The Revenant | Opening battle
The Setup: Andrew Henry’s (Domnhall Gleeson) band of early-nineteenth-century American fur-trappers are led through unorganised territory by Hugh Glass (Leo DiCaprio) and his half-Pawnee son, Hawk. In the opening scene of The Revenant, Henry’s camp is disastrously and brutally attacked by Arika, a Native American Tribe of North Dakota, whose land has been invaded by Western peoples…
The Battle: The battle between the fur-trappers and the Arika begins with one arrow fired through the back of an escaped American prisoner fleeing towards the riverside campsite. What follows is a truly memorable, show-stopping massacre in which Henry loses the majority of his men at the hands of the Arika tribe. In one graceful, long shot choreographed beautifully by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and his longtime collaborator cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, the opening battle sequence flows elegantly from one character to another as each man comes into violent and often gruesome contact with another. The sequence was reportedly rehearsed for an entire month prior to filming due to its complexity. And because Lubezki was committed to using only natural light to shoot the film, the window to capture a scene of this magnitude was extremely small. Should the entire one-shot scene go wrong or lose valuable light, the entire sequence would have to wait another day for just the right light…
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
