The Poetics of Breath in "The Revenant"
Cinematography
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant seeks to combine the baroque eccentricities of a Fellini film with the poetic grace of Terrence Malick. Federico Fellini’s intermixture of grotesque realism and fantastical surrealism produced some of cinema’s most provocative, existential films. Terrence Malick’s dreamlike imagery fastened our attention to the shared space of symbols, meanings, and practices created between people. Iñárritu steers a path between the two, respecting both the concrete world and the symbolic structures that help us make sense of that world. Before pointing out specific images and themes that pervade the film, I would first like to focus on its cinematographic style. It is the cinematography of The Revenant that animates what would simply be a typical story of personal loss and revenge.
Iñárritu has learned from both Malick and Fellini that the movement or flow of the camera and the duration of the shots are crucial for expressing the emotional content of a film’s narrative. Many of the main scenes in The Revenant are experienced from beginning to end in one long take. Iñárritu’s style situates himself in the Realist camp of filmmaking. The Realist theory was largely articulated and advocated by the French thinker André Bazin, who argued that film’s essence lies in its ability to provide a nonbiased depiction of reality through long, uninterrupted shots.1
The tranquil, serene shot that opens the film quickly becomes a frenzied documentation of the Akirara tribe’s vicious attack on Captain Henry’s encampment. The long shot in this scene is meant to act as a moment of pure perception, one that offers an objective window to the massacre. The long shot, according to Bazin, is commanding: “Take a close look at the world, keep on doing so, and in the end it will lay bare for you all its cruelty and ugliness.”2 Iñárritu employs long shots to throw us into the cruel, ugly backdrop of the fur trade.
The psychic bedrock that the film produces is anxiety, for what lies outside the frame persistently makes its presence known – whether it be armed men or wild animals. The camera shows us the world, but the flow of its movement informs how we ought to view it. At one moment we are a documentarian trudging through a skirmish with the weight of an armed frontiersmen, but the next we may be marveling at a descending icicle with childlike wonder, or lamenting a destroyed village with the melancholy of a specter.
The way in which the camera edges in just a few inches away from the main characters’ brazen faces permits a sense of intimacy. Rather than cutting to the close-up of Glass during his initial argument with Fitzgerald, we slowly ease into his personal space. This type of close-up slowly dissolves the integrity of the space between the character and the viewer. Similar to the battle sequence that opens the film, the anger, resentment, and violence taking place between Fitzgerald and Glass unfolds before us in real time.
The persistent use of the close-up also allows us to see the intricate visual details of the characters’ lives in the form of scars, wrinkles, and torn clothing. Here, the film becomes Felliniesque. Characters are larger than life, sublime even, when placed so close to the viewer. For film theorist Béla Balázs good close-ups are “lyrical; it is the heart, not the eye, that has perceived them.”3 While close-ups bring us physically and emotionally closer to the characters, The Revenant’s cinematic style, like Malick’s The Tree of Life or To the Wonder, is primarily aimed at producing a poetic translation of atmospheric phenomena.
The Revenant is an exploration of the spiritual and symbolic dimension of life that emanates from the material world: Immense forests and icy rivers are to be both feared and admired. When Glass desperately swims away from the Akirara, the river is given the deadly presence of an angry determined crowd rushing inexhaustibly toward its destination. Later that evening it is a life-giving source that houses fish for Glass to catch and eat.
The forest has the haunting quality of an abandoned church. The images that bookends the film seems to confirm philosopher Elias Canetti’s analysis of the forest: “It is the first image of awe, it compels men to look upward, grateful of their protection from above. The forest is a preparation for the feeling of being in church, the standing before God among pillars and columns.”4 The film’s wondrous imagery may engender affiliations with the divine, but these shots are punctuated with violent murders and moments of great inhumanity. Here are a few of the questions that arise throughout the film: What is it that has endowed Glass with a superabundance of life? Is revenge an appropriate form of justice? Does the film comment on contemporary realities? If so, what is its general message or argument?
Revenge and Representation
Naming the film “Revenant” rather than “Revenge” frames the film in a religious context. Taking revenge is far more banal than transcending death. There is a degree of otherworldliness involved that challenges our understanding of life: It suggests a spiritual journey. The visual motif of the spiral that is first drawn by Bridger on his canteen duly begs a theological analysis. The spiral that Bridger etches is specifically the spiral of a snail’s shell. It is perhaps of no coincidence that Gaston Bachelard, in referring to Charbonneau-Lassay’s study The Bestiary of Christ, explains that the snail in its shell embodies a primitive image of resurrection:
When Winter’s death holds earth in its grip, the snail plunges deep into the ground, shuts itself up inside its shell, as though in a coffin, by means of a strong, limestone epiphragm, until Spring comes and sings Easter Hallelujahs over its grave… Then it tears down its wall and reappears in broad daylight, full of life.5
The surprise discovery of Bridger’s spiral-marked canteen by Captain Henry’s men would later confirm Glass’ own resurrection: he has regained his strength and is in pursuit of Fitzgerald. This is the most explicit figurative connection made between Glass and Christ.
Glass’ spiritual life even takes the form of a spiral. Moving inward rather than outward, it propels with centripetal force. Glass looks within to find the spirit of his deceased partner, who literally inspires him, that is, breathes life into him when they are in loving embrace. The spiral that Bridger draws on his canteen irks Fitzgerald, whose radical individualism is contrasted with the romantic soul-partnership that Glass shares with his beloved. It is through flashbacks and dream sequences that we come to learn about Glass’ close relation with the Pawnee Indian tribe.
The Revenant largely subverts stereotypical film clichés and traditional nineteenth-century codes of storytelling in its representation of Native Americans. Film theorists Robert Stam and Louise Spence point out the paradigmatic filmic encounters of whites and Indians in the west.6 The typical attitude toward Indians, they maintain, is premised on exteriority. If a film rules out sympathetic identifications with Indians it is either through the protagonist's entrapment or through the intrusion of savages on land defended by whites. Because we do not identify with a specific location such as a fort, house, or wagon, the fear of intrusion is absent. Wild animals, French colonialists, and rogue Americans, meanwhile, present just as much of a threat to Glass as Natives.
The music often plays a crucial role in the establishment of a political point of view and the cultural positioning of the spectator. The score of The Revenant withholds judgment on any specific tribe or collective. There are no aural signifiers of savagery, and the soundtrack does not colonize or overrule Native American culture with a distinctly European melody. The loss of life, whether it is of a frontiersman or Arikara tribe member, is given the emotional gravitas that death deserves. The dense, somber score is more a reflection of the violent forces at play than an emotional compass that orients our sympathies.
Glass may not be the pure product of frontier values, but one could argue that he does embody a modified version of the stereotypical white savior. Instead of halting the destruction of an Indian settlement from American frontiers he transcends his own death to avenge his half-Pawnee, half-white son. In the process of hunting down Fitzgerald he also frees an Indian princess from imprisonment at a camp. The Akirara chief would later spare Glass’ life because of his heroic act. This plot element may be meant to serve as another means of identifying Glass as a Native American sympathizer, but it unwittingly frames Glass as an omnipresent peacekeeper always in the right place at the right time. The film works best when Glass is in the role of the helpless, misshapen wanderer driven to kill Fitzgerald.
American literature from 1820 to 1850 such as Robert Montgomery Bird's Nick of the Woods and classic Hollywood films such as John Ford’s The Searchers employ the notion of exceptionalism to suggest that revenge is justified and even sometimes necessary when established law is in flux. Glass’ revenge, however, is unquestionably justified. Fitzgerald embodies the sacer, a juridicial figure who can be killed without the killer being seen as a murderer. In his Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, philosopher Giorgio Agamben reminds us that a sacer is an oathbreaker.7 Fitzgerald’s death is lawfully justified because he broke his oath with Captain Andrews to provide Glass a proper burial.
Concluding Remarks
Despite all of Glass’ hallucinations and daydreams, it is Fitzgerald who is the most delusional; he believes that enough cash will wash away all of his problems. The image of Fitzgerald’s corpse being washed away by the river is a prophetic statement. The fur trade is an early example of American capitalism instilling destructive tendencies through pitting individuals and groups against one another in a race to extract natural resources. The film urges us to consider how our environment has been further impacted by the violence of American greed. The cinematography is largely an ode to wintry terrains, begging us to lament the impending disappearance of snowcapped mountains and icy rivers. Fortunately, The Revenant avoids becoming another didactic film that shames us of our mistreatment of the planet. There is the hopeful attitude that we can regain our humanity if we shift our attention to the binding act of breathing.
Rather than a specific image, it is the sound of breathing that opens and closes the film. Life, the film argues, is driven by the invisible power of wind and breath. In Judeo-Christian cultures breath is the primal metaphor of life. The term for “soul” amongst many languages is onomatopoeic for breathing: Its pronunciation requires a deep exhale of the lungs – an airy celebration of the miracle of life.8 Glass’ appreciation of breath (“As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight”) and Fitzgerald’s persistent coughing indicate the health of their respective souls. Fitzgerald’s soul is weak because he is loved by no one and believes in nothing (“It turns out Jesus is a squirrel… And I shot and ate that son of a bitch.”). Glass’ soul is healthy precisely because it is shared. Glass, his wife, and their son are integrated breathers.
German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk suggests that the first instance of gas warfare on April 22, 1915 marked the birth of the modern era.9 Rather than attacking the bodies of individuals directly as soldiers did during the 1820s, we now attack the enemy’s environment by removing the air that they breath. Mariijn Niewenhuis in his article “The Terror in the Air” reveals that while chemical warfare may now be forbidden by international law, it is still acceptable as a form of domestic law enforcement. Additionally, air is manipulated and terrorized in the form of pollution. “The pollution of the air,” he writes, “is the inevitable outcome of an interstate system that is more interested in the health of the economy than in the well-being of the bodies that comprise the population.”10 At what cost are we willing to contaminate the air for profit? We live in a world in which breath has lost its symbolic radiance. It is only through remembering the sacredness of breath, however, will we be able to keep humanity’s violence in check.
Works Cited
1. Realist theory differs to montage theory. Popularized by the works of Sergei Eisenstein, montage theory argues that truth in cinema is revealed through pitting images against one another. Theorists like David Bordwell, meanwhile, locate the essence of cinema in its ability to express narratives.
2. André Bazin, “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema” from What is Cinema?. In Film Theory and Criticism, 7th edition, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 45. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
3. Béla Balázs, “The Close-Up” from Theory of the Film. In Film Theory and Criticism, 7th edition, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 274. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
4. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, 84. Translated by Carol Stewart. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984.
5. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 117. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
6. Robert Stam and Louise Spence, “Colonialism, Racism, and Representation.” In Movies and Methods: Volume II, edited by Bill Nichols, 645. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
7. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
8. Charles Nodier, Dictionnaire Raisonné des Onomatopées Françaises, 46. Paris: 1828.
9. Peter Sloterdijk, Terror from the Air, 14. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2009.
10. Mariijn Niewenhuis, “The Terror in the Air.” OpenDemocracy, December 21, 2014. Accessed January 23, 2016. https://www.opendemocracy.net/marijn-nieuwenhuis/terror-in-air
