The Revenant

Most South Dakotans by now have probably heard of the film that stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass in The Revenant. If you haven't heard of it then where have you been? Just kidding but for a little background on the historic event is that a fur trader by the name of Hugh Glass was left for dead by two fur traders after he was mauled by a bear and then crawls for hundreds of miles back to seek

Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in “The Revenant” won an Academy Award. With renewed interest in Hugh Glass, a book captures the real story of the frontiersman.

This year’s awards season has been a special treat due to the absence of a clear-cut frontrunner, with The Big Short, Spotlight, The Revenant, and Mad Max: Fury Road all in relatively close competition — up until very recently, at least. While early nominations were split between these four heavy-hitting movies, The Revenant has broken out in recent weeks as the various awards-giving bodies have had their ceremonies. Artistic intention be damned, the sheer technical bravado of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s western may be enough to push it through to a big victory on Oscar night, if last night’s showing at the BAFTAs is any example.

The movie, 'The Revenant' features a story rooted here in South Dakota.

How good does a movie have to look to offset its other deficiencies? The Revenant is as beautiful a movie as has ever been made. The photography by master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki is inconceivably gorgeous; sweeping wide shots that juxtapose tiny, insignificant men against the overwhelming grandeur of nature, close-ups so intimate they seem like invasions of the actors’ privacy, and action sequences of shocking violence.