The Italian futurist Filippo Marinetti, who, like many of his contemporaries, became a fascist, wrote that âany work of art that lacks a sense of aggression can never be a masterpiece.â
Although a film set in the American wilderness in the 1820s might seem a world away from the hyper-modern, industrial preoccupations of that movement, something of that idea is suggested by The Revenant. It is a difficult film to watch, and not only in its bloodier, flesh-tearingly violent moments: it is frequently disorienting, the shots jumping from close ups of snailsâ shells, plant stalks, or the eyes of horses, to sweeping landscape shots or kaleidoscopic geometries of tree branches.
The sound editing is jarring too, with its sparse musical soundtrack punctuated with the amplified buzzing of a fly, or the rushing of the wind. Much of its climactic sequence is overlaid with a constant, high-pitched, piercing whistle. It is, at times, a genuine physical challenge for a viewer. That, undoubtedly, is the point. Director Alejandro G. Iñårritu brings the audience into the gruelling struggle of the filmâs characters, placing us within the action. At one point, a characterâs breath clouds the lens of the camera. At another, it runs wet with melting snow.
âMasterpieceâ is too big a word for an amateur film critic writing reviews in a Trotskyist weekly to deploy, but The Revenant unquestionably has âa sense of aggressionâ. It goes beyond aggression, into visceral brutality.
Many mainstream reviews of The Revenant have described it as a âsurvival filmâ. It can indeed be read as such, an exploration of the human will to survive, to overcome any obstacle to simply go on living. But it also, and perhaps more fundamentally, uses the backdrop of the dispossession of the indigenous peoples of America by European settlers to explore the nature of savagery.
It almost feels as if weâre being asked to decide what is most savage â the wild bear who literally savages DiCaprioâs Hugh Glass; or the Arikara (âReeâ) Indian warbands who scalp their enemies; or the white, colonial-racist trappers and traders, âshooting civilisationâ into the natives. One might conclude that human life is an intermeshing net of competing savageries, all set against the savagery of the natural world. When a group of French trappers capture and execute a Pawnee Indian, they attach a legend to his corpse which reads âOn est tous des sauvagesâ: âWe are all savagesâ, or, âwe are all wildâ. Here is nature red in tooth and claw for sure, and savages we all may be, but, as Orwell might have put it, âsome are more savage than othersâ.
Reading the film against the historical period it depicts must resist a âlevelling outâ of the savagery: the âsavageryâ of an indigenous people resisting systematic robbery and quasi-genocide cannot be equated with the âsavageryâ of those carrying it out. The true story of Hugh Glass, upon which the film was based, was spun into the legendary fabric of early American nationhood: the indomitable spirit of the frontier, overcoming the elements to build a civilisation. Iñårritu uses that story to confront, rather than affirm, that legend. He reminds America that its nationhood is built on brutality, on savagery â and not, in the first instance, from the alleged âsavagesâ.
To say more about âThe Revenantâ, I would have to watch it again. It is perhaps to the filmâs credit that this is not something I feel I will be able to do easily.
Finally, a note on DiCaprio. Arguably the finest Hollywood leading man of his generation, he looks set to finally secure an Oscar for his role in The Revenant (this is his fifth nomination). If youâre a Hollywood leading man, one supposes Oscars matter, and few could begrudge DiCaprio this accolade, particularly given the physical extremes to which he obviously had to push himself to craft the performance. But for my money thereâs a strong case to be made that, on a technical level, his roles in his previous nominations, Whatâs Eating Gilbert Grape?, Blood Diamond, or The Aviator (or, indeed, The Departed, for which he wasnât even nominated) were better performances, more deserving of the prize. The Academy moves in mysterious ways.
In the entirely legitimate furore around the Oscarsâ lack of diversity, and given the subject matter of this film, one is reminded of Marlon Brandoâs decision, in 1973 to turn down his Oscar for The Godfather; having become involved in the American Indian Movement (AIM), Brando asked activist Sacheen Littlefeather to turn down the award on his behalf, in an attempt to raise the issue of the representation of native Americans in film. Could DiCaprio do something similar? Progress has been made since 1973, but indigenuous Americans still face myriad struggles. Perhaps such gestures are meaningless, even patronising, but it would at least be in keeping with the mission of The Revenant to jar, disrupt, and aggress. Given the âOscars So Whiteâ row, and Americaâs ongoing failure to meaningfully address the racist foundations of its modern state, no-one could deny that such disruption remains necessary.