The Revenant.

How much can one man take? Hugh Glass was a frontiersman, a mountain man who made his living as a fur trapper and trader. His main claim to fame, if the legend is to be believed, is that when on a fur-trading venture in 1823 he was attacked by a grizzly bear and so badly mauled he was expected to die. It was agreed that two trappers would be left behind to bury Glass when he passed away. Once the other hunters had left the two remaining men stole the unconscious mans weapons and other belongings and took off being feart of an Indian attack leaving him alone to die. Despite his extensive injuries that included festering wounds, a broken leg, and deep cuts that exposed his ribs he regained consciousness and found himself wrapped only in a bear hide that was meant to act as his shroud. After setting his own leg and allowing maggots to eat his dead and rotting flesh to stop the spread of gangrene he set out on a two hundred mile journey back to the nearest settlement. Living off the land, eating raw bison meat left after the beast was killed by wolves and with a wee bit of help from some friendly Indian's he was able to continue on this almost impossible journey.

Hugh Glass's story has been told in book form on many occasions and a feature film had been previously made entitled Man in the Wilderness in 1971 and starring Irish actor Richard Harris. This latest cinematic version of this story The Revenant (2015) is loosely based on a fictional retelling of the story in a 2002 novel by Michael Punke and directed by Mexican film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Inarritu previous body of work has include such movie gems as Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010) and 2014's Birdman all of which have been well received by both critics and the viewing public.

 

Hugh Glass.

The 19th century period drama stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Glass, Tom Hardy as John Fitzgerald and Will Poulter as Jim Bridger the two men that abandoned Glass to die a lonely and painful death. Domhnall Gleason, who you may have previously seen in Shadow Dancer (2012) and Calvary (2014), stars as Andrew Henry part owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and leader of the expedition that included Hugh Glass.

 

The beginning of the legend. 

There is no doubt that this movie is a very absorbing but brutal and at times disturbing watch. Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is superb as is the acting from all the cast with DiCaprio especially deserving his first Academy Award for Best Actor after three previous nominations, his performance brings the term 'suffering for your art' to a new level. The movie was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, as well as best actor it also won Best Director and Best Cinematography for Lubezki who had previously worked with the director on Birdman. I did read that some critiques said that the film was to long, but I did not find this to be the case instead I found it to be a very rewarding watch but certainly not for the faint hearted.

The Wolf of Wall Street.

Leonardo DiCaprio is the Wolf of Wall Street

I find it quite strange at times when people walk out of a cinema part way through a screening, don’t people consult the trailer or read the reviews in the weekend papers which in my opinion spelt out its ‘moral ambiguity, sexual content, presence of drugs, vulgarity, and use of animals’[1]. You must get a good idea from these sources, so why are people shocked enough to walk after paying good money to see a film?

 

Jonah Hill is the Wolfs co conspirator. 

The film I refer to is an American black comedy directed by Martin Scorsese that was nominated for five Academy Awards This is the second American main stream film that raises my appreciation of the films coming out of the USA at present, the first was American Hustle (2013) and this latest one is The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). The film is based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort, a New York stockbroker who set up the brokerage film Stratton Oakmont that engaged in securities fraud and corruption on Wall Street in the 1990’s. The film wastes no time in setting out its stall when the main character states the following. “The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week” We witness Belfort’s rise from middle class obscurity to someone who accumulated obscene amount of money. If the film is true to the story then Mr Belfort and his partner spent their money, or should I say other people’s money on big houses, fast cars, drugs and prostitutes and oh yes dwarf throwing parties!

Margot Robbie is the Wolfs wife.

Matthew McConaughey is the Wolfs mentor. 

This is a supercharged movie with a supercharged performance by Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort, and a stand out one from Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, Belfort’s co conspirator. Terence Winters screenplay is outrageous and downright politically incorrect and you have to realise that this is not a movie that sets out to attack the capitalist money grabbing society, but that does not stop this movie being incredibly funny and entertaining.

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[1] The Huffington Post December 2013

The Great Gatsby

Jay Gatsby.

Disappointing is not how I would normally describe the Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s movies, in fact quite the reverse. His Moulin Rouge! (2001) rates amongst my all time favourite’s, I thoroughly enjoyed the epic Australia (2008) and his debut film Strictly Ballroom (1992) was a comic breath of fresh air.  But his latest cinematic outing The Great Gatsby (2013) is the disappointment I refer too.

 

Daisy Buchanan.

The story, as your probably aware, follows the life of millionaire Jay Gatsby (  As you can probable gather Fitzgerald’s sad and malevolent story concerns wealth and privilege and how life has no meaning unless you have these two commodities. Leonardo DiCaprio) a self made man seeking to emulate high society. Adapted for the screen by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce from F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel of the same name. It’s narrated by Nick Carraway (a miscast Tobey Mcguire) who when the film opens is resident in a sanatorium where his alcoholism has lead to depression and dissolution with life. Nicks story starts in New York in 1922 and basically tells of a love affair between Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). When the two of them first meet Jay Gatsby is a poor man and asked Daisy to wait for him to make his fortune and then they could be married and live a life of greed and excess.

 

Nick Carraway.

Luhrmann adaptation is as an outlandish spectacle, its beautiful to look at, its got a great soundtrack co-produced by Jay-Z, the acting is not exceptional, all except DiCaprio who plays the enigma that is Gatsby with the indulgence that comes from being an experienced actor. But the story is dull, dull, dull, bordering on the tedious, we’ve got a bunch of nasty people that will do any thing to maintain their wealth and power. The main female character is a woman who can’t be trusted and would only fall in love with a man if he has an abundance of money to shower upon her every whim. Why did Luhrmann choose to film this dreadful tale that’s already been adapted four times? A blemish on the Australian’s oeuvre.

Django Unchained.

When I did the introduction for the screening of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) for the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club a couple of weeks ago we discussed at length how his movies are known for various characteristics. These include extensive and diverting dialogue, an ironic mix of humour and violence, a strong storyline and a host of cinematic references, some obscure, some more obvious.  This week’s film is no different; Django Unchained (2012) has a strong dialogue driven linear narrative, in contrast to the circular narrative we saw in Pulp Fiction, which is only interrupted when bouts of gross violence take place. Like his previous body of work, the film veers back and forth between humour and violence, a film where your never sure if you should be laughing or cringing?

Dr King Shultz with his apprentice bounty hunter.

The cinematic references in this film are very interesting especially for lovers of spaghetti westerns.[1]. Tarantino has been quoted as saying that his main inspiration ‘pretty much began and ended with Sergio Corbucci’. Corbucci made thirteen dark and brutal westerns, with characters portrayed as sadistic anti heroes. These westerns were famous for a very high body count and scenes of mutilation. Generally they were not as well known as Sergio Leone's world-renowned Dollars trilogy and none of them truly cracked the American market but they were very popular in Europe. The best known of these was Django (1966). This prototype spaghetti western was adjudged to have set a new level for violence in westerns. The film was banned out right in the UK, unable to get a BBFC 18 certificate until 1993 and downgraded to a 15 certificate in 2004. It was influenced by Akira Kuroswa’s Yojimbo (1961) as was in fact Leone’s For A Few Dollars More in 1965. Yojimbo in turn had been influenced by American westerns like High Noon (1952) and Shane (1953)[2]. Incidentally Franco Nero, who stared in Corbucci’s film as Django, has a cameo appearance in Django Unchained, which also shares the main theme music with the original. Two other Corbucci westerns have been sited as an influence for the film, The Great Silence (1968)[3] with its bleak winter snow passage’s, and Navajo Joe (1966) a racially themed western that Tarantino credits with ushering additionally realistic violence into cinema. Mix these with blaxploitation movie’s like 1975’s Mandingo, a blunt sexual saga about slave masters, traders and lovers, and the crudely named The Legend of Nigger Charley (1972)[4] which is about an enslaved blacksmith granted freedom on his masters deathbed only to be goaded into living as an outlaw by his hatred of a loathsomely depicted white society.

Tarantino references classic Corbucci westerns including The Great Silence (1968) 

Django Unchained begins in 1858, three years before the American civil war and five years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Two ruthless guards are transporting a group of shackled slaves overland; they are stopped by a German bounty hunter, Dr King Shultz, (Christoph Waltz) who is looking for a particular slave that can give him information about the Brittle Brothers. That slave turns out to be one called Django (Jamie Fox) who Shultz takes with him after killing one of the guards and leaving the other to the ‘mercy’ of the remaining slaves. When Django turns out to be a useful assistant, the good Doctor agrees to help him find his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) who, it turns out, is one of Calvin J Candy’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) house slaves on his vast Candyland Estate.

Because of the award winning Sally Menke’s premature death Fred Ruskin took on the editing duties, a man best known for editing three instalments in the Fast and Furious franchise although he had worked as an assistant editor on the Kill Bill films. The soundtrack as usual comprises a variety of music genres, but relies heavily on spaghetti western type music. 

Jamie Fox with Franco Nero.

As normal with Tarantino’s body of work this latest film has again raised areas of controversy. As with Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown (1997) the heavy usage of the word ‘nigger’[5] was criticized by some commentators, including film director Spike Lee who accused it’s use as being ‘disrespectful to his ancestors’ but defended by others pointing out that the word was part of the historic context of race and slavery in the United States. It’s arguable a film that deals head on with the full extent of slavery, its bottomless obscenity and violence, and bravely attempts to show the full vileness of this evil trade. A subject of which modern Hollywood’s film making machine is traditionally nervous. The filmmaker Michael Moore commented, "(Django) is one of the best film satires ever? A rare American movie on slavery and the origins of our sick racist history."

The lovely Broomhilda.

Secondly some reviewer’s criticized the film for being too violent raising the old chestnut about whether there is a relationship between screen violence and actual acts of violence however I’m afraid that Tarantino’s films would not be the same without it! Incidentally the planned premiere of Django was postponed following the mass murder of twenty young children and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut on the 14^th December 2012 an event that I would say had more to do with America’s liberal gun laws than Tarantino’s films.

The not so lovely Calvin Candy.

This western, which follows three-crime dramas, two Asian influenced action thrillers, a slasher action thriller and a war film, could be seen as a companion piece to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012). It received very positive reviews and included one that I think sums up the movie "Bold, bloody, and stylistically daring, Django Unchained is another incendiary masterpiece from Quentin Tarantino”[6] certainly his best work since Pulp Fiction. It was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Waltz) and Best Original Screenplay (Tarantino). At the 85th Academy Awards, Christoph Waltz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, after already having won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and Quentin Tarantino won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, after having won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film has been commercially successful, grossing over $380 million in theaters to date.

It's goodbye to one of the Brittle Brothers!!!

[1] The classic period for these westerns was from 1963 until 1973.

[2] The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 American western film directed by John Sturges. It is a western-style remake based on Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai, which in turn was influenced by John Ford’s westerns.

[3] The movie features a score by Ennio Morricone and stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence, a mute gunfighter with a grudge against bounty hunters, assisting a group of outlawed Mormons and a woman trying to avenge her husband (one of the outlaws). They are set against a group of ruthless bounty hunters, led by Loco (Klaus Kinski).

[4] It had a sequel called Run Nigger Run (1974). Both films featured Fred Williamson.

[5] 110 times in Django Unchained

[6] Rotten Tomatoes