So Leonardo finally got his Oscar (and wisely
used his acceptance speech to push his eco-concerns). Did he deserve it for this film? Well he certainly deserves an Oscar, and Hollywood has a history of over looking talent for too long and then making an award that is right in general if not in
particular.
Jeff Bridges got his Oscar for Crazy Heart, but he gave many previous superior
performances that went Oscar-less. Leonardo was terrific (in my own view)
in What’s
Eating Gilbert Grape, Romeo and
Juliette, The Gangs of New York, Catch Me If you Can and The Great Gatsby. He certainly worked very hard making The Revenant, and maybe should be
rewarded for crawling, grunting and getting very cold and uncomfortable.
And what about the film itself? Here he plays Hugh Glass, part of a North
American fur hunting/trading party, who is abandoned by his colleagues when
badly mauled by a bear. They do not
think he could survive his wounds, and their attempt to carry him to safety is
abandoned when they believe it will jeopardize
their own safety.
I am a fan of the (4 time Oscar winning) writer/director,
Alejandro González Iñárritu, even if I thought Babel was over-rated, and an even
greater fan of Emmanuel
Lubezki, his photographer of choice. I
love their joint work on Gravity and Birdman, Lubezki’s and Terrence Malik’s Tree of Life, and all the way back to Like Chocolate for Water, Sleepy Hollow and Y Tu Mamá También.
There are dream/mystical episodes in The Revenant that reminded my of Tree of Life, and I like the way they are presented
realistically, not mystically. Both
films explores themes around life and death, or living and dying, and both
refuse to come to a conclusion. I will come back to these questions.
The sound design in The Revenant is remarkable, as the crunch and snap of underfoot
leaves, twigs and snow, the breath of
living or dying creatures, be they men, horses or bears, are part of the narrative. The
CGI is horrifically convincing.
I was also glad to see four actors from
these islands in major roles; the
ubiquitous Tom Hardy and Domhnal Gleeson, plus William Poulter (Son of Rambow, Chronicles of Narnia and We’re The Millers) and Paul Anderson (Sherlock Holmes; Game of Shadows, Peaky Blinders, and ’71) .
The Revenant is a serious movie
and raises serious questions, some of them just below the surface.
There are obvious similarities with the
Sydney Pollack/Robert Redford movie Jeremiah
Johnson. Both are concerned with
survival in the most difficult times and places, and each has a motif and
motive of vengeance. I will not reveal
The Revenant’s out-working of the
revenge theme, but will say that I found it satisfactory, and it is connected with
the wisdom of the Pawnee nation members who are also on a quest.
There are other moral/theological questions
here. Tom Hardy plays John Fitzgerald, the
film’s antagonist, and his character seems to believe in the God of
Necessity. He justifies his actions by saying ‘You
do what you think you have to survive and God will be the judge.’
But is personal survival the ultimate necessity
and moral justification? Of course we
see and admire many instances of ultimate self-sacrifice, ‘no greater love…’ and Christianity offers
the most famous sacrificial figure of all.
It could to be said, however, that the self-sacrifice of Jesus has been
devalued by the subsequent doctrine that he did not in fact die – or at least
not stay dead. But many other women and
men have given up their lives for the sake of others, to save other’s lives
rather than their souls, and we do not
have accounts of their physical resurrections. We count them as heroic, but do we not also
applaud the action heroes and heroines
who kill in order to live?
The body count in popular movies and TV
shows can be very high, and simply making these deaths anonymous does not take
away the value – sanctity – of these lives.
There also seems to be a general acceptance of ‘collateral damage’ in
modern warfare, the deaths of innocent
people as a consequence of military actions deemed necessary ‘for the greater
good’. In many governments and
military establishments this now seems to be the norm.
As one of my favourite fictional characters
(Joe Spork In Nick Harkaway’s novel Angelmaker)
says “Don’t tell me the end justifies the
means because it doesn’t. We never reach
the end. All we ever get is means. That’s what we live with.”
I think we have a moral ambivalence
here. Villains are condemned for
taking lives, heroes and governments are applauded – or at least excused.
In this
film we have trappers working in a dangerous and unforgiving
environment, among hostile tribes. This
raises the question ‘why do we put
ourselves in situations where survival might be very difficult?’ For the financial rewards of course, but is
it really worth risking lives for money?
I know that may sound like a stupid question, but is that because we
have got so used to people doing it?
And admiring them for it?
Surely one of the lessons that is being
slowly learnt, or relearnt, is that more money than we need does not give us
happiness. In fact the love of money
can so often lead us into frustration. We really cannot love God (or whatever source we identify as ultimate Goodness) and mammon. Many of those who pursue it never seem to have quite enough. They get used to whatever has become 'normal' and find themselves on what Positive Psychologists call the Hedonistic
Treadmill, needing ever increasing
indulgence, bigger homes, ‘better’ cars, more fashionable clothes, or simply more money to be content, never
mind happy. If there is a ‘happiness’ hole money does
not seem to fill it.
This lesson has been learnt by people
such as Tom Shadyac, writer, director
and producer of many box office hits (Ace
Ventura, Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, the two Nutty Professor movies, Patch
Adams and Evan Almighty.
As his
colleague Roko Belic said in an
interview ‘He was
living the Beverly Hills lifestyle: a mansion on 14 acres, with 30 people
working for him as gardeners, chefs.
Many of his peers were living even more elaborate lifestyles. But many of them he thought were less happy
than his gardener and his housekeeper, who had a genuine smile every
morning. People who had achieved the
extreme version of the American dream weren’t made happy by it.”
Tom sold his mansion and art work, moved into a trailer (I am sure
a very nice one) funded a charity for the homeless and set out in pursuit of
happiness. His journey included making two
documentaries, I Am and Happy. Here in County Clare for the last three
years we have used these two films as part of our annual Happiness Project, marking
the United Nations Day of Happiness. The
response has been very positive – and productive. Feedback from showing Happy led us to organize a week of
eight activities in May 2014,
twice the number of events in 2015 and 27 this year.
Positive Psychology and other studies help to give us a scientific
understanding of things we have known for millennia, instinctive and intuitive
truths about the sources of true contentment, happiness and growth.
So the questions
‘is personal survival the ultimate necessity and moral justification? ‘ ‘
do
the ends justify the means?’
And
‘why
do we think it is worth risking our lives – and/or urging others to risk their
lives – for the sake of money?’
are urgent.
