The Revenant

THE REVENANT 491 fragile steps toward repairing the deep scars of racial oppression that once captivated the United States. See also Washington, Denzel (Appendix B) Bibliography Granmer, Gregory A., and Tina M. Harris. “‘White-Side, Strong-Side’: A Critical Examination of Race and Leadership in Remember the Titans.” Howard Journal of Communications 26, no. 2 (2015): 153–71. —Christopher Allen Varlack THE REVENANT (2015) Copyright © 2018. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu Screenplay: Mark L. Smith and Alejandro González Iñárritu; based on the novel by Michael Punke Specs: 156 minutes; color The Revenant follows the parallel journeys of “Hugh Glass” (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the Arikara Native Americans. Glass sets out to avenge himself against his son “Hawk’s” (Forrest Goodluck) murderer, “John Fitzgerald” (Tom Hardy), while the Arikara pursue a crew of trappers, led by “Andrew Henry” (Domhnall Gleeson), mistakenly believing that they had abducted its chief’s daughter, “Powaqa” (Melaw Nakehk’o). The film begins with the Arikara attacking the trappers, forcing them to travel on foot to their outpost. When Glass is attacked and badly injured by a bear, Henry offers to pay those who would remain with him; Hawk, Fitzgerald, and “Jim Bridger” (Will Poulter) volunteer. Glass’s condition worsens, and Fitzgerald attempts to kill him; Hawk prevents the crime, but is, in turn, killed. Fitzgerald persuades Bridger to leave Glass, leading him to believe that Hawk has disappeared and that the Arikara are in hot pursuit. The end of the film finds Glass apprehending Fitzgerald and about to exact his revenge but finally releasing him to the Arikara, who kill him. The Arikara’s search for Powaqa is a reversal of the daughter kidnapped by Indians in John Ford’s great Western The Searchers (1956), a film about race obsession and fear. The Revenant was a commercial success, earning many accolades internationally: 12 Academy Award nominations and wins for DiCaprio’s performance, Iñárritu’s direction, and Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography, his third consecutive win in this last category. Additionally, the film won BAFTA Awards for DiCaprio, Lubezki, Sound, and Best Film. The Revenant constantly calls attention to the injustices leveled at Native Americans. Early in the film, Glass warns his son Hawk, who is half-indigenous, “to be invisible” should he wish to survive: “They don’t hear your voice! They just see the color of your face.” Much later, Henry reveals that he awaits the captain and his army, and aims, with this new military force, “to shoot some civilization” into the Arikara and regain the pelts that they had left behind in their hurried departure. These instances of racism make some inroads into showing some of the complexities of Native Americans and, in the former, the submissive role that they are encouraged to take and pressured to internalize—even by a The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films, edited by Salvador Jiménez Murguía, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uow/detail.action?docID=5321174. Created from uow on 2023-08-23 23:06:13. 492 ROMEO MUST DIE father who loves his son as much as Glass. However, this outwardly progressive film is inherently problematic. In “The Revenant’s White-Saviour Complex,” an article in the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail (January 21, 2016), Julien Gignac argues for the persistence of the narrative in this example. As Gignac says, “Indigeneity seems ultimately subservient to the white protagonist” and its “indigenous characters . . . have unexplained roles” (so too, we might think, do many of the white characters). However, the film does not have a white savior: there is no indication that Glass, through his survival and revenge, would effect any change other than his personal gratification or that he would rescue and/or lead the native population en masse (even if he helps Powaqa with her escape). The film might not employ a white-savior narrative, but we would do well to hone in on some its many racially problematic aspects. The white population may be motivated by money in contrast to the valorized Arikara, yet the Arikara are consistently more violent than the humane Glass, who is exact in his revenge. The Revenant is not centrally about a cross-cultural encounter on the frontier, it concerns whites and their relations with each other. That Glass successfully integrates into a native family only helps to establish his character, likening him to Kevin Costner’s in Dances with Wolves (1990). The film’s double-helix—that is, its outwardly postcolonial worldview despite its ideological flaws—gestures toward a central problem that faces the representation of race in contemporary cinema. The Revenant is predisposed to depict whiteness and to couch even ostensibly progressive narratives in white power hierarchies: it sees, is shown, and responds constantly—and almost exclusively—to whiteness. See also Iñárritu, Alejandro González (Appendix B) Copyright © 2018. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Bibliography Gignac, Julien. “The Revenant’s White-Saviour Complex.” Globe and Mail. 2016. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/the-revenants-white-saviour-complex/article 28320619/ (March 26, 2016). James, John, and Tom Ue. “‘I See You’: Colonial Narratives and the Act of Seeing in Avatar.” In The Films of James Cameron: Critical Essays, edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and Stephen McVeigh, 186–99. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. —Tom Ue ROMEO MUST DIE (2000) Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak Screenplay: Eric Bernt and John Jarrell Specs: 115 minutes; color This 2000 action film stars African American R&B singer Aaliyah (born Aaliyah Dana Haughton) and Chinese martial arts superstar Jet Li as two people caught in the middle of a turf war between Chinese and African American gangs. It is a modern take on Romeo and Juliet with Asian and African American leads amid a hip-hop backdrop. “Trish” (Aaliyah) is the daughter of shady businessman “Isaak O’Day” (Delroy Lindo). O’Day wants to go “legit” after he sells his part of a waterfront shared The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films, edited by Salvador Jiménez Murguía, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uow/detail.action?docID=5321174. Created from uow on 2023-08-23 23:06:13.