Brief Synopsis: It’s 1823, and the fur trade has never been more lucrative...or more dangerous. While trapping in unorganized territory somewhere in the Dakota region, Hugh Glass and his ragtag band are attacked by an Arikara war/rescue party, searching for Chief Elk Dog’s abducted daughter (whom we later learn was actually kidnapped by French trappers). After a brutal battle, Glass and the remaining survivors — including John Fitzgerald, a gruff veteran trapper with a heart of stone; Jim Bridger, a naive kid; and Hawk, Glass’s half-Pawnee son — retreat downriver and head back to Fort Kiowa. But after Hugh Glass is mauled by a bear, everything changes. Unable to carry Glass over the mountains, Captain Andrew Henry elects to have volunteers stay behind until Glass dies so he can have proper burial rights. Fitzgerald, Bridger, and Hawk volunteer for various reasons, except not long afterwards Fitzgerald’s patience runs out. He attempts to “mercy” kill Glass, and is caught by Hawk. Knowing the gallows await him if Hawk gets word back to Captain Henry, Fitzgerald murders Glass’s son and lies to Bridger to convince him to run away from the scene of the crime. Fueled by divine intervention or sheer vengeance-laced adrenaline, Glass survives — crawling and limping his way back to civilization to seek his revenge on Fitzgerald.

The Revenant is the damn scariest nature documentary you’ll ever see — although instead of David Attenborough we get snowflakes of moral philosophy and monologues about God being a squirrel sprinkled in for good measure. It’s so ridiculous how beautiful the scenery is and how the camera captures all of this ethereal beauty...all while we hear Leonardo DiCaprio’s agonized screams or watch his naked butt climb into a horse carcass or see him zombie crawl his way across the mountains. It’s kind of like when you’re in the movie theatre and someone shuffles their way through the aisle with three large popcorns and two supersized fountain drinks — you just want to tell them to hurry up so you can see the movie again but you also realize that this is a human being just doing their best. In the same way, I think it’s kind of insensitive to yell at Leonardo DiCaprio to either die or hurry up just so I can go back to marveling at the scenery without his leg bleeding out and staining nature’s floor. 

In all seriousness, though, the cinematography in The Revenant is out of this world. When we think about how can the camera be a tool to add to the story or be a visual metaphor for what the characters go through, The Revenant is by far one of the most immersive experiences out there. When Hugh Glass is being carried on the stretcher, over the river and through the woods (and up the mountain), the camera flashes to this shaky view, looking up at the tallest trees and this never-ending blue sky — it’s spiritual in terms of both life and death, seeing these trees hundreds of years old reaching for an unknown heavenly plane. 

The Revenant was shot primarily using handheld and crane cameras to create a unique one-camera perspective — meaning there are minimal edits or cuts within a scene. Each beat of the film is contained within 2-4 minute segments where we follow only one camera. (Which may not sound like a lot, but that’s a really long time not to any other perspective.)  As a result, the audience lives the events with the characters because of the slow, rhythmic movement to the camera, capturing extreme close-ups and lingering shots of the scenery. It’s clever and beautiful to watch, and The Revenant is one of my all-time favorite examples of how the entire movie is dependent on the strength of its cinematography.  

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NATURE SHOTS FROM THE REVENANT