User: jangius
Time: 02-19-2016
09:47
Product: LATabloid
PubDate: 02-28-2016
Zone: LA
Edition: 1 Page: EN_SPECIAL13
Color: C K Y M
THEENVELOPE.COM
latimes.com /envelopevideos
What else did they say? Go online for the full video of “The Revenant” cast’s Q&A session.
bad guys, right? All the animals in Hollywood have human emotions. I hate that. We spent time finding what point of view will be best — to shoot this in a way that it’s kind of a National Geographic or a horrifying document from a Japanese guy in a park seeing something. But at the same time with the possibility that you all can be experiencing what Hugh Glass was experiencing. And then once we have an idea then we start talking with Leo, and Leo was saying, “What about if I do this?” and yada yada. The pace that Leo got it informed all the camera movements, like all that cracking bone and that heaviness, which, you know, you never envision as a director, but when you see somebody really
getting there. And then Leo suggests, for example, the hand thing, you know, which I think is genius because he said, “What if I try to grab him and then the hand was just horrifying?” So we were in a way discovering beat by beat together what was best. You are basically storyboarding but with human beings. Leonardo, were you surprised the first time that you saw the finished sequence? DiCaprio: Yes, absolutely. What’s so chilling about that is the moments of silence for me, you know, the tension that you feel as an audience member not knowing what the hell’s going to happen next. It was so visceral, so tactile. And it’s one of those sequences that I think will go down in cinema history because you’re literally on the edge of your seat. And he gave such life to this animal, this beast, all of these creatures … all the characters, everyone’s just trying to survive. One of the big changes in the film from the written accounts is the attention that
you give to Native peoples. Iñárritu: There’s a lot of layers that you can read [in this film] and, obviously, the heart of it is this relation of Hugh Glass and Hawk. The conflict of the father carrying a mixed race kid in those times where there’s so much prejudice, which is no different from today. And then the way that the Native Americans were presented was a huge thing that I wanted to really integrate well because that has been so interpreted, you know, they are the savages and the bad people or they are sanctified and they are pure. And I hate that because they are as complex and as contradictory as any human being. And the social context, how these trappers were literally, completely exploited and how these people impact so much pain in nature, in animals, in communities is very resonant today. We keep doing the same and that was the seed of the global warming that now is the harvest of what we planted 200 years ago.
mark.olsen@latimes.com
CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP
Now I have to ask about the bear sequence. DiCaprio: Let me start off by first saying that he watched over a hundred different clips of bear attacks before he started the sequence. Iñárritu: I became very gory after that. No, it’s true, the research of how it happens is very important because, you know, all the Hollywood films are like the bear, they are
co-writer Alejandro G. Iñárritu, discuss the film’s dramatic production at an Envelope Screening Series Q&A.
THE ENVELOPE
Forrest, what was it like for you as someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience? Forrest Goodluck: I’m grateful because I didn’t know what it was to be in a soundstage or, like, a 72-degree room. So, I mean, I don’t know, it wasn’t too bad, honestly. This is as bad as it gets.
Alan Heitz
“THE REVENANT” actors, from left, Forrest Goodluck, Domhnall Gleeson and Leonardo DiCaprio, with director and
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Domhnall, did you know what you were in for? Domhnall Gleeson: No is the answer. And Alejandro tried to explain to us what we were in for and even that didn’t explain the full thing because I think it even surprised Alejandro how intense … Iñárritu: I did it in a Mexican way I explained myself. [Laughter] Iñárritu: In Spanish … perfect Spanish. Gleeson: Yeah. I should’ve learned Spanish. Every day was intense and — I was there for about seven months, and there’s a cumulative effect of the work kind of breaking you down because of the intensity of the surroundings. But everybody was there because we knew we could do something wonderful. So the days were very difficult, but it never felt anything less than worth it.
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ourselves in the elements like that, extract the poetry of what the story actually was. And I have to say, it was an endurance test for all of us. It was a very difficult undertaking, but it was incredibly exciting to be a part of a very unique, creative process like this with he and Chivo [cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki] shooting a film where, you know, we would rehearse all day long intensively and then have this hour and a half of magic light. And all the existential conversations we’d have about man versus nature, you know, the influx of capitalism, the destruction of our natural resources, what it does to mankind, greed, all these things, really shaped what “Revenant” was. And we kind of knew that by that immersion we would extract something different from what was just on the page.