistic one, as Richard Harris makes no
attempt to hide his natural Irish accent. In fact, the entire Henry party is a mishmash
of different nationalities; considering how being a cowboy or mountain man was
often seen as an immigrant profession, this was probably more historically
accurate than many people realize.
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