THE REVENANT directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, written by Mark L. Smith and Iñárritu from the novel by Michael Punke, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter. A 20th Century Fox release. 156 minutes. Opens Friday (January 8). For venues and times, see Movies.
The shoot for The Revenant in Alberta last winter, according to the stories, was fraught with peril: a polar vortex, labour disputes and delays when the movie ran out of a precious resource – snow.
Throughout, director Alejandro González Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki had to keep ducking out to collect trophies for Birdman, their previous Oscar-winning collaboration. According to actor Will Poulter, those gold bald men couldn’t change the barometer on The Revenant set.
“I don’t think award recognition is something you can afford to be concerned with when you’re out there shooting this movie,” says a thawed-out Poulter. “[The Oscars] are so far removed from the world you’re representing.”
To recreate the early 19th-century American frontier, the cast had to learn antiquated accents and exercise their survival skills in frigid conditions, sometimes shooting scenes while submerged in water so cold that Poulter describes the experience as “one of the most alien” in his entire life.
The adaptation of Michael Punke’s novel centres on Hugh Glass, a fur trapper played by Leonardo DiCaprio who crawls back to life after a bear attack. Poulter plays Jim Bridger, the young adventurer who, alongside Tom Hardy’s vile John Fitzgerald, abandons Glass and incites his fury.
When I meet the young British actor at the Ritz-Carlton, he’s dressed in all black with white kicks. Poulter’s a Kendrick Lamar fan who entertains the idea that he could have tried rapping if this acting thing hadn’t worked out. He’s also a towering figure. I’m 6-foot-3 and looking up to him, straight past his stare and at those slim, arched eyebrows that peak like Everest.
Most are familiar with Poulter from The Maze Runner or his comic gigs: the British TV series School Of Comedy and his scene-stealing turn in We’re The Millers opposite Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis.
The Revenant is the serious, dramatic fare Poulter has been leaning toward all along, and he couldn’t have asked for a more gargantuan challenge.
Not only did he have to run the gauntlet in the intricately choreographed long-take game favoured by Iñárritu and Lubezki (the showy tactic that won them all those Oscars), but he had to do it under The Revenant’s strict natural-light policy.
Underlining the movie’s soft environmentalist message, Lubezki relied solely on the sun to paint some of the year’s most serene cinematic images. That meant there was only about a 90-minute window each day to shoot those flowing, precise movements on a wide 14mm lens. Even the crew had to rigorously rehearse their dance behind the camera to stay out of the frame’s 360-degree axis.
I challenge Poulter to describe the task in one take, so he does.
“You need to make sure that the way you’re choosing to act in the scene is being captured at a specific point in the day, when the sun is in the sky at the right time, and that all your movements and decisions are in sync with what the camera is doing.”
For Poulter, the exacting choreography, CGI-free environment and intense cold embraced by The Revenant hearken back to filmmaking techniques that the cost-effective, green-screen industry rarely supports.
“This film is testament to the fact that if you do go out there, shoot in those actual locations and use natural light, you get something special, something that supersedes whatever technology can afford you.”
See our review of The Revenant here.
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