Fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a bear in the uncharted American wilderness, and his companions leave him for dead. He survives a brutal winter landscape, driven only by the will to reach the man who killed his son. Iñárritu's film is a long look at what a body can endure and what survival costs.
The Revenant is a 2015 adventure, drama and western film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (3 cinematography, 1 narrative and 1 sound), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind uses several of the same techniques.
Creating effects physically on set with makeup, prosthetics, built props and camera tricks, with no computer graphics added later. The results look solid and real.
How this film uses it
Iñárritu shot The Revenant almost entirely in natural light. The production had to follow the seasons across Canada and Argentina to catch the right kind of light and snow at each location. The rule was about physical reality more than style. Glass's survival needed real cold, real breath and real mud.
Where to see it
The winter survival sequences. You can see breath fogging in truly cold air. The landscape feels hostile because the weather is real and nothing is faked.
Photographing real landscapes like mountains, plains and rivers so they feel mythic and full of meaning. The land becomes a spiritual and moral test the characters have to cross.
How this film uses it
The American wilderness is the film's villain, its moral test and finally its judge. The landscape doesn't care whether Glass survives, and that is the scariest thing in the film. The land is sacred here in the sense that it can't be translated. It lies beyond human meaning, and a human still has to find a way across it.
Where to see it
Glass's crawl across the frozen landscape. The mountains and snow fields are filmed as a world that does not care at all. Survival comes down to a stubborn body against a place that takes no notice of it.
Showing a character's inner change through their body: weight, posture, movement, injury or recovery. The body becomes a visible record of what happened to them and what it cost.
How this film uses it
DiCaprio's Glass starts the film healthy and ends it barely alive. His body is the film's record of every obstacle he got through. The bear mauling, the hypothermia in the river, the infections and the freezing are the story itself. I feel like his body works as the film's timeline, with each event stored on it.
Where to see it
Glass's physical state across the film's 3 acts. You go through the mauling, the recovery, the decline and the partial recovery. You can read his body like a map of the story.
Placing the camera where a character's eyes are, or shooting the scene the way that character experiences it. You see and feel things from inside their head.
How this film uses it
Emmanuel Lubezki puts the camera inside the bear attack. It breathes, lurches and gets pressed into the ground. The attack becomes something you live through, and it stops being a spectacle. At this moment, the camera shows you what Glass sees and turns his helplessness into your own physical experience.
Where to see it
The bear attack sequence. The camera stays down on the ground where Glass is. You feel the bear's weight, its speed and how little it cares, all from the inside.
Mixing battle sound the way a soldier would hear it, with chaotic, physical noise coming from every direction. Nothing is tidied up for your comfort, so you feel inside the fight.
How this film uses it
The Arikara raid and the bear attack surround you with sound. You hear gunfire at close range, the bear's breathing and weight and the particular sound of cold weather and frozen ground. Sound designer Martin Hernandez builds a sound world so precise that your body reacts to what you hear before the image catches up.
Where to see it
The opening Arikara raid. The sound design places arrows, gunfire and water all around you in 3D space. Your body finds its bearings by sound, the way Glass has to find his in the attack.
Questions
The Revenant: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does The Revenant use?
CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in The Revenant (2015): Practical In-Camera Effects, Landscape as Sacred Geography, Physical Transformation as Arc, Subjective Camera and Immersive Combat Sound Design.
Who directed The Revenant?
Alejandro G. Iñárritu directed The Revenant, released in 2015. CineCode also covers BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022).
What films are similar to The Revenant?
Films that share techniques with The Revenant include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Come and See (1985), Raging Bull (1980), Batman Begins (2005).
