15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
==== Anachronisms====
The movie is set in a specific historical period. Despite the movies painstaking efforts to be historically accurate, there are a number of inaccuracies and anachronisms. In one scene Fitzgerald states that he is going to Texas and maybe join the Texas Rangers. The Rangers had not been created at this time and Texas was still at this date, Mexican territory. In another scene, which is beautifully shot, we see the Di Caprio character, viewing, in horror, a mountain of bleached buffalo skulls. Such grizzly mounds were a result of the overhunting of buffalos by professional hunters. However, the mounds which actually became quite common, are a feature of the post-Civil War period and not the 1820s. In the movie, we see how US Cavalrymen raiding the home settlement of Glass and his wife. They murdered his wife and many other inhabitants. While such raids did take place, they were not a feature of the frontier in the 1820s. These terrible tactics became a feature of the American strategy to pacify Native American tribes in the 1870s and after. <ref>Hine, Robert Van Norden, Robert V. Hine, and John Mack Faragher. The American West: A new interpretive history (Yale, Yale University Press, 2000), p 119</ref>.
====Cultural accuracy====
The motion picture’s director and cast were determined to ensure that Native American tribes were accurately portrayed. It hired a number of Native Americans as consultants particularly those from the Pawnee and Arikara tribes. This ensured that the customs and the practices of the Native Americans in the movie are largely accurate. They are even able to speak in the movie in the Arikara and Pawnee language. The way of life of the frontiersmen is also very accurate. Iñárritu’s movie really captures the dress, guns, boats and other features of the people who lived in the West in the 1820s. One of the most controversial features of The Revenant was the portrayal of French-Canadian trappers. In the movie, a band of French hunters is shown as raping a Native American woman and also killing an innocent man. While many French-Canadians did commit atrocities in the West, in general they had good relations with them. They were more likely to trade with the Native Americans and typically did not seek to take the land of the Arikara and other tribes. Indeed, the French-speaking trappers were considered to be much more tolerant of Native American culture and practices than English-speaking settlers, hunters and trappers.<ref>Hine, p. 213</ref>.
====Conclusion====
The Revenant is a justly acclaimed movie and compared to many other movies about the period it is very accurate. Its presentation of life on the Western frontier and the culture of Native America is by and large much more accurate than motion pictures on the period in the past. The movie is based on the amazing adventures of a historic hunter and frontiersman Hugh Glass. He is a rather shadowy figure, and little is known about him. The movie does accurately reflect his amazing story of endurance and survival. Glass as in the movie did survive a grizzly bear attack, was abandoned and managed to make his way to safety. As in the movie- the real-life Glass was abandoned by his colleagues. They believed that he was going to die and felt that he was placing them in danger. The movie is a revenge story and this too, is also historically accurate. However, the movie does not stay faithful to the story of Hugh Glass in key respects. The historical character did seek out those who abandoned him, but he did not kill them. Moreover, he did not die as portrayed in the movie. Some of the characters in the movie are fictional such as the central characters son and wife. Many of the details of his adventure are exaggerated and incorrect. Overall, the movie is fairly historically accurate and is loosely based on the remarkable story of the frontiersman and his amazing feat of survival.
