Drawing inspiration for my final set of images
The Revenant | "A World Unseen" Documentary | 20th Century FOX
I've only recently watched The Revenant and regret not seeing it sooner as it's the only film I know of that has a more realistic look on the lost era of the time. It's a harsh reality that escaped the Hollywood look normally depicted of this time.
The film focuses on the real story of Hugh Glass a man who lived in the 1800's as a fur trapper and was left for dead after a bear attack that nearly killed me.
Hugh Glass was born in 1783 in Pennsylvania after His Scottish and Irish parents moved across to the United states. There are many stories of Hugh Glass that are more rumors than truth. Such as he was captured by Indians and then fell in love with an Indian woman after living with them for several years. There's also the story that he was captured by French American pirates and he managed to escape several years later. These are only speculations but what's know for definite is that Hugh Glass was an exceptional frontiersman who was a fur trapper. He was also referred to as a 'mountain man'. These type of men would spend Spring times and Autumn trapping animals and collecting their furs. When winter came around these men would camp in groups with their wives and family's.
Glass was involved with the expansion of the western fur trade. In 1823 he signed up for an expedition that would change his life under the leadership of general William Henry Ashley and Major Andrew Henry. This is where the movie takes place. As expected some creative licenses were used during the creation of the film to help build up the story and development of the characters. Surprisingly a lot of it did happen such as the early encounter with the local natives. The expedition had a rough time from the very beginning as they were actually attacked and suffered many lives lost along with a large amount of their furs. What the film left out was that Hugh Glass was actually shot in the leg during this battle yet after sailing down the river to safety with the rest of the survivors he went ahead of the group to track more furs to try and make up for the losses. This is when he encountered the bear. The wounds Glass received after this encounter are mostly seen through the gory encounter of The Revenant. A few changes here were that Glass didn't actually manage to shoot or kill the bear as it all happened so fast. The group Glass was with managed to find him and kill the bear after hearing his screams but not before the bear had managed to bite of a chunk of flesh from Hugh and feed it to her cubs.
They did manage to carry Glass for a short time using branches but after several days the party leader Andrew Henry realised that doing this was slowing down and jeopardising the group. He offered several months wages for two men that would stay behind so that Glass could receive a proper burial when he passed. This part of the film is accurate apart from the fact that Hugh Glass didn't have a son with him so that story line is imagined up to help the stories message be more powerful and inspiring instead of the message being about revenge on the people who left him to die. He was left for dead of course, after waiting five days for Glass to die he didn't. Frustrated the two men fabricated the story that he had died and took his rifle tomahawk and flint as why would a dead man need these items?
I was so glad to find a film that shows this era of time in a similar way of what I was aiming to depict in my project. As I found it late on in my project it didn't inspire a complete new direction or to create a story behind my work. It did make me think about the antagonists in my game however. This is the first film I've seen that actually gives the Natives emotion and a story to their actions and lets them keep their humanity instead of just showing them as savages who are there to fight with and be killed.
This lead to me watching the documentary that I've linked at the top of this page. Watching this really shows how the Natives of this country have had their image ruined by the media over decades and the remaining tribes are still struggling from people destroying their lands that they've lived from for generations. All for money.
With the time I had left on this project I wanted to incorporate some of this into my paintings. I thought up a rough story in my head for a game that would at first let the play battle and fight the natives and not really question it as this tends to be a common theme for films. However I wanted a turning point during the game that would flip everything the player has done on its head to make the player feel a tremendous amount of guilt and regret for their actions as the natives are seen in a more realistic light.
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