I’m a bit late to the game on this one, given that The Revenant was the premier drama touted shoved down our throats at the 2016 Oscars. During its never-ending awards campaign coverage, I couldn’t help but feel nauseated and frankly, a bit bored by everything I’d seen about this movie. So I never got around to actually watching it.
The Revenant may forever be remembered as “Leo’s Oscar movie,” the one that finally won Leonardo Dicaprio his first acting Oscar. That’s a generous oversimplification and one that’s not entirely fair. But in hindsight, The Revenant is a movie that may actually be more interesting to dissect within the context of its petty award-season chase.
First, a disclaimer: As I have none of my own, I don’t usually comment on actors’ acting abilities; rather, I like to examine films in their totality. I view acting as just another component of a film, working in conjunction with its cinematography, set design, costumes, music etc. to transport me to another world. Sometimes, that magic doesn’t work and flaws reveal themselves. More often than not, these flaws are rooted in script or structural issues and not an actor’s fault; but sometimes, as is the case with Leo and The Revenant, an actor is so closely associated to the film that it would be a disservice to discuss one without the other.
Directed by Alejandro Iñárritu, still riding high on 2014’s Birdman which itself garnered plenty of Oscar love, The Revenant is a simple tale writ large. In the early 19th century, fur trappers in the American West are attacked by Native Americans and forced to retreat. Hugh Glass (Leonardo Dicaprio) is severely injured and left behind with his young son and a morally questionable colleague, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Promised financial rewards with Glass dead or alive, Fitzgerald kills Glass’ son and goes to claim his money, leaving Glass to die in the wilderness.
There are tremendous skills on display in this movie, namely the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki, who last shot Birdman and Gravity, two films with virtuoso long takes and dazzlingly elegant camera work, which is once again breathtaking. Unfortunately, all this great camera work is in service of a lazy story and exceedingly dimensionless characters.
More than once now, The Revenant has been jokingly (but not really) compared to MTV’s Jackass. This would be funny if it wasn’t so true. Leo made headlines while promoting the film for detailing his rather masochistic practices. It’s as if both director and star wanted to impress the world with their dedication, drumming their chests in overt displays of masculinity even when it made no sense. Why eat real raw bison liver? Isn’t the point of acting so that you can eat something fake and act as if it tastes like raw liver? Iñárritu seems to confuse great films with ordeals that must be suffered through, as if to be considered great, the film must evoke disgust and anguish.
Take a step back, far away from the hoopla of the 2016 Oscar campaign machine, and I bet most people will recognize just how silly Leo’s performance in The Revenant really is. His acting, while dedicated, is rarely more than a series of stares into the distance -- some confused, some sad, some awestruck -- interspersed with a series of grunting, growling, and guttural groans. Rarely has an actor expended so much and evoked so little. Reminiscent of his performance in The Wolf of Wall Street, another grandiose exertion of overt aggression and misplaced machismo, Leo is at his least subtle and least interesting when expending the most physical energy. Crawling and drooling on the ground is not acting; it’s caricature.
The great irony to The Revenant, a film that so fully hitched its success to Leo’s performance, is that it contained a significantly better actor that actually shared the screen with Leo. Tom Hardy, essentially playing the villain role, imbues a paper-thin character with grit and spite and pettiness. His demeanor is at once calm and agitated; his physicality slips seamlessly between hunched savage and swift hunter and stoic pragmatist. He achieves what Leo tries (so hard!) but never does -- conjuring an emotional response whenever he’s onscreen, whether it be curiosity, hatred, disgust, or empathy. Tom Hardy should’ve won a Best Actor Oscar for acting opposite the brick wall that was Leonardo Dicaprio.
The Revenant may forever be remembered as “Leo’s Oscar movie,” the one that finally won Leonardo Dicaprio his first acting Oscar. That’s a generous oversimplification and one that’s not entirely fair. But in hindsight, The Revenant is a movie that may actually be more interesting to dissect within the context of its petty award-season chase.
First, a disclaimer: As I have none of my own, I don’t usually comment on actors’ acting abilities; rather, I like to examine films in their totality. I view acting as just another component of a film, working in conjunction with its cinematography, set design, costumes, music etc. to transport me to another world. Sometimes, that magic doesn’t work and flaws reveal themselves. More often than not, these flaws are rooted in script or structural issues and not an actor’s fault; but sometimes, as is the case with Leo and The Revenant, an actor is so closely associated to the film that it would be a disservice to discuss one without the other.
Directed by Alejandro Iñárritu, still riding high on 2014’s Birdman which itself garnered plenty of Oscar love, The Revenant is a simple tale writ large. In the early 19th century, fur trappers in the American West are attacked by Native Americans and forced to retreat. Hugh Glass (Leonardo Dicaprio) is severely injured and left behind with his young son and a morally questionable colleague, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Promised financial rewards with Glass dead or alive, Fitzgerald kills Glass’ son and goes to claim his money, leaving Glass to die in the wilderness.
There are tremendous skills on display in this movie, namely the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki, who last shot Birdman and Gravity, two films with virtuoso long takes and dazzlingly elegant camera work, which is once again breathtaking. Unfortunately, all this great camera work is in service of a lazy story and exceedingly dimensionless characters.
More than once now, The Revenant has been jokingly (but not really) compared to MTV’s Jackass. This would be funny if it wasn’t so true. Leo made headlines while promoting the film for detailing his rather masochistic practices. It’s as if both director and star wanted to impress the world with their dedication, drumming their chests in overt displays of masculinity even when it made no sense. Why eat real raw bison liver? Isn’t the point of acting so that you can eat something fake and act as if it tastes like raw liver? Iñárritu seems to confuse great films with ordeals that must be suffered through, as if to be considered great, the film must evoke disgust and anguish.
Take a step back, far away from the hoopla of the 2016 Oscar campaign machine, and I bet most people will recognize just how silly Leo’s performance in The Revenant really is. His acting, while dedicated, is rarely more than a series of stares into the distance -- some confused, some sad, some awestruck -- interspersed with a series of grunting, growling, and guttural groans. Rarely has an actor expended so much and evoked so little. Reminiscent of his performance in The Wolf of Wall Street, another grandiose exertion of overt aggression and misplaced machismo, Leo is at his least subtle and least interesting when expending the most physical energy. Crawling and drooling on the ground is not acting; it’s caricature.
The great irony to The Revenant, a film that so fully hitched its success to Leo’s performance, is that it contained a significantly better actor that actually shared the screen with Leo. Tom Hardy, essentially playing the villain role, imbues a paper-thin character with grit and spite and pettiness. His demeanor is at once calm and agitated; his physicality slips seamlessly between hunched savage and swift hunter and stoic pragmatist. He achieves what Leo tries (so hard!) but never does -- conjuring an emotional response whenever he’s onscreen, whether it be curiosity, hatred, disgust, or empathy. Tom Hardy should’ve won a Best Actor Oscar for acting opposite the brick wall that was Leonardo Dicaprio.
