Wednesday, April 6, 2016

The Striking Stillness of 'The Revenant': A Video Essay


This breathtaking video essay showcases the best of The Revenant's quiet moments.



Life in the West in the 1800s was very quiet. Punctuated only by occasional warfare between Native Americans and settlers preaching Manifest Destiny, day-to-day living paralleled the rhythms of nature, with its streaming brooks, whooshing winds, rustling trees, and open plains.




As any true The Revenant aficionado can tell you, it's these moments of stillness that lend the film its majesty. DP Emmanuel Lubezski won an Oscar for rendering nature's sweeping stillness onscreen (using only natural light, of course), and now Tom Williams has compiled some of the film's most striking moments into a video essay that captures its essence.








Ryuichi Sakamoto's arresting score accompanies the visuals, which bring the haunting stillness of the 1800s Western frontier to life.


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