# The Last of the Mohicans (1992) | Ep. 65 - Part 1

An episode of [All The Right Movies](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1471502633), 19 Sep 2025, 1 h 23 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO9106631440.mp3

Michael Mann brings his signature intensity to colonial America in this sweeping epic. John, Matt, and Westy begin the story, tracking Daniel Day-Lewis through the wilderness (he was there for long enough). In Part 1 we cover the film's opening, director Michael Mann, the cast, and the second act — unpacking the production chaos, the Appalachian locations, and Mann's relentless commitment to authenticity. Part 2, covering the crew, the finale, reception, and the film's legacy, is available now. Connect with ATRM: To support what we do, access our archive and listen to exclusive episodes, become an ATRM patron: Listen on Patreon Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Twitter/X: @ATRightMovies YouTube: Subscribe to our channel Instagram: @allthe_rightmovies Threads: @allthe_rightmovies Facebook: Join our movie group Bluesky: @alltherightmovies.com TikTok: @alltherightmovies Website: alltherightmovies.com

## Transcript

[0:04] All the right movies. I think you and I are going to
[0:08] have a serious disagreement. A leader who defied authority
[0:12] and a rebel who surrendered to no one.
[0:15] What are you looking at, Sir? I'm looking at you, miss.
[0:20] Daniel Day. Lewis, stay alive.
[0:24] Madeline, Stir. We'll find you the.
[0:26] Last of the Mohicans. The Last of the Mohicans, opened
[0:34] in 1992, is a sweeping frontier epic directed by Michael Mann
[0:38] and set during the French and Indian War.
[0:40] The film follows a Mohican family as they navigate a
[0:42] conflict of cultures while protecting the Colonel's
[0:44] daughters caught in the crossfire.
[0:46] My name is John and the Wild Frontiers men with me are Matt.
[0:50] Maguassei, he understand the English very well and Westie.
[0:55] Death and honour are thought to be the same.
[0:56] Today I have learned they are not.
[0:59] It's colonial America and ATRM are heading into the forest to
[1:02] talk the story that proves love and action aren't always
[1:04] exclusive. So just stay alive and we will
[1:08] find you. Hello and welcome to All the
[1:30] Right Movies. We travel by night and don't
[1:33] stop for anything except to podcast about classic and hit
[1:36] films. It's the only thing we'll stop
[1:38] for. And to kill some deer,
[1:39] obviously, of course. Yeah, today's show does take us
[1:44] back to the frontier. It really does.
[1:46] We're telling the story of Hollywood, one film at a time.
[1:48] And now which Muskets, Mohawks and Michael Mann as we dive into
[1:51] the sweeping romance and brutal action of The Last of the
[1:55] Mohicans. Lovely, yeah?
[1:57] Before we join the war party though, or should we try and
[1:59] recruit some new warriors as paid runs I.
[2:02] Think we should? Yeah, let's do that, yeah.
[2:04] So our ATRM patron service supports the podcast and gives
[2:07] you access to bonus content. That's our double feature
[2:10] episode, where we talk about two films and decide which gets the
[2:13] full ATRM Classic treatment and the Watch List, our monthly
[2:16] review show plus hundreds of archived ATRM classics.
[2:21] If you're into Michael Mann, we've got Heat already covered
[2:23] for you. Yeah, or if sweeping period
[2:26] cinematography is your thing, we also have Martha and Commander
[2:29] Nice. We do Lords and Lords of Others
[2:32] as well. So for more, please visit
[2:33] patreon.com/all the Right Movies.
[2:36] To join up, subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
[2:39] YouTube as well. Nice.
[2:40] Yes, we will find you with some great benefits, but first you
[2:44] need to find that subscribe button.
[2:45] Yes, you do, no matter what occurs.
[2:47] Yeah. So back to 1757 then The Last of
[2:51] the Mohicans. Mark, this was your choice.
[2:53] Yep. So why this film?
[2:56] This is going to sound contrary because obviously it did win the
[2:58] pole against some of the big films in there, but I just think
[3:01] this is one of the films. It's not talked about enough,
[3:03] It's not respected enough. Maybe the fact that came between
[3:07] dancers with wolves and brave hearts and those who got the
[3:10] attention in a way this one didn't quite.
[3:12] What sandwich that is? I mean, what a sandwich.
[3:16] Speed up. It does get overlooked a little
[3:18] bit, but it really shouldn't because there are a lot of films
[3:21] that are a lot to this one, which we'll get into.
[3:23] Yeah, but it's got such an epic old fashioned sweep to it that I
[3:27] absolutely adore it Moves longer to crack and Pierce.
[3:30] Amazing scenery, incredible music, incredible set pieces.
[3:34] Daniel Daly was running. Big swords, big hair, big
[3:37] waterfall. It's got it all.
[3:38] Lovely. Yeah, I want to watch it again
[3:40] after that, yeah. What's an obvious GET that in
[3:42] the post? Yeah, this is a big historical
[3:45] number, and I've got quite a long history with it.
[3:48] First saw it when I was probably 1415, I think, Right.
[3:51] And I loved it at the time, to be honest.
[3:53] Yeah. Yeah.
[3:53] The first Michael Mann film I ever saw.
[3:55] Yeah. And while I know now that
[3:57] sweeping romantic epics aren't usually his thing, then I was in
[4:00] Hook, Line and Sinker and a lot of it the first as well.
[4:04] We've got Daniel D Lewis in what I'm pretty sure is his most out
[4:07] and out action role. Got to be, surely?
[4:09] First time we've talked about Madeline Store as the leading
[4:12] lady. Yes, and the first time we've
[4:13] talked about film set in the 70s, 100 since 2 episodes ago.
[4:16] So we're overdue. And as a backdrop, you've got
[4:20] the French and Indian War or mix of cultures in British, French,
[4:24] Native Americans, colonial Americans.
[4:26] And in the middle of it all this like forbidden love story.
[4:29] So interesting stuff. As always, we'll be dissecting
[4:32] all of it and telling the story of how it was made, which is a
[4:34] pretty fascinating 1. So this is going to be massive
[4:37] epic surely? Surely it is massive.
[4:40] And Westie, I know you can read all the Flint like while running
[4:44] that can. I've seen you on board.
[4:46] And Curry. Yeah, it's imperative to carry
[4:49] one of them around. Bold and Curry.
[4:50] I'll be honest with you, you've got no choice but to load it by
[4:53] running. So this is perfect for you,
[4:56] isn't it? Yeah, 1757, we're about to get
[4:59] on here for anyone to think about current, but I was late
[5:04] 90s for me, this one, well, it was one of them that kind of
[5:07] slid underneath because like you said there, John, there was
[5:09] dancers with wolves and there was Braveheart and Braveheart
[5:13] kind of knocked me socks off a little bit. 95 because my first
[5:16] Michael Mann film was Manhunter, obviously.
[5:18] Oh really? Yeah.
[5:19] Yeah. And then it was coming back with
[5:21] these kind of big sweep and that makes.
[5:23] And it was just before the Patriots came out, there was
[5:25] that extra kind of pull towards that period piece.
[5:28] I thought I need to check it out.
[5:29] And I absolutely loved it. This is perfect.
[5:32] It was really Michael, man, and it was like that next step
[5:35] towards what I expected from him, but didn't expect it to be
[5:38] this big in scale and just so grand and sweet.
[5:41] And I was just taken away by how romantic it is.
[5:43] And I think I'm going to repeat that all the way through the
[5:45] podcast because this is just an incredible romance of
[5:48] everything. It's a romance of landscape.
[5:51] It's a romance of family. It's a romance of, you know, a
[5:53] relationship. It's really poetic.
[5:56] Well, like Matt said, I think it is one of them that's kind of
[5:59] hidden under the bed a little bit.
[6:00] People don't shine the light on it enough.
[6:01] So I think it's high time that we do that.
[6:04] I wouldn't fancy finding Magwa hiding under me bed.
[6:06] Well, of course not. God no, I don't want to find
[6:08] them. Anyway, so The Last of the
[6:11] Mohicans was produced by Morgan Creek Productions, distributed
[6:14] by 20th Century Fox and Morgan Creek International, and
[6:16] released on September the 25th, 1992.
[6:19] Shot mainly in the mountains of Western North Carolina, the film
[6:22] was directed by Michael Mann, written by Mann and Christopher
[6:25] Crowe, based on James Fenny Moore Cooper's novel of the same
[6:28] name, and stars Daniel Dale Lewis as Hawkeye, Madeleine
[6:31] Stewart, Cora Monroe and West Duty as Magua.
[6:34] Yeah, let's cross that frontier then, shall we?
[6:37] Yeah, let's do it. It's 1757, the wilderness
[6:39] awaits, and we're tracking with The Last of the Mohicans.
[6:46] The beginning. The Last of the Mohicans opens
[6:51] in the Wilds of colonial New York, 1757.
[6:54] The French and Indian wars raging and cultures are
[6:57] colliding. The battle ready arrival of the
[6:59] Mohican lads is coming. But first we start with some
[7:02] character introductions. We certainly do.
[7:05] Yep. So we open by meeting all of our
[7:07] main good guys, the Mohicans, Hawkeye, Chingach, Kukununkas
[7:10] are hunting deer through the forests of the Adirondacks.
[7:13] Meanwhile, at the British Garrison, Cora Monroe is letting
[7:16] down the romantic advances of Major Duncan Hayward, played by
[7:19] Stephen Warrington. Yeah.
[7:20] So the frontier of the drawing room, St.
[7:23] How was the opening for you? The opening is fantastic, it's
[7:26] yellow credits, we'll get that out of the way.
[7:28] It is. They go slightly orange.
[7:30] It's fine. So 1757 wouldn't know exactly
[7:33] where we are. That's quite big, isn't it
[7:35] Massive. It's a great write up.
[7:36] That music starts to creep in. We'll get the perfect
[7:39] introduction to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.
[7:41] Sorry, the lad running through that forest.
[7:45] It's perfect because this opens with the real energy.
[7:48] You don't know what they're doing, you don't know where
[7:50] they're going, but you know they are part of that landscape.
[7:52] That camera just floats through. There's nothing handheld,
[7:54] there's nothing jarring When Dave Lewis just takes off that
[7:57] ledge and then lands perfectly. It's a, oh God, this is just
[8:01] incredible. We're 2 minutes 50 into the film
[8:04] and Hawkeye's got his shirt off, Yes.
[8:08] Too long if anything. Yeah, of course, just before
[8:10] 1757. I want to just want to see him
[8:12] with his shirt and then tell us what year it is.
[8:16] The light streaming through the trees, they just blend in
[8:19] beautifully. I think it really, really works.
[8:22] Like I said, you don't know the motivations until you see that
[8:25] deer and then they kill it. And that's an incredible shot
[8:27] where that kind of just flips over the camera and just lands.
[8:30] But then it's the way that it's honored what honor your courage
[8:33] and speed and strength. And we're sorry to kill your
[8:35] brother and you kind of know, but these guys are just the best
[8:37] guys in the world. They're really efficient, the
[8:40] part of the landscape. And I really hope these are the
[8:42] good guys because these are the three I want to back all the way
[8:44] through the film. It sets them up perfectly.
[8:46] And you are in for the ride. Yeah, same for me.
[8:49] I mean, pretty much instantly. I mean, I also love when a
[8:52] period film starts with just a big year on the screen.
[8:54] Yeah, about 1750 sevens. Massive, Massive.
[8:56] And then the yellow titles. I'd never noticed that until you
[8:59] mentioned the Westie. Now it's everywhere.
[9:02] Really good films got yellow credits.
[9:04] There's a few were falling down, but I think I'm just going to
[9:06] write a booga boat. The opening shot, the Blue Ridge
[9:09] Mountain does the score, like, booms over the top.
[9:12] I mean, come on, We'll get to the music, obviously.
[9:14] Yeah. But I think it's quite clever
[9:15] opening with the deer hunt, Man just drops us straight into this
[9:18] world with no real set up, just three men running through the
[9:21] woods. And the way they tell this,
[9:22] like, little story, you straight away kind of get a sense of
[9:25] their skills as fighters, as the work, as a team and that
[9:28] spirituality. I also like how Chinga Chuk
[9:30] apologizes to the deer after they've shot him.
[9:32] Like, sorry, brother. Yeah.
[9:33] I mean a bit late now but fine. I'll see that every time we get
[9:36] fish and chips. Sorry mate.
[9:42] And then it's the dinner at the Cameron's cabin that fleshes out
[9:45] further and that gives us more info about the world.
[9:47] They're like an isolated frontier family talking about
[9:49] their dealing with the British military.
[9:51] So we know they're going to crop up.
[9:52] And we get more from the Mohicans relationship.
[9:54] We get the Ching GAT cooks, the Father, Hawkeye and Ungasa
[9:57] brothers. And Hawkeye's on the lookout for
[9:59] a lady. Oh yeah.
[10:00] I wonder if one will come along. Well, I mean, he is Hawkeye.
[10:02] I'm sure he'll spot one. Yeah, whatever he wants for
[10:06] sure. In preparation for the deer hunt
[10:08] scene, Daniel Day Lewis learned how to hunt and track deer.
[10:11] He was able to identify by tracks how long it has been
[10:14] since a deer had left a footprint, so he knew who was in
[10:17] the area or not. He didn't kill any deer by the
[10:19] way, but he would just track them.
[10:21] Who? That's a relief.
[10:23] Did you say a hoof there? No pun intended, Yeah.
[10:29] It's classic Dear Lewis. He'd be still out there now if
[10:31] you had to be. Probably.
[10:32] But yeah, as people probably expect, Daniel D Lewis, he did
[10:35] go method for this. So we've got a bit more on that
[10:37] later on. Yeah, he really did.
[10:38] And Chinkak, Truck and Uncas are played by Russell Means and Eric
[10:42] Shrieg. Shrieg was a Canadian actor who
[10:44] had played Native Americans before and auditioned.
[10:47] But Russell Means actually wasn't an actor.
[10:49] He was not for his activism as the director of the American
[10:52] Indian Movement and in 1973 was involved in the Wounded Knee
[10:55] occupation, where the American Indian Movement occupied the
[10:59] town for 71 days. It protested civil rights
[11:01] violations against Native Americans.
[11:04] Michael Mann new means from this incident and approached him
[11:06] about planching Gatrook. Nice.
[11:08] Yeah, well mean said that what room to the film was their
[11:10] chores natives and non natives interacting and being like
[11:13] integrated together. So it kind of proves that it's
[11:15] possible. Yeah, yeah.
[11:17] And also Dennis Banks who plays on Get was gone, The Who Run
[11:20] tribe leader towards the end man knew him from that wound in the
[11:23] incident as well. Yeah, he's brilliant.
[11:25] Yeah, I don't think you can tell.
[11:26] They were like activists first, I believe both of them in the
[11:28] roles. Yeah.
[11:29] Absolutely. Yeah.
[11:30] It feels like they've both just come through a time machine.
[11:32] Yeah. It does.
[11:33] It works great, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[11:34] So after the meal at the Camerons, when the Sea Hall guy,
[11:37] some Native Americans and few white settlers play in lacrosse.
[11:40] This was a sport invented by Native American tribes in the
[11:43] 12th century, and tribes were played in the 18th century.
[11:46] I mean, one of my favorite things sports, especially
[11:48] lacrosse. I was going to say every years
[11:50] with his sports. Every other Saturday, I'm the
[11:52] lacrosse. Yeah, the creators game, Native
[11:56] Americans would call it apparently right.
[11:58] But yeah, nice touch of historical accuracy, I think
[12:00] with that visual message, because it sure was the blend of
[12:02] cultures happening where man's, I think telling us this isn't
[12:04] going to be a simple Cowboys and Indian story.
[12:06] As well. Not exactly.
[12:08] Yeah, yeah, it looks a bit rough for me that.
[12:09] Yeah, just a bit, just a bit. And then from here we'll meet
[12:13] Cora and Duncan. And it always feels quite jar in
[12:16] the scene because we've been in the Wilds of the American
[12:18] wilderness and now we're watching this very English
[12:21] scene, genteel T on the lawn. But I think that's the point,
[12:24] You know, point of the film is about this clash of cultures.
[12:27] And here it's drawn because I think they're trying to recreate
[12:30] one culture in place of another. And it doesn't work because it
[12:33] shouldn't be there at all. Yeah, but I just want to shrivel
[12:37] up and die of cringe when Duncan just cannot take chorus
[12:41] rejection of that marriage proposal.
[12:43] It's horrific. Or like.
[12:45] Just have some dignity man, just take it on the chain.
[12:49] But your gentleman about it because he basically says
[12:50] straight, well, if you can't make your mind up to see what
[12:52] your dad tells you, that's fine. That's how marriage works.
[12:55] Yeah. But I just want to quickly talk
[12:57] about Stephen Wadden because I think he's so good in this
[13:00] because Duncan is a massive asshole for most of the film.
[13:02] Yeah, but he would even himself right at the end.
[13:05] And I think Wadden makes all of it really believable.
[13:08] Yeah, I agree. I mean, that shift from the
[13:10] frontier to the British Garrison, the first thing I
[13:12] know, it is kind of how authentic it all still looks.
[13:14] Yeah, I think the costume design, the production design,
[13:16] it's all brilliant. Yeah, but a key thing as well is
[13:19] those character intros where we need Coran, Alice, 2 likable
[13:22] sisters and then Duncan, Big Dunk.
[13:25] He is a walking red flag. He does ask Corinna Marion.
[13:29] Crazy. Just proposing marriage to
[13:31] someone he's not even going out with.
[13:32] Yeah. When she obviously says no, he's
[13:34] like, I think I know what's best for you better than you do.
[13:36] Yeah. Unbelievable.
[13:38] Piss off, Duncan. Right in the middle of a field
[13:41] as well as. I know well, so a good character
[13:44] set up so because we get a sense of core strength as well as
[13:47] Duncan being kind of sympathetic but also a problematic and that
[13:50] all becomes important later on. Yeah, very much, yeah.
[13:53] But Richard E Grant and Hugh Grant were both considered for
[13:56] the role of Duncan Heywood before Stephen Waddington was
[13:58] cast. And he'd worked on stage with
[14:00] the Royal Shakespeare Company and man thought he captured the
[14:03] British obsession with honour and duty that he wanted in the
[14:05] role. Just all the grunts.
[14:07] Do you not fancy Russell Grant? Grant Mitchell, get him in
[14:11] there. Grant oi Cora.
[14:17] I think you can see that RSC training in Wellington's
[14:20] delivery at times, I think. Yeah, yeah, every time.
[14:22] I'll have you shot, man. Yeah, I don't think you have
[14:25] actually says that. I just hear it every time you
[14:26] shout. Yeah, pretty much.
[14:27] I'll have your hand. I'll have you shot.
[14:29] Yeah. But imagine you Grant in there,
[14:31] though, stuttering his way through the marriage proposal.
[14:33] Yeah, that would be great. Well, that's our opening.
[14:36] The Frontier and the British Empire at odds.
[14:38] Already we've met some of our main players, and the first
[14:41] physical collision is about to come.
[14:46] The Monroe sisters are being escorted to Fort William Henry
[14:49] by Major Duncan, his troops and their guide, the mysterious who
[14:52] run warrior Magua Magua. The What are the plans?
[14:55] His war party pounds and Hawkeye Chinga Chugungas swoop in to
[14:59] save the day. Time for heroes to make a big
[15:02] entrance. Westy.
[15:02] It really is. What do you make of it?
[15:04] I mean, this is fantastic stuff in it.
[15:07] It's not seen in the period to totally RIP this off.
[15:09] Yeah, right. Yeah.
[15:10] Whole ambush scene, it's just this, but the build up of this
[15:13] is incredible. When Magua just turns around and
[15:16] starts walking back, all of it drops that tomahawk just down
[15:19] and you just know, all right, And there's that poor kid who's
[15:21] just on the left of the column. He just smiles at him.
[15:24] He's like. Tomahawk in the neck.
[15:27] Tomahawk right in the face, he's out of there.
[15:31] And then it just goes into this absolute savage carnage.
[15:33] Just smashes in and it's just so much confusion and you know, the
[15:37] muskets are going off and they try to get it some kind of
[15:39] formation and the firing and the nothing.
[15:41] They don't know who's attacking them.
[15:42] They don't know how good they are.
[15:43] The bet that gets me is when the hammering the English to the
[15:45] ground and it's when the guy just gets scalped so quickly.
[15:49] Yeah, in one shot it's just. And it's just like, whoa, whoa.
[15:51] That's how it would look. Because normally it's like,
[15:53] we'll take more time and we'll just kind of, yeah, milk it a
[15:56] little bit. That was like, bang, incredible.
[15:59] I mean, I'm just going to call them the lads because they are
[16:01] the lads, but absolutely classed by the lads turn up.
[16:04] The last of the lads. The last of the lads just from
[16:07] behind the tree, you know there's just this efficiency to
[16:10] them and they've just got this incredible psychology between
[16:13] them where they're almost like telepathic with each other.
[16:15] They know where each of them is going to be and then each of
[16:17] them is going to operate. It's just absolutely wonderful.
[16:20] But absolutely love the point where it just goes to that
[16:23] Michael Mann slow more and you're like, right, it's Michael
[16:25] Mann and you've got all guy and he just spins that rifle in the
[16:29] the bottom of the frame and it just fluid.
[16:32] Great shot. It's just absolutely fantastic.
[16:35] And then Duncan puts the aim on Chinggatkook and he's like, no,
[16:38] your judgments probably as good as your the first of all these
[16:41] wonderful quips. It's a great line now, yeah.
[16:43] And he just throws that. I don't even know what that
[16:45] thing is. I've never seen one before.
[16:47] It's just like more he can snook a bat.
[16:49] Just this year he just launches it through the air.
[16:52] You are right. Well, these guys are really
[16:54] fierce now. We've kind of seen them moving
[16:55] out and see what they can do. I think this is just an
[16:57] incredible scene that really, really heightens attention.
[17:00] It really does. I think my favorite thing there
[17:02] was he was you referring to a snooker key was a snooker bat.
[17:08] I don't know why. But, yeah, we know what, early
[17:12] on, the mug was the right one when he's muttering away to
[17:15] Duncan in his own language and he's talking about putting his
[17:17] tomahawk down when white women get hungry.
[17:19] Yeah. So literally got Max to grind
[17:21] with core analysis from the start.
[17:22] But I think the ambush itself is so well staged.
[17:25] Yeah. Yeah.
[17:25] It reminds me of, like, a horror film, almost, the way the
[17:27] forest, like, erupts with the war cries.
[17:30] Yeah, that must have been terrifying back then to hear
[17:32] that. Oh yeah.
[17:33] I mean, the action is great. Not the best battle sequence we
[17:35] get by any means, but as a first one it's a good taste of what's
[17:38] to come. Oh yeah.
[17:39] That's the first of two massacres, right?
[17:40] I mean, the film with two massacres in it is going to be
[17:43] good. There's your poster quote.
[17:47] Loads of massacres. Last of the massacres.
[17:52] The Horan ambush isn't based on an actual event, but the Horan
[17:55] tactics are based on reality. Native American war parties
[17:58] would tend to attack British columns in places of dense
[18:00] forestry where the British muskets will be less effective.
[18:03] Yeah, the soldiers don't stand a chance.
[18:05] No, they're fighting by like European rules in columns and
[18:08] ranks, which just doesn't work here at all.
[18:10] Not at all, I would not be able to run fast enough.
[18:12] Soon as I hear that war cries, I'm fucking bye.
[18:18] And then we get one of the many emotional blows he had in the
[18:22] film, where they'll go back to the Cameron's homestead in this
[18:25] scene. Or such a heavy debt to the
[18:26] searchers, doesn't it? Yes, it does, yeah.
[18:28] This is Ethan returned to the homestead.
[18:31] Yeah, yeah. To find it's been bird of the
[18:33] ground. It's the same, isn't it?
[18:34] Basically, yeah. It's pretty much exactly the
[18:36] same and his his family's been murdered and I think the same
[18:39] place of the difference between the Mohicans and the Colonials
[18:42] really smartly because you totally understand why Chorus
[18:45] first reaction as well. We have to bury these people
[18:48] before we move on. But when Hawkeye and his family
[18:51] refused to for a minute, it plays into the opinion that
[18:54] Duncan has that these people are just savages and they don't care
[18:57] about anything. And I think that's really smart
[18:59] writing because it makes that later saying when Hawkeye
[19:02] experienced A coronal, the reason we didn't bury them is
[19:04] because that's going to let the hero ones know that we are in
[19:06] the area and they're going to come after us.
[19:08] It makes it all the more effective because it just
[19:10] punctures any prejudice that she has towards Hawkeye and
[19:13] therefore any residual prejudices that the audience
[19:16] has. These people aren't savages,
[19:18] they're smart, and it did hurt. Let them emotionally to leave
[19:21] those bodies out in the open. Yeah, it's the same as Ethan,
[19:23] isn't it? When he finds her in the
[19:24] outhouse, he's like, don't let him in there.
[19:26] But it's actually saying the stay where the lay.
[19:28] Yeah, she apologizes to him as well for it, which is fantastic.
[19:31] Yeah, it's great to chat. So we get back the cameras, and
[19:33] we realized that spending time there wasn't just about setting
[19:36] up the world. Mum was getting us to know this
[19:38] family so we can then brutally murder them with more impact.
[19:40] Yeah. And that first exchange between
[19:42] Cora and Hawkeye, I think it's really good.
[19:44] Cora wants to bury the victims, like you said.
[19:46] Hawkeye says no. And she's, like, almost as cruel
[19:48] as your indifference. And he's furious.
[19:51] Yeah. Yeah.
[19:52] But that's a really smart piece of writing because even though
[19:54] they totally disagree, it's obvious to share the same
[19:56] values. Yeah.
[19:57] Cora's angry that Hawkeye's seeming lack of compassion.
[20:00] Hawkeye's angry at Cora accusing him of a lack of compassion.
[20:03] Yeah. And that's then developed
[20:04] further when Hawkeye tells Cora and us his back story in the
[20:07] forest, how his family was killed, He was raised by Ching
[20:10] Gadgook. But I think their relationship
[20:11] is developed really nicely in the writing.
[20:13] Certainly as well. Yeah, it is subtle.
[20:15] I'll tell you what I don't like though.
[20:17] At the Fort a bit later, when Big Dunk just bulked, Face lies
[20:20] about what he saw in the form that is outrageous.
[20:24] It's the worst thing he does. Although setting up his art
[20:26] nicely as well, so it is all for a reason.
[20:28] It is, yeah. Yeah, but does he get the
[20:29] explanation as to why they left the bodies there?
[20:31] Because Cora does. I don't think he does.
[20:33] No, maybe not. That's good point.
[20:35] Yeah, it is kind of justified because he doesn't get that
[20:37] level of attention from whole guy, does he?
[20:39] Well, would you give him that level of attention that you give
[20:41] to Cora? No.
[20:43] Wouldn't give that to you. So the film is set in Albany,
[20:49] NY, but man decided to shoot in North Carolina instead and
[20:52] that's because he felt the woods there looked more like the
[20:55] Adirondacks forest did in the 18th century.
[20:57] And the red brick bridge we see the British Soldiers crossover
[21:00] is the Bass Pond Bridge on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC
[21:04] and that was built in 1893. How good is that bridge shot
[21:08] though? Beautiful.
[21:09] Yeah, straight out of Barry Linden.
[21:10] It really is. It's wonderful stuff.
[21:12] I could have watched that for another 20 minutes.
[21:14] Just people. Just.
[21:15] Going over it, just going over. The bridge, if it was in barrel
[21:17] and then you probably would probably.
[21:20] But yeah, some beautiful locations.
[21:22] Yeah. On the.
[21:22] Yeah. I think this is one of those
[21:23] films that makes you think, where was this shot when you
[21:26] watch it? Yeah.
[21:26] Because I'm going, Yeah. And that's the beginning of The
[21:29] Last of the Mohicans. We've met all our main players,
[21:32] Mohican who run, and British alike, the frontiers erupting in
[21:35] violence, and our characters are heading right into the heart of
[21:37] it. Should we talk about the man
[21:39] orchestrating all the chaos? Let's do it.
[21:42] Literally the man the. Man the man Manfred.
[21:44] Man, the director. The director of The Last of the
[21:54] Mohicans was, as we've been talking about, Michael Mann.
[21:57] This was his fourth feature film, and at the time he was
[22:00] mostly known for slick thrillers like Thief, Manhunter, and he'd
[22:04] exactly produced classic 80s TV show Miami Vice.
[22:07] Yep, Yep, bit of a departure. Stylish crime flicks to the
[22:10] colonial frontier Mat. And he wrote the film as well.
[22:13] But first of all, how was Michael Mann's work as director
[22:16] on The Last of the Mohicans? It's the least Michael Mann film
[22:20] he's ever made. Like if his name wasn't on the
[22:22] film and I didn't know and I went in, it's not on the single
[22:25] thing about it. See what chance I've got.
[22:27] That's Michael Mann from that. Because so many of his
[22:30] trademarks are absent from this. It's not set in the 20th
[22:32] century. It's the only period film he's
[22:34] ever made, I think. And so many of his films are
[22:37] about these kind of singular, very tough brewed and macho men
[22:40] at the Harvard. And that doesn't really apply to
[22:42] Hawkeye. Yes, he is tough, obviously, but
[22:45] he's also just really open about his feelings.
[22:47] You know, he's a romantic figure as well as an action figure, and
[22:51] this doesn't take itself seriously in the way that is
[22:54] other films. So yes, it is serious, but it's
[22:56] got real emotion to it. At the same time, it's probably
[22:59] the only Michael Mann film that's got a real beaten heart
[23:02] to it. And obviously you'd expect
[23:04] Michael Mann to nail the action sequences, which he does and
[23:07] then some. You wouldn't necessarily expect
[23:09] him to nail the romantic scenes, which he also does.
[23:12] And it is, as we've been saying, it's a very romantic film, both
[23:15] in terms of the love story that comes out, but also in the more
[23:18] general sense, in that it's beautifully shot and it's
[23:21] romantic about a way of life that simply doesn't exist
[23:23] anymore. So in a way, I don't quite
[23:26] understand how or why this is a Michael Mann film, but I'm very
[23:29] glad that it is. Oh, as a man, I mean, yeah, he
[23:32] was very much known for working on pretty hard hitting thrillers
[23:35] at this point, like we said. So people must have been
[23:37] thinking this heist guy is doing a historical epic.
[23:40] Nah, a bit weird, yeah. But I think it does still work
[23:42] in his filmography because he brings out, like, intensity I
[23:45] think he's known for to the 18th century.
[23:47] I think you can see some of his thriller sensibilities and how
[23:49] he stages the action. It's visceral.
[23:51] It's a media. It's brutal at times.
[23:54] I mean, we'll talk about it as we go, but the siege of the
[23:56] Ford, I think, does feel a bit like a Michael Mann shoot out,
[23:58] just with muskets and cannons instead of machine guns and Val
[24:01] Kilmer. Yeah.
[24:03] But what I love is his attention to detail and all that.
[24:05] He spent months researching that period in place and getting as
[24:08] much right as he could. I mean, that's man the writer,
[24:10] really, but man the director then puts that on the screen
[24:13] about as well as he could. He does it brilliantly from the
[24:15] costume design through production design, location
[24:18] shooting, it all looks authentic and excellent.
[24:21] I mean, this isn't some Hollywood backlog version of
[24:23] colonial America. When they're in the forest or
[24:26] when they're in the Fort, you feel the weight of it.
[24:28] Yeah. And I think the way that handles
[24:29] the romance is interesting as well because one of the biggest
[24:32] challenges the film's got, I think, is this is part action
[24:34] film, part love story. So tonally, he's got a balance
[24:37] that, and I think he treats the romance scenes almost like
[24:40] action scenes because he makes them really visual.
[24:42] Yeah. There's not many long speeches
[24:44] or conversations between Core and Hawkeye.
[24:46] It's all in looks and then braces and ripping each of those
[24:49] clothes off. And I think it works.
[24:51] Yeah. The only thing for me is I don't
[24:53] think it's long enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[24:54] The three cuts of the film and the role between 112 and 117
[24:57] minutes, Less than two hours. Yeah.
[24:59] And I think this would benefit from at least another 20 minutes
[25:01] or so in development. I'd love that.
[25:03] Yeah. I'll go into specifics on what a
[25:04] bit later. But does it feel to you like
[25:06] some scenes have been like cut out when you watch?
[25:08] It Oh yeah, massively. You feel like a bit like ITV,
[25:10] you've got the hands on it and went, oh, this is a bit long.
[25:12] Got to feel the advert. Yeah.
[25:14] Edited. For television, yeah, yeah,
[25:15] yeah, yeah. So not perfect, but in taking
[25:17] what is apparently a fairly turgid source novel and turning
[25:20] it into this really lean, really visual story, I do think this is
[25:24] top tier. Michael Mann for sure.
[25:25] Oh yeah. Yeah, like Matt said, like when
[25:27] I put this on, I would never in a million years have thought,
[25:30] oh, this is a Michael Mann film, Fantastic.
[25:31] And especially at that time, I would have thought this is more
[25:33] like Peter Weir. Yeah, yeah.
[25:36] It could have been Weir, yeah. Yeah.
[25:37] You know, it's, it's got that kind of softness to it in that
[25:40] sense of adventure and that sense of romance that I just
[25:43] would not have put Michael Mann part of, especially at that
[25:46] point of his career. But I think he just goes in 100%
[25:50] with this opening with them vistas.
[25:52] Brilliant. Just beautifully done.
[25:54] You know, Mel Gibson saw this and went, that's what I'm doing.
[25:57] I'm doing Braveheart, I'm making it longer.
[25:59] I'm making the romance as intense, but I'm taking that
[26:01] away. I'm going to Add all the
[26:02] violence. I'm going to ramp that up and
[26:03] I'm going to have these vistas in a huge soundtrack.
[26:05] I think maybe PR Jackson as well to tell us stuff like that
[26:08] doesn't. It that's me.
[26:09] Second one to reference was Lord of the Rings.
[26:11] It's like the way that opens up, it's fantastic.
[26:13] It's just got such a style to it that people are looking at
[26:16] going, why didn't I think of that, you know?
[26:18] And everyone just started to copy it afterwards.
[26:21] And the thing with Michael Mann is that he loves style, and he
[26:24] always has, but he also loves substance.
[26:27] Yeah, the shoot out from Heat is stylish, but it's also used to
[26:31] teach people how to act within a shooter, how to reload a gun
[26:34] realistically. He loves a bit of research man,
[26:37] doesn't he? Massively, this film is a lovely
[26:39] match of the both of them. It's a lovely marriage between
[26:42] the style and the substance because I feel it's very
[26:44] authentic. You can kind of smell it, you
[26:46] can feel it. It's got a lot of respect to the
[26:48] subject matter. But at the same time, it's got
[26:50] that spin on it, that Michael Mann's spin on it.
[26:53] And we're going to talk about the ending and I'll talk about
[26:55] now because I'll probably just cry, won't talk about the end
[26:57] layer on. So that's fine.
[26:58] I've seen it a million times with, you know, a protagonist
[27:01] get killed and fall off a mountain.
[27:02] Fair enough. But have you ever seen a body
[27:04] slide to be on cast slides at the end?
[27:06] Oh, it freaks me out. That's Michael Mann.
[27:08] Yeah, because you don't need that particular element to
[27:11] happen, but that just slams the emotion home.
[27:14] And that's what I mean about style and substance.
[27:16] That doesn't need to happen. But it's just this sense of
[27:19] tremendous scale. And he's not afraid of the
[27:21] scale. It's almost not big enough for
[27:23] him. I don't think the lenses are
[27:24] wide enough for him. I don't think the screens big
[27:26] enough. But at the same time, it's very
[27:28] intimate. He punches in really close to
[27:30] human relationships, to human struggles, to the history of the
[27:35] whole country and how that was dealt with for everybody.
[27:39] And it just really hits home. You learn a lot from this film
[27:41] and you rent attained and you really moved.
[27:44] It's an incredible achievement. I think it's just pure Michael
[27:47] Mann and I wish he did this a little bit more.
[27:49] Yeah, yeah, me too. Yeah, me too.
[27:51] Well, the film is based on 1826 novel of the same name by James
[27:55] Fennimore Cooper and Man's adaptation is the best known
[27:58] screen version now, but it was far from the first.
[28:01] Yeah, that's right, because before this there were ten other
[28:03] adaptations of the book and the first was the silent film in 19
[28:07] O 9 that was directed by DW Griffith.
[28:10] And then there were two silent adaptations in 1911 and 1920.
[28:14] Yes, mostly known nowadays for The Birth of a Nation.
[28:17] DW Griffith. Yes, regarded as maybe the most
[28:19] racist film ever, so let's not get too much into that.
[28:22] We'll leave that one there. Yeah, that's not going on the
[28:24] Paul. We'll put a discreet veil over
[28:26] that one for now. Yeah.
[28:27] And then between 1920 and Michael Mann, there were seven
[28:30] other adaptations, and the most well known of these came in
[28:33] 1936. Yeah, that one was directed by
[28:35] George B Site and starred Randolph Scott as Hawkeye.
[28:39] Right. Yeah.
[28:39] He became better known as like, a Western star in the 40s,
[28:42] Randolph Scott. He did.
[28:43] Yeah. And in the 70s, Columbia
[28:44] approached Lindsay Anderson, you know, the director of IF.
[28:47] Oh yeah. Yeah.
[28:48] About making a modern version of Last of the Mohicans.
[28:50] But he apparently went. Forget that.
[28:52] How about we adopt the grand bubble on Hotel instead?
[28:54] And then neither of them got made.
[28:56] Fantastic. There's been no adaptation since
[28:59] this one though, right? Not on the big screen.
[29:02] Perfect. So this really is the Last of
[29:03] the Mohicans. I love that.
[29:05] Yeah, yeah. Perfect.
[29:06] That way. The Last of the Last of the
[29:08] Mohicans Let's. Repeat that 10 times and talk
[29:13] about the earlier versions. Michael Mann said he saw the
[29:15] 1936 version when he was three years old.
[29:19] I saw films. I was three years old.
[29:21] I don't remember him, but he said it rattled around his brain
[29:23] for 40 years. He realized that there hadn't
[29:25] been a great historical epic made in a long time, and that
[29:29] last, the Mohicans wins important part of him.
[29:31] So he bought the rights to the novel in 1988.
[29:33] What a nightmare. Then Dances Rules comes out in
[29:35] 1990. Yeah.
[29:36] Bastard. Yeah, of three years old.
[29:38] I can't remember a single thing from being 3.
[29:41] Maybe Taylor from Jason the Argonauts?
[29:43] Yeah, Yeah, that's about it. Yeah.
[29:45] Something like that. So Man developed Mohicans on and
[29:48] off over the next few years and pitched it to Morgan Creek
[29:51] Productions and 20th Century Fox.
[29:53] They liked the idea and had faith in Man after seeing
[29:56] Manhunter and the fact that thought his background meant
[29:58] he'd be able to adapt it from a more modern audience.
[30:02] Yeah, I mean, Manhunt, there was a big flop at the box office, so
[30:04] there must have been hoping to be for more like Miami Vice or
[30:07] something. Yeah.
[30:08] Yeah, poor guy. You know White Blazer loves
[30:09] that. There's bare chest though.
[30:14] But yeah, like you said there, Wesley, Dances with Wolves was
[30:16] huge a couple of years before this.
[30:18] It was. That must have made it an easier
[30:19] self in the studio, I'd imagine. Got to be, Yeah, surely.
[30:22] It must have been more of a positive form than a negative,
[30:24] really. Yeah, Michael Mann already had a
[30:27] reputation for being a perfectionist as a filmmaker,
[30:29] and that carried into Mohicans during filming.
[30:31] Apparently every scene was taken at least 20 takes before man was
[30:35] happy with it. So that guy got scalped 20
[30:37] times. I mean, in the production
[30:41] quickly fell behind schedule. Fox sent an executive to the set
[30:44] whose job was basically just to say to Michael Mann, that's
[30:47] enough Michael. Move on after a certain number
[30:49] of takes. Imagine that job, man.
[30:52] Just one more every time. Yeah, yeah.
[30:54] Imagine having that job in the James Cameron film.
[30:59] Fare worse than death. Yeah, you would get scaled off,
[31:01] James. The release was delayed though
[31:04] with you to come out summer 1992 but the late of September, so
[31:07] maybe the studio were right to be concerned with the schedules.
[31:10] Yeah, yeah. But something the studio didn't
[31:12] have a problem with was Man's commitment to authenticity, and
[31:15] some of the things he did included the main cast and
[31:18] extras who played British soldiers were all trained in
[31:21] historic military combat for three months, and they were
[31:24] trained by a military advisor called DL Die.
[31:26] And some of the cast and crew spent a month in the North
[31:28] Carolina woods before shooting began.
[31:31] He'll die the military guy. Yeah.
[31:33] Is there anything he hasn't done?
[31:34] He's a go to for Hollywood, isn't he for?
[31:36] Everything, yeah. Platoon born the 4th of July.
[31:39] Casualties of war? Saving Private Ryan.
[31:41] Saving Private Ryan. He's written them all.
[31:43] Forrest Gump. He's a cameo as well, I think,
[31:45] doesn't he? But there's nothing here.
[31:47] He wouldn't have fit anyway. Yeah, one of The Who run Big
[31:52] Tash. And the period weapons were all
[31:55] made by specialists. The Tomahawks and knives were
[31:58] all custom made for each character by two expert Blair
[32:01] Smiths called Daniel Winkler and Randall King.
[32:04] Yeah, so Magua tomahawk was an exact replica of a tomahawk the
[32:07] found in the French and Indian War Museum in New York.
[32:09] And you mentioned it Westie, but that close up shot before the
[32:12] 1st battle where Magua dropped his tomahawk ready to use it.
[32:15] Brilliant. Terrifying.
[32:17] Yeah, and then the guns, they were created by three American
[32:20] guns and it's called Herschel and Frank House.
[32:22] Dafde Pedisoli and Wayne Watson in the made over 400 muskets for
[32:27] the production. Yeah, I mean, not that many kind
[32:29] of final guns, far from it. But Hawkeye's rifle, they killed
[32:32] you, it's called. That is a beautiful prop.
[32:35] It's wonderful, isn't it? It is, and you might have
[32:38] noticed there aren't any American accents in the whole
[32:40] film. And this is because in 1757,
[32:43] those accents simply didn't exist at the time.
[32:46] Yeah, of course. No, Yeah, yeah.
[32:47] Nice detail that. It's great detail, although I'm
[32:49] not sure what accent dear Lewis is doing exactly.
[32:52] He sounds part English, part Irish.
[32:54] A little bit, yeah. Throwing some Scottish she'd be
[32:56] Sean Connery. The first costume designer was
[33:01] James Atrizon, but he left early on when he didn't like man's
[33:04] hands on style. Well, I mean, you have to, don't
[33:07] you? He was replaced by Elsa's and
[33:09] Perily and she was responsible for dressing about 800 cast
[33:12] members, Mohicans, Hurons, French and British.
[33:15] The research period clothing, historic documents and paints
[33:18] from museum collections and based their designs on that
[33:21] research. Yeah, we've got a bit more than
[33:23] those paintings in the DP section, which is pretty
[33:25] interesting. Yeah, but also I saw interview
[33:27] with Dear Lewis and he said they were wearing moccasins but they
[33:29] were adapted to the bottom of the shoes.
[33:31] Were like modern trainers with rubber souls, right?
[33:33] Like clocks? Yeah, high techs.
[33:37] Like the verve ocean? Can I see?
[33:41] No wonder resource drift through those trays they like got pair
[33:43] of like Reeboks on. Lovely.
[33:45] Before we finish on Michael Mann, we have an ATRM PH1
[33:48] question, so one of the ever increasing benefits of joining
[33:51] up if you answer your questions on the show and we have one now
[33:54] from Gareth Bin Moore. Hello, Gareth.
[33:56] Hello, Gareth. So Gareth says another bang out
[33:59] of a movie. My question is how does The Last
[34:01] of the Mohicans portray Native American characters and
[34:04] cultures? And does the film challenge or
[34:06] reinforce the stereotypes we often see in Hollywood?
[34:10] Huge question from Gareth. So what are your thoughts, Matt?
[34:14] I think the first thought is stereotypes often do have a
[34:17] grain of truth in them at the very start.
[34:20] And then as well, as he said, do you challenge that or do you
[34:23] reinforce that? And I think I think the first
[34:25] good thing this doesn't obviously it's not the first one
[34:27] to do it, but obviously were far away from Native Americans being
[34:30] portrayed by white men and brown face a horrific relic of the.
[34:34] Past. So it's moved on now,
[34:36] thankfully. But then you do have elements
[34:38] like as well, as he's been saying, when you see someone
[34:40] getting scalped now obviously you might think, well, that's a
[34:42] stereotype, isn't it? But that is how they fought and
[34:44] that is how they killed people back then.
[34:46] So I think what it does is it just gives it more context.
[34:49] And I think it says by saying, you know what, They weren't all
[34:52] one homogeneous tribe. You had various different tribes
[34:55] who wanted different things. And some of them got on well
[34:57] with the colonials. Some of them wanted to fight
[34:59] them. So I kind of feel like I'm
[35:01] sitting on the fence, but I think it was both.
[35:03] I think it does reinforce them, but then it gives more context
[35:06] to the stereotypes which probably just challenge them in
[35:09] the end. Yeah, I'm similar to you, Matt.
[35:11] It's a big question, like Native American representation in
[35:14] Hollywood, and I think Mohicans does this better than most
[35:17] productions of its time, but it is pretty complicated.
[35:20] On the positive side, like we said, man cast actual Native
[35:23] American actors in the major roles.
[35:24] Whistle means Dennis Banks W duty and he gave them strong,
[35:28] complex characters. Yeah.
[35:29] Also, it's not just Cowboys and Indians.
[35:31] Man shows us different drives with different agendas, not just
[35:34] one like it usually get in Hollywood films.
[35:36] And as Muslim said, he was drawn to the film because it showed
[35:39] natives and non natives integrating and working
[35:42] together. Yeah.
[35:42] So that's all great, but it's still at its core.
[35:46] I mean, it's a white savior narrative, isn't it?
[35:48] Yeah. Hawkeye's the hero still the
[35:50] white guy saving the day. And despite the title of
[35:53] character being Ching Gachgook, he calls himself Lost the
[35:55] Mohicans in the final scene. Yeah.
[35:57] Yeah. The film is really about Hawkeye
[35:59] and Cora's romance. The Mohicans are very much
[36:01] secondary. So I'd say to step forward for
[36:03] sure. Sure.
[36:04] Native Americans, actual people who are individuals but still
[36:08] does reinforce some Hollywood tropes that are a bit
[36:10] problematic. I think.
[36:11] So I'd say it's progress, but not perfect, yeah.
[36:16] So I mean, I agree with both of you on certain points, but I've
[36:19] went back to kind of the Hollywood stereotypes and
[36:22] Hollywood depictions that are new because obviously being from
[36:25] where we're from, I'd haven't got a lot to draw on with, you
[36:29] know, Native Americans or Native American history or we're not
[36:32] taught anything about that. Not many people are
[36:34] unfortunately in there should be no, but that's not something
[36:36] that you can kind of delve into unless you have a real interest
[36:39] in it. And you know, it's about 6 years
[36:41] ago I read Bury My Heart, Wounded Knee.
[36:43] Oh. Yeah, great.
[36:44] All right, nice. Open my eyes a lot to kind of
[36:46] the culture and everything that went through.
[36:48] It's incredible book. If you get the chance to read
[36:50] that it really it really does open your eyes.
[36:52] But what I was put into was the John Ford's was the searches,
[36:57] was the John Wayne's was the Comanche that just the absolute
[37:01] savages. There was no explanation
[37:02] whatsoever. Every time they were on screen
[37:05] that was it was just this evil that was portrayed on screen.
[37:10] Fast forward to this, and I think this is a very progressive
[37:12] depiction. I think especially from 92,
[37:14] we're forgetting that this was quite a while ago now, 92, this
[37:17] is quite ahead of its time. And I think what man does is he
[37:20] brings that style to their history as well as the
[37:24] substance. Everything feels authentic.
[37:27] And I would go to this and Dances With Wolves easily over
[37:31] like any John Ford or anything further back.
[37:33] If my kids wanted to know anything about it, I would kind
[37:35] of start here and say, you know, this is safe to say.
[37:39] It has enough respect. I think what people are missing
[37:41] out, the point is that it's more stereotypical of the French and
[37:44] the English of the time, and that's good.
[37:47] If it's honest about that, then it's obviously honest about the
[37:50] Native American side of it as well.
[37:51] So if it's going to portray everything to the point and
[37:54] everything truthfully, I think it does that.
[37:56] What man does is I think he keeps everything on a level.
[37:59] He takes the politics out, but he adds in the emotion.
[38:02] You feel emotional for the people and it makes you want to
[38:04] go away and find out more. And for me, that's always a
[38:06] progressive take on it. So I think for me, this is a win
[38:10] for factual stereotypes that actually work in a positive way.
[38:14] I think it's a real step forward, especially in 92.
[38:17] I think man certainly comes across respectful of the Native
[38:20] Americans. That's what I get from it.
[38:22] It's very respectful, yeah. Well, for his work on The Last
[38:25] of the Mohicans, Michael Mann wasn't nominated for any Oscars.
[38:29] The winner of Best Picture that year?
[38:31] So it's a couple years after Dancers as Wolves, so
[38:35] Schindler's List. 94. I was 94.
[38:38] It was unforgiven. Huge.
[38:41] A worthy winner, as we've talked about we have here, and the
[38:44] other nominees were A Few Good Men, Howard Zen, Scent of a
[38:46] Woman and The Crying Game. I think in retrospect, Mohicans
[38:49] might have been worthy of a nom. Yeah, I think so.
[38:52] Definitely. Yeah, a cheeky nom.
[38:54] Yeah, I think so, yeah. Either way, for us this is
[38:56] Michael Mann bringing his classic attention to detail and
[38:59] intense filmmaking style to the historical epic genre, and
[39:02] mostly succeeding. Very much.
[39:04] Still stands up now for me, so that's a win.
[39:10] The cast. Michael Mann assembled quite the
[39:15] mix of actors for The Last of the Mohicans.
[39:16] We've got Oscar winners, Method Masters, Native American
[39:19] activists and RSC actors all sharing the screen.
[39:23] Yeah, we're going to be talking to you about Madeleine Stewart,
[39:25] Cora Monroe and West Studio is the villainous Magua.
[39:28] But we have to start with the man of the sender, don't we?
[39:31] Oh yeah. We do.
[39:32] So Daniel Day Lewis plays Hawkeye, also known as Nathaniel
[39:35] Paul, a white man adopted and raised by Mohicans.
[39:38] We follow Hawkeye as he guides the Monroe sisters through the
[39:41] war-torn frontier, falls in love with Cora, and ultimately faces
[39:44] off against the Huron in the film's climactic battle.
[39:47] Yeah, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far he will
[39:50] find you, Westie. Good.
[39:52] I mean, not you specifically, but how was Daniel D Lewis as
[39:58] whole guy? I mean, how's Daniel D Lewis as
[40:00] whole guy? I mean, how's Daniel D Lewis in
[40:02] anything? I mean, it's just a silly
[40:03] question, isn't it? He's just absorbed in the role.
[40:06] He disappears into the role as usual.
[40:08] I don't know if this is my favorite performance by him.
[40:11] To me, this feels more like he is leaning on the other guys.
[40:14] It's more of an ensemble kind of thing.
[40:16] They are all part of the group and that group really works
[40:18] because you need that group dynamics so that end and really
[40:21] hits and he's the last person on that end and he's not front and
[40:25] center, he's not leading. In the charge, he's just part of
[40:28] a group and it really works. But Christ Almighty is here yet
[40:31] magnificent lookout on screen. He's just so magnetic.
[40:36] He's just so passionate about every line.
[40:39] He's so passionate about the performance and the way he pours
[40:42] that into this character. I mean, he does it with every
[40:44] character, but I think he's just got such an incredible presence.
[40:49] You can see he's taking the time.
[40:50] There's not a part of him where it, oh, we're going to cut a
[40:52] wide shot. There's a stuntman, you know,
[40:54] everything's like put that on deal.
[40:56] Lewis, 100%. Even stuff he didn't have to do,
[40:58] I would imagine he's doing. I don't know anyone at the time
[41:01] who could have done this because to me it seems very selfless as
[41:05] a performance. I think he's totally given
[41:07] himself to the film. I'd like he does with pretty
[41:09] much every film he's in, to be honest.
[41:11] And that's exactly what he does here.
[41:12] He absolutely elevates all of the material, all of them little
[41:16] quips, you know, like if you know, got anything better to do
[41:18] on what a day if they're trying to get away from the run.
[41:21] It's just that level of realism that he brings to everything,
[41:24] especially here. I don't think it's my favorite
[41:26] performance because it doesn't stand out as much as everything
[41:29] else that he's done. It might be my favorite Daniel
[41:32] Day Lewis as part of a cast. Though he doesn't just run away
[41:35] with it. Yeah.
[41:36] He doesn't. He keeps up with everybody else.
[41:37] He actually lets them two guys run first and he's always
[41:40] behind. Yeah, literally.
[41:41] I literally feel like that's his performance.
[41:43] Everyone else shines. And I'll be honest with you,
[41:45] dear Lewis doesn't really need dialogue in this film.
[41:47] No. Give him 2 lines and he still
[41:49] nails it. Yeah, yeah.
[41:50] That's how good his performance is.
[41:52] Yeah, I mean, not the kind of role you associate with dear
[41:54] Lewis. Really the action star.
[41:56] No, he does. He does it very well.
[41:58] He does that stoic hero thing believably and doesn't look out
[42:01] of place in the action scenes. I mean, knowing them like we do
[42:03] now, I think it's kind of fascinating watching D Lewis in
[42:06] the kind of role you'd normally see, like a a Tom Cruise or a
[42:09] Mel Gibson. Yeah.
[42:10] Yeah. We've just seen DDL as Christy
[42:12] Brown or Daniel Plainview. Like intense character studies.
[42:14] Yeah. But here, sprinting through
[42:16] forests, he's diving through waterfalls, He's romancing the
[42:18] leading lady, and he makes it work.
[42:21] I think that might be the keyword.
[42:22] He made it work. Yeah.
[42:23] I'm not sure it came naturally. It was.
[42:25] There was like, Shia commitment as always.
[42:27] Yeah. And we'll talk about his method,
[42:29] Madison, a bit. But while, like is how he plays
[42:31] Hawkeye's kind of dual nature. He can track you through the
[42:34] forest with the lads, but he can also seduce the most beautiful
[42:37] woman in the world at the Fort. And I believe both sides of it.
[42:40] Yeah. And I think it's just chemistry
[42:41] with the cast member that kind of brings it all together.
[42:44] He sizzles with Store as Cora. Yeah.
[42:46] He works for what Russell means as Ching Gachkook.
[42:48] He bounces off Steve Wallington as Big Dunk.
[42:50] So he drives the whole film as a great lead performer does.
[42:53] So yeah, I think he's excellent. Yeah, it's definitely his
[42:56] fastest character he's ever played.
[42:57] All of the other ones are a slightest.
[42:59] Yeah, yeah, this is the fastest. One he's ever played.
[43:03] I think it disappears. A truly great actor can make
[43:05] anything work if they really commit to it.
[43:07] And you know, I'm just going to borrow.
[43:09] Wesley's ready because he is magnetic here.
[43:12] You just can't take your eyes off him.
[43:13] And the one thing you're always going to get with Dale Lewis's
[43:17] authenticity and research. And when I'm watching him as
[43:20] Hawkeye, there's no doubt in my mind this is the lifestyle this
[43:23] man has been brought up in. When he's running and he's
[43:25] loading his rifle with gunpowder at the same time and he doesn't
[43:28] break stride. How to think?
[43:31] Of course he can do that. Yeah, of course he can.
[43:33] When he's thrown himself into action with rifles and daggers
[43:36] and axes again, I'm just completely convinced by that.
[43:39] And then when it's not the action, and I think we're all
[43:41] seeing this, when you see the man underneath that car Will
[43:44] falls in love with again, completely convinced by that as
[43:47] well. And I know Tom Cruise has
[43:49] cornered the market on running in films lately, but sorry, he's
[43:52] got nothing on Daniel de Lucy. Yeah.
[43:55] When he takes off, he's like using Bolt.
[43:57] I mean, he's just so compelling. He's so authentic.
[44:00] And in a couple of episodes time we're going to be talking about
[44:02] Lord of the Rings. And when my talk about day lose
[44:06] because I believe he was in the fame for Aragon at one point.
[44:09] And you watch this and you go, yeah, I can see why Peter
[44:11] Jackson went to this performance straight off and thought he'd be
[44:15] good. Aragon.
[44:17] Yeah, Michael Mann said that he wanted to cast de Lewis as
[44:20] Hawkeye after seeing him in My Left Foot, where he won an
[44:22] Oscar. Man knew he wanted the actor who
[44:24] played Hawkeye to do a lot of training, and My Left Foot
[44:27] showed how Dear Lewis was able to commit to a rule.
[44:29] Dear Lewis wasn't keen on the part at first, but said he
[44:32] changed his mind when he read the script.
[44:33] The Deer Hunt open and drew him in and he said he'd do it.
[44:37] Can't blame for that. No, not at all.
[44:38] But the idea was said that he didn't read the book until after
[44:40] I read the script, which was a good thing because he said if he
[44:43] read the book first he wouldn't have taken the part, right?
[44:45] Because whole guy in the books like a white supremacist
[44:47] apparently. All right.
[44:49] Wow, always like bragging about how there's not a drop of Native
[44:51] American blood in his veins. So sounds like a nice fella.
[44:55] And as we all know, Dillu is known for going to extremes in
[44:58] preparation for his roles, and this one was no different.
[45:01] So he went through a lot of weapons training, starting with
[45:03] modern firearms and then working back to muskets.
[45:06] And he also lived in the North Carolina forest, hunting and
[45:09] fishing and living off the land for a few months before
[45:11] shooting. A few months, a few.
[45:14] Months. Just do it for a week.
[45:16] A week's fine. I saw an interview with man
[45:19] where he said if Daniel didn't shoot I'd drop anything.
[45:21] He didn't eat nuts. Daniel Boone.
[45:27] The specific thing he trained in was firing his rifle while
[45:31] running. He was trained by a historical
[45:33] reenactor called Mark Baker how to reload a flintock rifle while
[45:37] run. This is something from tears
[45:38] meant at the time had to train specifically how to do as it was
[45:41] so difficult and we see Hawkeye do it in the film.
[45:44] Yeah, he does it in the opening C in the DA Hunt, so look out
[45:47] for that. Also, apparently at the time the
[45:49] film was made, there were only three people in the world
[45:52] capable of reloading A flintlock rifle while running.
[45:54] Yeah, and one of them was Daniel Dale Lewis.
[45:58] One of the other ones was made. And the custom director was
[46:04] Bonnie Timmerman, and she said whether Dale Lewis was running,
[46:08] eating or making love, it didn't matter.
[46:10] He was always in character and after the shoot he said he had a
[46:13] hard time shaking the character and suffered hallucinations and
[46:16] claustrophobia because he wasn't used to being endorsed so much.
[46:19] Wow. Yeah, I mean, that's probably
[46:21] why you only did one film every few years, the prep and then
[46:24] like the D acclimatizing afterwards probably took longer
[46:27] than the shoot, definitely, but also making a living character.
[46:30] Yeah, sounds like she might be giving away too much there,
[46:32] Bonnie. I'll.
[46:33] Take her word for that. Of his performance as Hawkeye,
[46:37] Daniel D Lewis, receiving the Oscar nomination winner that
[46:40] year was Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman.
[46:42] Right. Yeah, yeah.
[46:43] But for us, this is Daniel D Lewis, proving you can do action
[46:46] hero as convincingly as he does, well, everything else.
[46:49] Everything else he's ever done yet?
[46:50] Yep. Moving on from our male to
[46:54] female lead and Madeleine Store plays Core on Monroe, the elder
[46:58] daughter of Colonel Monroe. Grey hair to his enemies.
[47:01] Yeah, we follow Cora. She rejects the safe choice in
[47:04] Duncan, falls for Hawkeye and shows kindness and courage
[47:07] aplenty as she navigates the frontier wall.
[47:10] Yeah, she's better looking than Jack Winthrop, that's what.
[47:14] She. Always did.
[47:15] How was Madeline store and Cora? I mean, Madeline still in this
[47:19] film is just unapologetically beautiful.
[47:22] She really is. Florida State Beautiful like an
[47:26] oil painting beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it.
[47:28] Doesn't even matter how she's lit like it really doesn't
[47:32] matter like Michael Mann just but look at any frame and just
[47:34] be like that just really works. Just fill the frame with her
[47:37] face. But even in wide shots, just a
[47:39] whole presence really works. And she sells this character of,
[47:43] you know, the protector. And she has a real maternal kind
[47:46] of instinct, but also this kind of misspent youth.
[47:49] You feel like she spent a lot of her time looking after Alice.
[47:51] You get all that back story, and she brings all of that without
[47:54] any dialogue whatsoever. There's a real regret and a real
[47:57] weight that she brings to the character, especially just
[47:59] talking to Duncan at the start. It's like, this isn't the place
[48:02] I need to be. It's not a place I want to be.
[48:03] And she's always looking for a way out, but she's always trying
[48:06] to do the right thing. I mean, when she get to the Fort
[48:08] and she immediately just turns into a nurse and just starts
[48:11] helping people. Yeah, but it's not a pretentious
[48:13] nature. She's not like out of place
[48:15] doing it. She doesn't get squeamish by it.
[48:17] And I think Madeline Snow plays this with a real ferocity.
[48:20] Oh yeah, She is beat for beat with dear Lewis that you can
[48:23] understand them to fall in love with each other totally on a
[48:26] parallel. Not because of he feels sorry
[48:28] for her or she's completely taken by him and he's he's going
[48:32] to protect her forever. You can see them just like on a
[48:34] level, and I would like to see another cutter this way.
[48:37] You know, the stand at the end and they're looking out at the
[48:39] Vista, but instead of cutting to the credits, she's running
[48:41] through the forest. She's got a fucking headband on.
[48:43] And there's a big rifle and she's in the front and she's
[48:46] like whipping it over and shooting the deer.
[48:48] And he's like, yes. And she's the last of them all.
[48:50] He can get out of your face. You could kind of maybe see
[48:54] that. Not to that degree, but you can
[48:56] see a fitting in and that she's not out of place anywhere.
[48:59] Oh, yeah. Her rule is not to be where she
[49:02] is, and I think she plays it really well.
[49:04] Like I say, our character has conviction, she has confidence,
[49:07] she has the look, she has the style.
[49:09] Every single thing that she does, every kind of single hit
[49:12] that she plays is perfect. It really does work for the
[49:15] character. It's it's of the time, it's of
[49:17] the period, but at the same time, it does have a very kind
[49:20] of positive female message and that's just not going to be
[49:23] fucked about. She's not going to be messed
[49:24] with. She can stand up for herself and
[49:26] I really like that, bringing that sensibility to it and she
[49:28] really does bring that. She does for sure, like a part
[49:32] romance film, obviously, and that's where most the coral
[49:34] scenes come. But she's not just some please
[49:36] save me damsel in distress. No, I think she's a great
[49:39] character. She's like, strong and soft.
[49:41] She's tough and romantic. And Madeline Store definitely
[49:44] has acting shops to pull off the dramatic scenes that she gets.
[49:47] And there's a few. But I think her best moment
[49:49] might come when Cora's arguing with Duncan and her father and
[49:52] she shouts, I know exactly what I'm saying.
[49:54] And if it's sedition, I'm guilty of sedition, too.
[49:56] Yeah. Great delivery always, I think,
[49:58] but especially there. Yeah.
[50:00] And she has a quite a lot of the film really.
[50:02] She's the emotional center. She's the person whose journey
[50:04] we're following from British lady to frontier survivor.
[50:08] She's probably the character we relate to most.
[50:10] I mean, unless you spend a few months in the woods and she
[50:13] makes that pretty big arc, like believable.
[50:16] I think what works well and that I like is the Core as
[50:19] intelligent. She's probably the most
[50:21] intelligent person in the film. She sees right through big
[50:24] dunks, nonsense in the first act, she challenges her father.
[50:26] She recognizes what Hawkeye is immediately.
[50:29] And like you're saying, Wesley, that attraction between Core and
[50:31] Hawkeye works so well because she's is equal.
[50:34] Yeah, but she does have action to do as well.
[50:36] Running through the forest and there was massive period
[50:38] costumes going to be an easy no. And she's like a lady who wasn't
[50:41] afraid to get a hands dirty, which is pretty classic stuff.
[50:44] I think Core was one of the best examples of that kind of
[50:46] character. And I think Madeleine Store is
[50:48] really, really good in the part, Yeah.
[50:50] And I don't know if this is related either, but I mean 1993
[50:53] we had that massive series which was Doctor Quinn, Medicine woman
[50:56] with GNC more. And Oh yeah, yeah, I remember.
[50:58] That and I feel like this is a massive influence on that kind
[51:01] of character. I think she plays very much into
[51:04] this exam, exactly what Cora's character is.
[51:05] Yeah. Yeah, it's around about that
[51:07] same time. They hear that as well, wasn't
[51:08] it? Yeah, it was massive.
[51:10] I think there's a real balance in that team because with Cora,
[51:13] on one hand, you have to be realistic to the time in the
[51:16] setting and who Cora is. And the fact is back then, women
[51:19] would be taking a backseat you in a war.
[51:21] People like Cora and Alice, they would be protected and shielded,
[51:25] so you can't have Car just charge and interaction like
[51:28] Kevin Knightley in Pirates Caribbean, because that would
[51:30] just destroy the realism. But on the other hand, you want
[51:33] Car to have agency as a character, not just be a damsel
[51:36] in distress. And I think they get that
[51:37] balance spot on because yes, she's out for comfort zone here,
[51:41] but she adapts very quickly and she's just so resourceful.
[51:44] She immediately realizes that Hawkeye knows what he's talking
[51:47] about because this is his territory.
[51:49] And so she mainly sought to defer to his authority rather
[51:53] than Duncan. I say she sees straight through
[51:54] him. And she learned some Hawkeye saw
[51:57] doing the the ambush. We're going to talk about later
[51:59] when she picks up that gun and shoots the hue on Rory with one
[52:02] shot. I totally believe she's smart
[52:05] and brave enough to do that class.
[52:06] That could be really cheesy. It could have been a cliche, but
[52:09] it's not totally by that moment. And the scene you've talked
[52:12] about, John, when she stands up for Hawkeye to her father, it's
[52:15] so powerful because I believe she's brave enough to do that.
[52:18] Yeah. And so much of that is down the
[52:20] store. And I think she's great in this
[52:22] and her hair almost as magnificent as DDLS.
[52:25] You're not wrong. Almost.
[52:28] Almost been knocked by it. Yeah, she doesn't wash it in a
[52:31] waterfall. You can tell he definitely uses
[52:34] Timothy. Well, the casting of Madeleine
[52:38] Store wasn't a formality. Some pretty big names were
[52:40] concerned to play a Cora. Andy McDowell was 1.
[52:44] OK, right, could see her. She likes a good reigning scene,
[52:46] so she'd been good into that waterfall.
[52:48] She. Does.
[52:48] Yeah, she does, yeah. Kim Rave was screen tested and
[52:51] apparently the part was turned down by two very big names and
[52:54] Jodie Foster and Sigourney Weaver.
[52:57] Wow. Right.
[52:58] Weaver would have kicked Mag Razzas up and down the Hudson
[53:00] River. And she initially said she
[53:04] wasn't interested in the film at 1st until a man told her to read
[53:08] the script as a love story, not an action film.
[53:10] And then she was cast after auditioning and making it
[53:13] through the screen testing process.
[53:15] And Man said she embodied the intelligence and passion he
[53:17] wanted for the role. And actually, in 1978, Store had
[53:20] appeared in ATV movie called The DA Slayer, which is also based
[53:24] in a James Fenny Mark Cooper novel about Hawkeye.
[53:27] And she said that meant she had an understanding of what that
[53:29] world was like going into the auditions.
[53:32] Which you can tell, I think she fits into the period pretty
[53:35] seamlessly, doesn't she? Yeah.
[53:36] Yeah, reader is a romance. No, it's an action.
[53:39] For what do you do? Just blast the soundtrack
[53:41] through a letter book? Wouldn't put it past Michael
[53:46] Mud. The store said she didn't tell
[53:49] Daniel D Lewis why Cora fell in love with whole guy and asked
[53:52] him not to tell her why all guy fell in love for Cora.
[53:56] She said she wanted it to feel natural and not rational, which
[53:59] definitely comes across. Yeah, animal attraction, isn't
[54:02] it? Good looking girl, good looking
[54:03] guy straight in there. But.
[54:05] It does work really well despite there not being much at all
[54:08] explaining the bond between them.
[54:09] I totally believe it. Yeah, just moments, isn't it?
[54:13] Kind of like what you're looking at.
[54:14] I'm looking at you, miss. What a line.
[54:16] Fantastic, right? But try doing that.
[54:20] If you're not Daniel de Lewis. If you're not Daniel De Lewis,
[54:22] you are getting arrested. And behind the scenes store and
[54:29] De Lewis said they got on really well and were often playing
[54:31] practical jokes with each other. It started off the food fights
[54:35] and apparently peaked when De Lewis in the chauffeur staged a
[54:38] car crash whereby stalwart stumble Bond Daniel De Lewis all
[54:41] bloodied in the wreckage. Mid fall maybe.
[54:43] Probably traumatized. That I don't know.
[54:46] Do you think? Again, I'm not sure how much the
[54:50] off screen plays a part, but there's definite chemistry
[54:52] between them I think isn't. There real chemistry, yeah.
[54:54] Yeah, I mean, if De Lewis is going to play a joke like that,
[54:56] he would have just crashed it for real.
[54:58] He probably did. He's in the hospital for six
[55:00] months just for a joke. Well, as with the rest of the
[55:04] cast, Madeleine Store received no major award recognition for A
[55:07] Workers Cora, but for us providing the emotional heart of
[55:10] the film and holding her own opposite D Lewis.
[55:12] Yeah, very good stuff from Madeleine Store.
[55:15] Oh, fantastic stuff, yeah. She's great.
[55:19] That's all good guy and a good girl.
[55:21] And now we're going to talk the villain of the piece in West
[55:23] Duty as Magua, a Who run warrior he was.
[55:26] Quest for vengeance drives the film's conflict.
[55:28] We see Magua as he infiltrates the British ranks, pursues the
[55:31] Monroe sisters and kills on gas before meeting his own maker at
[55:35] the hands of Chinga Chkook. Yeah, Magua's heart is twisted.
[55:39] According to Hawkeye Westy, it is.
[55:41] But how was W Duty as The Who Run war leader?
[55:44] He's perfect for me. Yeah, he's fucking excellent.
[55:48] Because he's terrifying. Yeah, he's filled with hate and
[55:53] vengeance and fire. Yeah, And this absolute need for
[55:57] bloodthirsty carnage. Yeah.
[55:59] And you can see it written all over his face.
[56:02] You don't know where he's been. You don't know what he's done.
[56:04] You don't know what you've seen. But you're quite aware that it's
[56:06] horrendous and he wears that all the way through.
[56:10] Like everyone around him is shit scared of him.
[56:13] He moves through his whole crew of everybody, the whole war
[56:16] party and everyone's out of his way.
[56:19] And Wes Doody just brings this 100%.
[56:22] I mean, it should be really quite cringe when he's talking
[56:26] about himself in the third person, but you realize that
[56:29] he's just completely detached from reality.
[56:31] He's completely detached from who he is and he's living as
[56:35] this kind of like Ghost or most of his former self.
[56:38] But the way he sells, I mean, some of these lines are just
[56:40] incredible. He just ignores everything
[56:43] that's going on. That's like where studies just
[56:44] ignoring the script, like he's got to kill Gray hair and these
[56:48] two daughters. That's it.
[56:50] And he's just not fazed by anything else that's going on.
[56:53] He brings a darkness to the screen.
[56:55] Whenever he's on the screen, it's just a shadow that's just
[56:58] cast over the audience. He's incredibly, incredibly
[57:02] terrifying. And I'm so surprised that W Duty
[57:05] didn't get more horror rules off this to me.
[57:07] I mean, he has such range here and he's very, very exciting to
[57:11] watch again and again because no matter what you think of this
[57:14] film, that is a villain and it's a really good villain and it's a
[57:18] really well played villain and it's not one I've seen before
[57:21] and I very much doubt it's going to be what I'm going to say
[57:23] after. Tell you what though, hates the
[57:25] Gray hair, doesn't he? He fucking hates a man.
[57:29] Furious about the grey hair. I mean, Monroe's men killed
[57:32] Magua's family, so it's fair enough.
[57:34] That is fair enough. But the French captain goes, so
[57:36] why did you hear the grey hair so much?
[57:37] And then he goes, when the grey hair is dead, Magua is going to
[57:40] cut his heart out, meet his heart.
[57:41] And then he's going to bring his children to the knives so that
[57:42] his seed is gone from the earth forever.
[57:44] And the guys like, well, yeah, that's cool, but why do you?
[57:48] I'm going to start putting myself in the third person like
[57:51] W, He's going to do this. Yeah, but going after our poor
[57:54] core analysis and justice, and that's where you can't have
[57:57] sympathy for him. No.
[57:58] So as a villain, he's nicely written, Hardly anything we
[58:00] haven't seen before Vengeance. But it does work.
[58:03] I do love how he talks about himself in the third person.
[58:05] Fucking great. Magua said understand English
[58:07] very well, so that's a nice touch in the writing.
[58:10] But the thing that elevates them for me is where Studi playing
[58:12] him. Yeah.
[58:13] I think his biggest dramatic moment maybe comes in that scene
[58:16] where Magua explains himself to Montcalm, the French general.
[58:19] He gives us the back story why he wants vengeance.
[58:21] Studi is excellent. And for a moment, you to feel
[58:24] for Magua. There's more there than just,
[58:26] like, bad guy. Yeah.
[58:27] And just the way he carries himself.
[58:29] I feel this constant tension that he could unleash at any
[58:31] minute. Yeah.
[58:32] But he's also calculating his intelligence.
[58:34] His great villains usually are. He fools the English at the
[58:36] start by getting behind their lines.
[58:38] Seems to have Montcalm wrapped around his finger as well.
[58:41] Yeah. So really good bad guy.
[58:43] And I think W Duty is massively memorable playing him.
[58:46] Yeah. Definitely.
[58:47] Just a great, great villain. I mean, he never seems to come
[58:51] up on the lists of great cinematic villains.
[58:53] He doesn't, and I've no idea why he brings so much to this.
[58:57] I'm constantly tense whenever he's in the same because the
[58:59] brilliant thing about him is he's playing.
[59:01] Everyone fulfills. He's playing up that dumb native
[59:04] trope because he knows that's all anyone thinks he is.
[59:07] And by playing that up, he can get himself in exactly the
[59:10] position he wants to be, which is Neil Munro completely plays
[59:13] the British fools. Yes, he's a bit more honest with
[59:17] the French, but Even so, he's still using them to get him on
[59:19] RAW. He's not working for them by any
[59:21] stretch of the imagination. And every threat he issues, you
[59:25] fully believe he's capable of doing it.
[59:27] You know, you fully believe he's going to take out Monroe's art,
[59:29] which he obviously goes and does.
[59:31] So you're completely in fear for Cora and Alice if he does get
[59:34] hold of them. But I think what elevates them
[59:37] for me is that as much as he's terrifying and an absolute
[59:39] bastard, and you've touched on a drunk, there's a tiny, tiny part
[59:43] of me understands where he's coming from because only this is
[59:46] his land that's been invaded and being taken over by the British
[59:49] and French and they've killed his family, You know,
[59:51] colonialism. It's one of the great stance on
[59:53] human history. And obviously he takes his
[59:55] revenge to horrific extremes. But a little part of me just
[59:59] goes, I see where he's coming from.
[1:00:02] Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think a big part of it
[1:00:04] is because he just looks so great as Magua.
[1:00:06] Oh, he's got his great villains face, doesn't he?
[1:00:08] He does that. Fantastic.
[1:00:10] Yeah. And when they punch in closer,
[1:00:11] it's just. Yeah, great.
[1:00:13] But I mean, he makes his question Elmo's motives, because
[1:00:16] that's the only one I can think about, talks in the third person
[1:00:18] about themselves. What do you really want, Elmo?
[1:00:21] Ask Elmo what you think to the grey hair.
[1:00:23] You might change character. Elmo doesn't like to grab a beat
[1:00:25] his heart. What the fuck?
[1:00:28] So as we mentioned a few Times Now, Dancers with Wolves have
[1:00:31] been released in 1990 and had won seven Oscars.
[1:00:34] And that was also a film set on the American frontier and
[1:00:36] featured a tribe of Native Americans where one of the
[1:00:39] attackers was played by West Studi.
[1:00:41] And man wanted somebody who could talk the Huron language
[1:00:43] believably to play Magua, so had studio audition until he won the
[1:00:46] role. Yeah, kind of supporting
[1:00:48] antagonist to the main villain, so nice career progression
[1:00:51] there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:00:52] And man did cast him in Heat as well, didn't he?
[1:00:53] He did, yes. He's one of the LA cops.
[1:00:56] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:00:57] Tomahawk into his desk, probably.
[1:01:00] Like Russell Means, where Studio had been an activist before he
[1:01:03] became an actor, he was also at the Wounded Knee incident and
[1:01:06] was arrested. It was the late 80s when he
[1:01:08] turned out. Yeah, he also been in the doors
[1:01:11] as and this is the character name in the credits as the
[1:01:14] Indian in the desert. All right, OK, not Wayne's will
[1:01:18] too. Didn't reprise the role for
[1:01:19] Wayne's will. Too and.
[1:01:23] It wasn't just the activists. In total manhide about 900
[1:01:27] Native American actors from all over the US to play extras.
[1:01:31] And another bit of authenticity around Magua is that his face
[1:01:33] tattoo wasn't an original design.
[1:01:35] It was based on a famous painting called The Death of
[1:01:38] General Wolf by Benjamin West in The painting depicts the death
[1:01:42] out of an American general when Iroquois warrior watches him die
[1:01:45] and he has face markings the same as Mike was.
[1:01:48] Yeah, 1770. That painting is from the Battle
[1:01:51] of Quebec it's based on, right? I love it when directors take
[1:01:54] from paintings. Oh, it's brilliant, yeah.
[1:01:56] Mine does that quite a lot, doesn't he?
[1:01:57] Yeah, yeah. And we'll be talking about
[1:01:59] another example or two in this film as well coming up.
[1:02:02] Yeah, yeah. Where Stewie didn't receive any
[1:02:04] Oscars recognition for his work as Magwa bought in creating a
[1:02:07] memorable villain one of the stand outs in the film for us.
[1:02:11] Really underrated I think. Yeah, massively.
[1:02:13] So. That's our main cast.
[1:02:14] Daniel De Lewis going full method as Hawkeye, Madeline
[1:02:17] Store providing the heart as Cora, and Wes Doody creating a
[1:02:20] great vengeful villain in Magwa. Yeah, some whiter cast members
[1:02:23] were mentioned as well. And a roster that brings both
[1:02:26] authenticity and movie star power, which I think is what man
[1:02:29] was probably going for. That's exactly what he's going
[1:02:31] for and he nailed it and. That's what he gets.
[1:02:36] The middle. Heading into the middle of the
[1:02:41] Last of the Mohicans and we arrive at Fort William Henry
[1:02:43] where relationships deepen and we see the brutality of 18th
[1:02:46] century warfare. Yep, we're going to look at the
[1:02:49] massacre that follows the Fort. Surrender, obviously, but first
[1:02:52] it's life at the Fort. It is.
[1:02:54] So our party arrives at Fort William Henry to find it under
[1:02:57] siege by the French. Inside, tensions rise as Colonel
[1:03:00] Monroe, played by Morris Roves, refuses to release the colonial
[1:03:04] militia despite their promises. And romance blooms between our
[1:03:07] leading man and lady. Yeah.
[1:03:09] Yes. Mortars and trenches, Westie.
[1:03:10] Yeah. How is it all working for you?
[1:03:12] I mean, there's a lot going on here, isn't it, when they first
[1:03:14] arrived? I think that wide shot is
[1:03:18] fantastic. Lighten up the sky, then red
[1:03:22] flashes, there's smoke everywhere.
[1:03:24] It's all just so well done. And you can just be like, well,
[1:03:27] this is dandy. Espionage all over because this
[1:03:29] Fort is red, orange, dangerous from that wide shot.
[1:03:34] We're thinking that's where they're going.
[1:03:36] Yeah, great. Let's just go there then.
[1:03:39] Fantastic. You've got that incredible kind
[1:03:42] of tracking shorts or it's a Dolly shot where it's just
[1:03:44] coming across and you see in this the scale of everything
[1:03:47] that's going on. It kind of reminds of the start
[1:03:49] of Gladiator, but it's in the dark.
[1:03:51] It's quite reminiscent Spartacus as well.
[1:03:53] Then battle scenes where there's always something happening, no
[1:03:55] matter where the cameras looking away, you're looking, there's
[1:03:57] always something going on and it's so well planned out and
[1:04:00] it's so well blocked. But we're not in the action.
[1:04:04] This isn't our fight. This is more an observation of
[1:04:06] what's going on. Yeah, it's almost like we're
[1:04:08] skirting past it because the way the camera moves.
[1:04:11] It's some seed to have in the background, isn't it?
[1:04:13] Exactly. It just feels like, oh, this is
[1:04:15] happening. Just have a look at that if you
[1:04:16] want to. It's not that important.
[1:04:19] Yeah, Because you could just have them flashes from outside
[1:04:21] and have them arrive at the boat and see a couple of bits of
[1:04:23] cannon fire and they're trying to dig the trenches.
[1:04:25] That's fine. You don't need these massive
[1:04:27] sweeping vistas of like the depth in the frame with all
[1:04:30] these people happening. You don't need them.
[1:04:31] But when you see them, you definitely want them.
[1:04:34] Oh, yeah, You're just absolutely.
[1:04:35] Pardon. It gives us like, you know, how
[1:04:37] terrifying it must have been that you're going to siege that
[1:04:39] Fort, that you have to go in front of it and put up wooden
[1:04:43] fences basically and dig a trench.
[1:04:45] It's just absolute madness. But you get what's going on and
[1:04:48] how close they are and how determined both sides or want to
[1:04:51] defend and want to attack. And we're moving around the side
[1:04:54] of it. We're not going through it.
[1:04:56] And that's what man does with this.
[1:04:58] It's not our fight. We're not part of it, but we
[1:05:00] soon will be. Yeah, I mean, it does look
[1:05:03] massive, the siege, doesn't it? Yeah, there is a great tracking
[1:05:05] shot when we first get to the Fort, which moves across the
[1:05:07] whole battalion set and shows us how big it is.
[1:05:10] Brilliant. Reminds me of Past the Glory,
[1:05:12] the tracking shots in No Man's Land.
[1:05:14] Yeah. Oh yeah.
[1:05:15] Yeah. And I know that historians have
[1:05:16] said this is one of the most accurate 18th century battles
[1:05:19] ever put on film, The way the French battlements are like
[1:05:21] built on a slope to deflect the mortar fire.
[1:05:23] It's realistic, apparently. So they've definitely done their
[1:05:26] homework, which is great. But love as well how Manchu was
[1:05:28] inside the Fort. Is this like kind of pressure
[1:05:31] cooker? Everyone's trapped, the walls
[1:05:33] are getting pounded and inside people are really starting to
[1:05:35] like crack and still managed to get some romance going in the
[1:05:39] middle of it all. The old dog.
[1:05:41] That's the best place for it. The heart of the storm.
[1:05:45] Yeah, fire everywhere. Yeah, and then they're in the
[1:05:48] Fort and you get the culmination of the love triangle.
[1:05:51] And I just think, Oh my God, what is it going to take for
[1:05:54] Duncan to take the hint here? CEO interested in him.
[1:05:58] She's already fogged him off once.
[1:05:59] He's flat out lied about the bodies at the farm to screw
[1:06:02] Hawkeye over, who's basically saved the lives of the past.
[1:06:05] However many days have been on this journey and he's trying to
[1:06:08] get in there again. What an absolute idiot.
[1:06:11] Because at this point now, I mean, it's so clear now we've
[1:06:14] talked about, but that chemistry between Cora and Hawkeye, I
[1:06:17] mean, you talk about a relationship on screen that's
[1:06:20] born out of smoldering glances and body language around each
[1:06:24] other. And does she a chemistry?
[1:06:25] And that is absolutely these two.
[1:06:27] I mean, fair play, of course. She knows exactly who she wants
[1:06:30] and she doesn't shy away from getting them.
[1:06:32] But I'm just glad that Michael Mann shows some restrain to you,
[1:06:35] because if you look at Manhunt, if you look at Heat later on,
[1:06:38] there's some very cringey sex scenes he does, which are very
[1:06:41] overdone. And I'm so glad we don't get
[1:06:43] that. Hey, it's just done with real
[1:06:45] sensitivity. You know, once they embrace,
[1:06:47] it's just that cut to Cora in Hawkeye's arms, where they're
[1:06:50] just lit on that one side by the orange that is so effective.
[1:06:54] That tells you everything about those two and the chemistry
[1:06:57] between them. It's just radiating off screen.
[1:06:59] Yeah, it's wonderful. I mean, Hawkeye's in character,
[1:07:01] isn't he? It's not allowed to be cheesy.
[1:07:04] Yeah, exactly. I mean Cora finally putting
[1:07:07] Duncan out of his misery like the doggy is.
[1:07:09] Yeah, yeah. And thank God, yeah.
[1:07:11] He takes it about as well as he'd expect, gets hysterical.
[1:07:13] Not well, yeah. Not well at all.
[1:07:15] But that moment in the barracks between Hawkeye and Cora, What
[1:07:18] are you looking at, Sir? I'm looking at you, miss.
[1:07:20] Absolutely massive. Yeah.
[1:07:22] It is massive. It's some lingering look that on
[1:07:24] the back of it, Cora dumps Duncan Hawkeye, abandons his
[1:07:27] men, and then the steam straight in there.
[1:07:30] There's no other words but I buy it, DL Lewis install, make it
[1:07:34] work and in the love scene it touched that like as well.
[1:07:37] Is that the love theme is playing obviously, but it's
[1:07:39] diegetic. The band in the Fort are playing
[1:07:41] it so the characters can hear it as well, which is nice.
[1:07:43] Yes, that's right. Yeah.
[1:07:45] But it works really well. It feels like a proper classic
[1:07:47] movie romance to me, which I think is surely what man's going
[1:07:50] for. Definitely 100%.
[1:07:52] And the seeds of Fort William Henry that we see, that was a
[1:07:55] real historical event during the French and Indian War.
[1:07:58] The French forces were led by Louis Joseph de Montcalm, who
[1:08:01] was seen in the film, and the siege resulted in the British
[1:08:04] surrendering and then being massacred as the left default
[1:08:06] like in the film. Right.
[1:08:08] Spot that's not not got to that bit yet, sorry.
[1:08:10] Yeah. I'm the one that massively
[1:08:12] criticized when Hollywood moves away from the truth for dramatic
[1:08:15] purposes. But it's also a good when you
[1:08:16] know the events you're watching are kind of close to how that
[1:08:19] happened as well. Yeah.
[1:08:20] The real thought was destroyed by the French immediately after
[1:08:23] the British left in 1757, but a full size replica was built on
[1:08:26] the same site in the 1950s and it's still there today.
[1:08:29] Well. Man said that wasn't suitable to
[1:08:32] film. A full size replica was built in
[1:08:34] 1950 and that's not suitable. Not good enough.
[1:08:38] Not good enough well to be faced.
[1:08:41] The area wasn't isolated enough, so the set about recreating the
[1:08:44] Fort as a set. Yeah, just didn't tell the
[1:08:47] studio about the replica that was already built.
[1:08:49] Never heard of it. Got to build our own.
[1:08:50] Sorry, yeah. Sorry, it's done now.
[1:08:55] So they built the set on the show of Lake James in North
[1:08:57] Carolina, and they managed to get the hands on the real plants
[1:09:01] and specifications that were drawn up for the Fort in the
[1:09:03] base, the set on those plans. Nice.
[1:09:05] Wow. 1755. The Fort was built originally
[1:09:08] for those plans were almost 250 years old.
[1:09:10] Wow. He loves it, man, doesn't he?
[1:09:13] Of course he absolutely does. He loves it.
[1:09:15] I love that he loves it, of course.
[1:09:16] Yeah, it. Wasn't even in the script until
[1:09:18] he saw the plans. And the Fort was built at full
[1:09:24] scale, taken about two months. It was built using timber taken
[1:09:27] from the local forests and the set had bastions, log,
[1:09:30] Palisades, barracks and the parade ground, just like the
[1:09:33] real Fort. Wow. $6 million it cost to build
[1:09:36] that set and were there like what, half an hour, yeah.
[1:09:39] I don't remember seeing the parade grounds, I'll say that
[1:09:41] much. Colonel is played by Morris
[1:09:43] Rhodes, the Scottish actor. The real Monroe never married
[1:09:46] and didn't have children and he was Irish, not Scottish.
[1:09:49] And the first person offered the part was Brian Cox, but he
[1:09:52] turned it down. Imagine him in the Fort.
[1:09:54] I fucking love it in here. Fucking love it.
[1:10:00] Yeah, meeting Monroe's crucial as well, and Morris Rhodes I
[1:10:02] think plays him really well, like gruff Scotsman.
[1:10:05] Yeah, he's good. Yeah.
[1:10:06] He's really good. I mean, if he was Irish though,
[1:10:07] they could have got Connery in there.
[1:10:08] He loves an Irish accent. That would have been great.
[1:10:10] For like a couple of scenes before he ditches it, obviously.
[1:10:13] And the scene where the Courier runs from the four to get
[1:10:15] reinforcements and the Hawkeye covers them with his rifle,
[1:10:18] That's also based on reality. In the real Seeds, Monroe did
[1:10:21] send 3 curries to General Webb at Fort Edward asking for
[1:10:24] reinforcements and Webb sent letter backs.
[1:10:26] And no, he should surrender instead.
[1:10:29] Thanks. Yeah, but nice election scene
[1:10:33] that isn't it when Hawkeye protected the runner.
[1:10:35] I think it's really well shot that's.
[1:10:36] Great. Yeah, so the siege obviously was
[1:10:39] shot over a few nights. Man wanted the cannon fire to be
[1:10:41] realistic and leave trails of smoke behind when they fired.
[1:10:45] So the painted basketballs black and fired them from the cannons
[1:10:48] should have like baskets at the other side. 6,000,000 you can
[1:10:51] get a couple of them surely. Jordan just slam dunk and
[1:10:55] there's a well known anecdote that after one long night of
[1:10:57] shooting, man got so furious and yelled at the crew to turn out
[1:11:02] that large light and the crew member said that's the sun,
[1:11:05] Michael. Don't care, get rid of it.
[1:11:09] Ruining the shot. Get us a flag right now.
[1:11:11] Scribb it out. The Canon fire does look great
[1:11:14] though, with those massive plumes of smoke we get.
[1:11:16] Yeah, that's how it really looks apparently at the time.
[1:11:18] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:11:19] That's related. And that is Fort William Henry.
[1:11:21] Spectacular warfare, blossoming romance and tensions rising.
[1:11:25] But the real devastation is about to come.
[1:11:28] Oh yeah. Oh.
[1:11:31] From the siege, we moved to the most brutal sequence in the
[1:11:34] film. Montcalm offers terms, Monroe
[1:11:36] accepts and the British March out afford William Henry.
[1:11:39] Mike was not having it though. Definitely not under who run
[1:11:41] attack, massacring the British line.
[1:11:43] Yeah, it's all going wrong. Matt.
[1:11:45] How was it all play out for you? I mean, you can feel the
[1:11:48] exhaustion in the British when the court will accept those
[1:11:51] terms or discuss the terms, but it's really funny when Monroe
[1:11:54] and Montcalm come face to face for the first time because
[1:11:57] Montcalm gives that incredibly flamboyant bow when he takes his
[1:12:01] hat off. He really does.
[1:12:03] And Monroe? Just takes his head off and then
[1:12:04] just nod to them it. Reminds me of Pepe Le Pew when
[1:12:07] he does. Like Christophe Waltz would be
[1:12:11] amazing than that. Oh.
[1:12:12] He would really be an incredible It's like, sorry, we're British,
[1:12:14] we don't do any of that nonsense.
[1:12:16] We are proper blocks. An odd will do.
[1:12:18] We don't Make Love with with faces.
[1:12:20] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[1:12:22] I think it's just the madness of war summed up here though,
[1:12:25] because they spent however many days trying to blow each other
[1:12:27] to pieces and now they're trying to act like gentlemen.
[1:12:30] And you can see Margaret is seething at this, like Monroe's
[1:12:35] in his sight and he wants bloodshed.
[1:12:37] I mean, we know what he wants to do to him, but he's having to
[1:12:39] watch this like charade play out in front of him and said, but
[1:12:42] Duncan is almost as bad. Like when they find out Web has
[1:12:45] told them to surrender, Web can burn in hell and we'll go back
[1:12:48] and dig our graves behind those ramparts.
[1:12:51] It's like, calm down mate. All right, man.
[1:12:53] You've got an out here, you should take it.
[1:12:55] So I think the scene and moves the narrative along nicely.
[1:12:58] Really great visual. Obviously involved the British
[1:13:00] leave in the Fort, but it feels like quite a cut in scene as
[1:13:03] well as like point out the ridiculous nature of it all.
[1:13:06] Yeah, I think Duncan lying to Monroe earlier about the
[1:13:08] frontier attacks comes back to horn everyone, because if Monroe
[1:13:11] known the truth, you might make different decisions.
[1:13:14] Yeah, and he surely wouldn't March his people out into a
[1:13:16] likely ambush like he's about to.
[1:13:18] Oh God no. Well done, Doug.
[1:13:19] Yeah, Duncan, go nuts. I think he'll say Duncan good
[1:13:23] you there. I don't know who that is.
[1:13:28] The terms Montcalm gives to Monroe are very close to the
[1:13:31] ones given in real life, though not exactly right.
[1:13:34] They were allowed to March out of thought, unharmed by the
[1:13:36] French troop in their colours, but they weren't allowed to keep
[1:13:39] their weapons that had one cannon and that was all.
[1:13:42] Yeah, I mean, Monroe is not happy, but to be honest, I think
[1:13:44] the terms that Montcalm gives them are more than generous.
[1:13:46] It's pretty good. March out with full on us.
[1:13:48] Keep your weapons. Which is mad.
[1:13:50] Yeah. And safe passage to Albany.
[1:13:52] I don't know why he's complaining about no.
[1:13:54] When they leave the Fort, they've still got the weapons.
[1:13:57] False sense of security, I think.
[1:13:58] Yeah, just a bit. And then they come to this kind
[1:14:01] of clear, and it's an incredible wide shot because we just see
[1:14:04] them so small in this landscape, but they're surrounded by these
[1:14:07] tree lines either side. And we've seen that before in a
[1:14:10] smaller ambush and earlier on in the film.
[1:14:12] And this is just exactly the same thing, just on a much
[1:14:15] larger scale. And when you hear them cries
[1:14:18] from the inside of the trees and you just think a whole guy, he's
[1:14:21] in chains, like, what's he supposed to do?
[1:14:23] How is this going to work? And just to add the tension, add
[1:14:26] to the realism, and just to add to the sense of dread, Man just
[1:14:29] leaves the score off. Yeah, great.
[1:14:32] For the start of this and all the muskets just start firing
[1:14:35] and it's just pandemonium. It is chaos.
[1:14:37] Just absolutely fly into the and start hacking everyone to pieces
[1:14:41] left, right and centre. And then thankfully, just the
[1:14:44] right time, the music starts, kind of creep back and you're
[1:14:47] like, oh, OK. And then you see the chains hit
[1:14:50] the ground, you see the lads all together.
[1:14:52] He's got his rifle back. Then they're going for it.
[1:14:55] And from that moment on, this is an absolute joy of an action
[1:14:58] sequence. It's an absolute joy of a
[1:15:00] romance sequence. Yeah, it's absolute joy of a
[1:15:02] thriller. It's just got all of these
[1:15:05] elements to it which really, really work.
[1:15:07] And man's going right. What have I got in my toolbox
[1:15:10] here to make this work? And he uses as much as possible.
[1:15:12] He uses tracking shots, he uses handheld shots.
[1:15:15] He's got slow motion in here. He's got character reveals from
[1:15:18] nowhere, He's got close-ups, he's got stunt work.
[1:15:22] Everything works. But from the moment when he
[1:15:24] comes out of nowhere and he grabs Alice's face and Cora
[1:15:27] straight in and you see, I just scream my name and you know he's
[1:15:32] shouting. Cora just falls to her knees and
[1:15:34] there's the nice to her through. It's just an incredibly
[1:15:37] brilliant action sequence and a build attention.
[1:15:40] And like I said earlier, when he actually connects that Tom Hawk,
[1:15:43] that guys face. I'm not an advocate of violence,
[1:15:46] but fucking yes man. It's wonderful because the
[1:15:51] sounds perfect and he stands up. There's that like wide shot
[1:15:55] where the both in there and he turns and faces Cora and the
[1:15:58] music just swells. Great.
[1:16:00] Oh, when the embrace? Brilliant.
[1:16:02] And it's just, and it's just incredibly powerful.
[1:16:05] It's just like, wow. Yeah, that moment there.
[1:16:08] Embrace. To do that without it being
[1:16:10] cheesy but modern sensibilities is really hard I think, but he
[1:16:13] pulls off. Really hard.
[1:16:14] And to be surrounded by what's going on.
[1:16:16] Yeah. And for them to just focus on
[1:16:18] each other and not think, well, you're in the middle of a
[1:16:19] massacre. This is unrealistic.
[1:16:21] Exactly. It really works because it feels
[1:16:23] like a dream sequence almost. Yeah.
[1:16:25] And they see the canoes and then say, right, we're going to
[1:16:27] finally get away. But from that moment, like the
[1:16:29] never, ever free from that moment, they're always on the
[1:16:32] run. From that moment, you never,
[1:16:33] ever know how this is going to play out.
[1:16:35] But that whole massacre sequence, from that wide shot to
[1:16:38] that embrace, that's an incredible 6 or 7 minutes.
[1:16:42] It really. Is of Michael Mann, and he's
[1:16:43] very, very best. That white shot that starts it
[1:16:46] all off, It shows the trailer about to walk down huge trees
[1:16:49] either side. Yeah, it's like, don't go down
[1:16:51] there. You know, these guys love hiding
[1:16:53] in the bushes. They love it.
[1:16:55] Sitting ducks. Well, she could go just.
[1:16:58] Go round, just go round. Don't go through go between
[1:17:01] about you crazy. Well, it's great how we get the
[1:17:05] shot of The Who run in the trees, creeping along with the
[1:17:08] party. I love how all starts so
[1:17:10] quietly. Just one guy comes running out
[1:17:11] with this tomahawk. Yeah.
[1:17:12] And they can't tell what's going on at the other end of the line.
[1:17:15] And then total chaos, the war cries and the gunfire and
[1:17:17] people, like, running everywhere.
[1:17:19] I mean, it's horrific. It's terrifying but great film
[1:17:22] making. Oh yeah, fantastic stuff, I
[1:17:23] think. This is maybe the first time the
[1:17:25] two sides of the film and the action and the romance really
[1:17:27] come together. Yeah.
[1:17:28] Core does get a moment. I like it when she blows that
[1:17:30] who run away right between the eyes.
[1:17:32] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:17:33] And Hawkeye spreading up the battle.
[1:17:34] Only interest in getting the core.
[1:17:36] That's great. And then when he gets there and
[1:17:38] that who run has he hits him with about five death blows,
[1:17:42] he's dead dead. Yeah, yeah.
[1:17:44] But I mean, we've seen this before, characters trying to
[1:17:46] save people in the middle of a big battle, and it sometimes
[1:17:49] doesn't work because it's just like abandoning all their
[1:17:51] principles. But yeah, Hawkeye has no
[1:17:53] allegiance to either side, so it makes total sense he'd make a
[1:17:56] byline for Cora. And the way it's shot, like wide
[1:17:59] shots and slow motion handheld cameras, the smoke everywhere, I
[1:18:03] think it's fantastic. It's one of my favorite ever
[1:18:05] battle scenes I think. Yeah, yeah, it's great.
[1:18:07] Yeah, just completely agree. I mean, incredible build up us
[1:18:10] have set, the lack of music, just the fleeting glimpses we
[1:18:13] can see if the Hurons in the trees.
[1:18:15] And to go from those isolated attacks with no way of knowing
[1:18:19] where they're going to come from next and then the whooping
[1:18:21] started feels very Zulu to me, like the first attacks in that
[1:18:24] film. Yeah.
[1:18:25] And then they break the lines because of the British response
[1:18:28] is so clumsy and the Huron are just running riot.
[1:18:31] Magua does exactly what he said he was going to do to Monroe,
[1:18:34] which is horrific. Everyone's getting slaughtered.
[1:18:37] But it is that one where you see one of them grab Cora, and then
[1:18:40] that cut to that slow MO of Hawkeye just charging through
[1:18:43] everyone to rescue A, wiping out the Huron left, right and center
[1:18:48] just to get there. It's so exciting.
[1:18:50] And then they're in the canoes, but they're still being pursued.
[1:18:53] But you've got Duncan still banging on about Hawkeye.
[1:18:56] I'll have you hanged. I know.
[1:18:58] Like shut up. Piss off, Duncan.
[1:19:00] Bigger things going on here, but then they have to go over the
[1:19:03] Rapids. I mean, this whole sequence,
[1:19:05] it's just one of the most purely thrilling scenes you'll ever
[1:19:08] see. I mean, we'll talk about the
[1:19:09] influence of the film later, but so many films of this nature or
[1:19:13] huge debt just to this one scene in particular, it's incredible
[1:19:16] stuff. Oh yeah, I think you're right.
[1:19:18] Yeah. I mean from the wide shot to the
[1:19:19] canoes. That is the equivalent of trying
[1:19:21] to get a taxi through the big market on a Saturday.
[1:19:25] Westie with this flintlock. Just trying to find the business
[1:19:29] and get a fucking canoe over the time.
[1:19:33] So the 4th William Henry massacre is something that did
[1:19:36] actually happen, but there are changes as well.
[1:19:38] The Horans attacked the people at the back of the line, and the
[1:19:41] people at the front didn't actually know what was happening
[1:19:42] until they arrived at Fort Edward.
[1:19:45] Yeah, So James Fennimore Cooper, he wrote his book, and it was
[1:19:47] about 50 years after the actual events, right.
[1:19:50] And apparently, he based his research on report from the
[1:19:52] 1750s. And they've been written to,
[1:19:54] like, sensationalize what happened to stir resentment
[1:19:57] against the French in The Who runs, right?
[1:19:59] Right. So tell you what, I'm glad that
[1:20:00] doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, thank God.
[1:20:02] They've died in the bud, didn't we?
[1:20:04] Yeah, yeah. Which was civilized, yeah.
[1:20:06] Definitely. So some specifics about what
[1:20:08] they changed in the film that Maguire gets his revenge on
[1:20:11] Monroe by cutting out as hard as we've just seen.
[1:20:14] But in reality, Monroe didn't die at the musket.
[1:20:16] He made it to Albany but died three months later after an
[1:20:19] epileptic seizure. That shot where Magua holds up
[1:20:22] his heart, Absolutely brutal. Yeah, yeah.
[1:20:26] I don't think it's beating at the time, but it's like one step
[1:20:28] away from it. It's not far off as that load's
[1:20:30] trickling down his arm, which is really cool.
[1:20:32] It's nearly Templar doing but not.
[1:20:33] Quite. It's nearly template.
[1:20:34] It doesn't catch fire. No, that's the only thing I'm
[1:20:38] not sure. And the reason the Hurons
[1:20:41] attacked the British wasn't through revenge, it was because
[1:20:44] there were few years with the deal Montcalm had struck with
[1:20:46] the British, because usually after a battle the Huron would
[1:20:49] plunder things to take back to their villages, but Montcalm
[1:20:52] still meant they couldn't do that.
[1:20:53] Right. Yes, of what I read, that's how
[1:20:56] it started. The Who 1 was just trying to
[1:20:58] take things off the British and when some objectors it got a bit
[1:21:00] out of hand to say the least. But like the estimated death
[1:21:04] rates are anywhere between 70 and 1500, so no one really is
[1:21:08] certain kind of what happened. I don't care.
[1:21:10] It's a big jump, that is. Yeah, just a bit.
[1:21:13] And most inaccurate of all is there is an unfortunate shot
[1:21:17] during the battle of a crew member holding a blue cap and
[1:21:20] screaming into a megaphone. And apparently, that's Michael
[1:21:22] Waxman, the assistant director. Right.
[1:21:25] Crazy. Don't worry about the sun.
[1:21:27] Get this guy out of the way. But also the Mohicans and the
[1:21:32] Monroe was get away. Who runs canoes.
[1:21:33] Like I said, he what follows them as a battle still going on.
[1:21:36] Surely that's desertion. Yeah, so he shouts a whole guy.
[1:21:39] I'll have you hanged. Yeah, surely he's the one
[1:21:41] getting the news. It must be.
[1:21:43] Yeah, good point. Yeah.
[1:21:44] And that's the middle act of The Last of the Mohicans.
[1:21:46] From the spectacular siege of Ford William Henry to the
[1:21:49] horrific Mass together follows it.
[1:21:50] Manchu was both sides of frontier conflict, and it's not
[1:21:53] over yet. No, not by a long stretch.
[1:21:59] The crew. Michael, meticulous man, was all
[1:22:04] over The Last of the Mohicans, as we've been talking about, and
[1:22:07] that included working with his wider crew.
[1:22:09] So we're going to be getting into some of those people now.
[1:22:11] Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman as composers, the two of them,
[1:22:14] and Dante Espinati as director of photography, is another.
[1:22:17] But we're going to begin with the screenplay.
[1:22:20] Yes. So they are two credited
[1:22:22] screenwriters on The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann himself
[1:22:25] and Christopher Crow. Man had three previous screen
[1:22:28] writing credits, Thief, The Keep, and Manhunter, all of
[1:22:31] which yours were directed. Christopher Crow had writing
[1:22:34] credits on five features before this, which were The Last Chase,
[1:22:37] Nightmares, The Mean Season, Off Limits and Whispers in the Dark.
[1:22:40] All those. Right.
[1:22:41] Which all have titles like episodes of The X-Files, so I'm
[1:22:44] going to watch them. Yes they do.
[1:22:46] Was he just writing for The X-Files?
[1:22:50] He was mostly known for his work in TV though, which is how man
[1:22:52] knew him and why he brought him in.
[1:22:54] He had to help with the writing workload.
[1:22:55] Right, OK. So 2 writers taking on a
[1:22:58] famously dense novel. Matt, how did they do with the
[1:23:02] screenplay? It feels like the work of people
[1:23:06] who really understand the book, but also understand what they
[1:23:10] need to change to make it work on screen for a different
[1:23:13] audience. Yeah.
[1:23:14] That would translate it properly.
[1:23:15] They could have got so lost with this.
[1:23:17] Yeah, it's really interesting, for example, what we said about
[1:23:20] Madeline Stoke being told read. It is a love story, not an
[1:23:23] action film. Yeah, because they bring out
[1:23:25] those two elements really well in the script.
[1:23:27] It clarifies all the information and audience needs about the
[1:23:30] time period. You understand the British point
[1:23:33] of view, the French point of view, and the Native American
[1:23:36] point of view. But more than that, it makes you
[1:23:38] understand the different point of views from the different
[1:23:41] Native American communities. It doesn't just portray them as
[1:23:44] a homogeneous mass. They've got their own
[1:23:47] perspective on these events, and it also balances that with a
[1:23:50] modern day perspective. We understand who he was on why
[1:23:53] they appeal to us, but it doesn't underplay the fact that
[1:23:56] this is all taking place on land that's been stolen from its
[1:23:59] people. So there's a lot of
[1:24:01] perspectives. The writings got to make clear
[1:24:03] perspectives that were from a very different era.
[1:24:06] And there's a balance not going on here between an epic action
[1:24:09] film and a love story. And I think the writing is very,
[1:24:12] very concise and crystal clear and what it wants to do.
[1:24:16] Yeah, I love that overall concept, making it love story
[1:24:19] every bit as much as like action film.
[1:24:21] And it lends itself to that visually, just with the period.
[1:24:24] You see the sisters in the long dresses and the hats in the
[1:24:26] first act, it's kind of reminiscent of like Jane Austen
[1:24:29] style romance or something. Yeah, just need Colin first to
[1:24:32] show up. But then other side of the coin,
[1:24:34] there's hearts being cut out and people being burned at the
[1:24:36] stake. So just making that all work
[1:24:38] together I think is impressive. And what Man and Crow did really
[1:24:41] well, I think was strip the novel down to, like, it's bare
[1:24:44] bones. I mean, I've not read it, but by
[1:24:46] all accounts I've seen the book is.
[1:24:48] It's a slog, apparently. Yeah.
[1:24:50] Someone's like James Fanny more. Cooper's one of those authors
[1:24:53] who writes like he's being paid by the word a bit.
[1:24:55] Yeah. But buried in there is this
[1:24:57] great story of, like, survival and love and revenge.
[1:25:01] And that's what the focus on. So they'd made smart changes.
[1:25:04] We'll talk about what some of them were, surely.
[1:25:05] But the shift of the narrative a bit, the focus on different
[1:25:07] characters that change the relationships between some
[1:25:09] characters. Monroe dying in the massacre,
[1:25:12] like we said. So the streamline it, make it
[1:25:14] more personal and all of it works.
[1:25:16] I think the dialogue's handled really well too.
[1:25:18] It feels like period appropriate, but without being
[1:25:21] too stagy. Yeah.
[1:25:22] I mean, stay alive no matter what occurs.
[1:25:24] I will find you. That's theatrical as hell,
[1:25:26] obviously, but it works in that moment.
[1:25:28] Totally. So great setting, great story.
[1:25:31] Only thing I would say is I'm not sure the writing takes full
[1:25:33] advantage of it in some ways. I think how it looks like
[1:25:36] locations, the design work does quite a lot of heavy lifting.
[1:25:40] I think there's some storylines are given short shrift to say
[1:25:43] the least, which I think has an impact towards the end, so I'll
[1:25:45] talk about it then. But in terms of the plot points,
[1:25:48] it is just a bloody good story set in a fascinating time in
[1:25:51] place and that is executed really well and carries us
[1:25:54] through it, I think. Yeah.
[1:25:55] Yeah, I have a feeling this screenplay would have been just
[1:25:59] as substantial as the novel. I think when they'd finished it,
[1:26:01] this would have been about a 400 pager.
[1:26:04] It could be easy, yeah. I would imagine it was and there
[1:26:07] would have been a lot of themes running through.
[1:26:08] I know the amount of times that he had had to recut this, the
[1:26:10] amount of times that they went over time, over the budget.
[1:26:13] I think man's put everything into this and Crows put
[1:26:16] everything into this as a screenplay.
[1:26:18] But for me, looking at the finished film and then looking
[1:26:21] at what the screenplay could have been, I think there's a lot
[1:26:23] missing from the finished film. There's a lot of elements here
[1:26:26] where man just expects you to understand the characters.
[1:26:32] There's no real back story. There's just a little bit
[1:26:33] touched here and there. He expects you to understand the
[1:26:36] period, understand what happens, understand the convictions,
[1:26:39] understand the French versus the English, and then, you know, the
[1:26:42] Native Americans and how they reacted to everything.
[1:26:44] He kind of expects you to understand what's happening in
[1:26:46] it and then places and kind of an action love story in the
[1:26:49] middle of that. You can tell that from the
[1:26:51] opening blurb of like, you know, three men of running through the
[1:26:53] forest. Basically come and have a look.
[1:26:55] You know, it's kind of where it starts.
[1:26:58] And I think a lot of this is visual, a lot of it is down to
[1:27:02] Spinati and it's down to man style that he brings to the
[1:27:04] film. And I think that's the whole
[1:27:05] point of the screenplay. I think there would have been
[1:27:07] loads in there, but again, it felt like a work in progress.
[1:27:11] I don't feel like this was written and they're going to
[1:27:13] have to stick to it like a Coen Brothers script.
[1:27:14] We're going to have to stick to this, to the letter.
[1:27:16] I think there was room to move things around.
[1:27:18] But a lot of this, I think I would love to read this
[1:27:21] screenplay in its original format because I think there
[1:27:23] would be a lot in here that has been left out of the finished
[1:27:26] film. I'm not sure.
[1:27:27] The novel was massive, apparently.
[1:27:29] So yeah, there would have to be, I think.
[1:27:30] Yeah, it would have been a huge screenplay.
[1:27:32] And then in terms of his research, Man said that he read
[1:27:35] the book and took the major plot points and characters from it,
[1:27:38] but was more influenced by the 1936 film by George B Seitz.
[1:27:42] And he said he wanted to know what life was really like in
[1:27:45] Albany, NY, in 1750 when the film was set.
[1:27:48] And he came across the diary of Louis Antoine de Bougainville,
[1:27:52] who was a French writer. And he had served at the Ford,
[1:27:54] William Henry Seeds and MASCA. And he took a lot from that to
[1:27:57] create the world and societies we see.
[1:28:00] Right, yeah, you said that book could have been written like 3
[1:28:02] weeks ago. It was all for the sarcasm and
[1:28:05] like modern wit and pretty similar to how things are now.
[1:28:08] OK, But he was more interested in the differences so LED into
[1:28:11] that, right? Lacrosse being one of them,
[1:28:13] presumably. Yeah, yeah.
[1:28:14] And so in the scene where we talked about the French and
[1:28:17] British discussing terms, the letter from General Webb to
[1:28:20] Colonel Monroe is read out by a French officer called Capitan de
[1:28:24] Bougonville, a reference to Louis Antoin de Bougonville.
[1:28:27] Nice reference that. Yeah.
[1:28:29] Apparently those Diaries focused quite a bit on American colonial
[1:28:32] families who were living, like, all out alone on the frontiers.
[1:28:35] And that's where the idea of the cameras came from, Right.
[1:28:37] So and all that's kind of real world weight, I think.
[1:28:40] Yeah. And man was also influenced by
[1:28:43] the writings of Francis Parkman. And he was a Harvard historian
[1:28:46] who in the 1860s wrote about the French and Indian War.
[1:28:50] And he actually walked the path to Fort William Henry.
[1:28:52] He met people who were in their 70s who had been told stories by
[1:28:55] their own parents and grandparents, so therefore first
[1:28:58] hand accounts to the war and he took a lot from that about the
[1:29:01] relationship between the French and Indians being tense and
[1:29:04] having to be tightly managed by the French.
[1:29:06] And Francis Partman, there's an award named after him called the
[1:29:08] Francis Partman Prize, which is awarded to the best book in
[1:29:12] American history every year. All right, so credible source
[1:29:14] for man it seems like. Yeah, Man's research included
[1:29:18] diving into the cultures of Native American tribes, and not
[1:29:20] just the Mohicans. He included elements from the
[1:29:22] Iroquois as well. He said he had a free love kind
[1:29:25] of environment. This is where he got the idea
[1:29:27] for this. I'm looking at you Miss
[1:29:28] Sequence. Free love.
[1:29:30] Free love. The 1750s were swinging,
[1:29:32] apparently. Free love on the Free Love
[1:29:33] Freeway. Hendricks in there.
[1:29:37] Imagine on the doobies. And as we mentioned, man made
[1:29:42] quite a lot of changes from the novel by Cooper, and some of
[1:29:44] these changes are in the novel. It's uncast, not Hawkeye, who
[1:29:48] has the relationship with Cora, but it's very subtle.
[1:29:51] Man switched this to Hawkeye, presumably as he thought Western
[1:29:54] audiences might identify more with Hawkeye.
[1:29:57] Yeah, and hence the white saviour criticisms, I think.
[1:30:00] Yeah, yeah. But yeah, quite a lot of big
[1:30:02] changes from the page to screen wasn't there.
[1:30:04] Yeah, and Hawkeye was inspired by a real American Frontiers
[1:30:07] man, Daniel Boone, which is why his real name is Nathaniel.
[1:30:11] He's called Nathaniel Bumpo in the book and man changed that to
[1:30:14] Nathaniel Poor for the film. Yeah, he said.
[1:30:17] They thought Natty Bumper, which is what the column in the book,
[1:30:20] would have, got laughs from the audience, so he changed it.
[1:30:22] Definitely would. God damn that seriously?
[1:30:25] There he comes, Natty Bumble. And at the end of the film,
[1:30:31] Sachem, the tribe leader refers to Cora as the dark child of
[1:30:34] Monroe, and this is because in the book Cora was the daughter
[1:30:37] of Monroe and the black woman. So it was therefore mixed race.
[1:30:40] Right. Yeah, I mean, it works because
[1:30:42] Madeline stores like a brunette, but not quite the same thing, is
[1:30:45] it? Not really, no.
[1:30:47] And in the book, it's not Hawkeye who was in love with
[1:30:49] Cora, it's Magua. Right.
[1:30:51] That'll be weird based on what we get.
[1:30:52] Yeah, that's really where you'd imagine his lingering looks.
[1:30:55] Oh God no. The book sounds totally
[1:30:58] different in this life. Yeah, yeah.
[1:31:00] And in the book, Heywood is an American colonist who joined the
[1:31:03] British Army, and he, Monroe and Alice all survive until the end
[1:31:07] of the story, whereas they all die in the film.
[1:31:10] And in the book Cora is actually Kildo.
[1:31:13] Yeah, in the book, Big Dunk has a thing with Alice, and they end
[1:31:16] up together, right. So I thought he was going wrong.
[1:31:18] Yeah. He went for the wrong sister.
[1:31:20] Yeah. For their work on adopting The
[1:31:22] Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann and Christopher Crowe
[1:31:25] weren't nominated for any screenplay awards.
[1:31:27] But for us, in taking what's been critiqued as a not great
[1:31:30] novel in some ways and turning it into a lean, well researched
[1:31:33] narrative. Some impressive screen writing
[1:31:35] here. Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
[1:31:37] Yeah, really good. Like I say, I'd love to read the
[1:31:39] actual first draft of it. I think it'll be very, very
[1:31:41] interesting. It would.
[1:31:45] We're diving deep into the music now, and the composers on The
[1:31:48] Last of the Mohicans were Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman.
[1:31:51] Jones had written for 22 films before this, including The Dark
[1:31:54] Crystal Labyrinth, Mississippi Burning and Arachnophobia.
[1:31:58] Nice, did he do dance magic dance or was that just Bowie?
[1:32:03] Edelman had 16 future credits, including Twins, Ghostbusters 2,
[1:32:07] Kindergarten Cop, My Cousin Vinny and Beethoven.
[1:32:10] Right. So an eclectic filmography to
[1:32:13] this point, Matt, How did Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman do with
[1:32:17] the music? I mean, none of those films give
[1:32:19] you any clue as to how good this is going to.
[1:32:21] Sound No. You would think what the issue
[1:32:23] would Stephanie, those guys. Imagine this in Beethoven.
[1:32:26] Exactly. Yeah.
[1:32:28] I mean, this is just wonderful. It's majestic, it's emotional,
[1:32:31] it's exciting, it's romantic, it's sweeps.
[1:32:33] He belong with the visuals. It enriches every action scene,
[1:32:37] every theme for every character. Just sounds correct.
[1:32:40] Like, I'll go back to what I said about the top, this film
[1:32:42] being underappreciated. I think that's true of every
[1:32:45] element, but definitely the squad.
[1:32:46] I don't think it gets the Cudus that James Horner gets for
[1:32:49] Braveheart, for example, but it should because it's just so
[1:32:52] packed. And as soon as you hate this,
[1:32:54] you'll be home it for days after.
[1:32:56] You know, scenes like the Promontory, which we'll talk
[1:32:57] about and like he ever done the dishes and had this one in the
[1:33:01] background. It just makes it epic.
[1:33:03] You'll get like the housework done so quickly.
[1:33:05] Just listen to this. Smashing them.
[1:33:07] I buy new ones. Fucking.
[1:33:10] Exactly. Yeah, just gets you really
[1:33:12] pumped up for it. I just think it's incredible
[1:33:14] stuff. And I tell you, who else loves
[1:33:15] this? Tristan Howe?
[1:33:16] It's because I think his soundtrack for First Man takes a
[1:33:20] lot from this, right? Yeah, yeah.
[1:33:22] If you go back, listen to the piece, I'll just the moon
[1:33:23] landing that's really, really influenced by this.
[1:33:26] But yeah, love it. Yeah, I think when you talk to
[1:33:28] anyone about The Last of the Mohicans, one of the first
[1:33:30] things that comes up is the music, mostly that main theme.
[1:33:34] But it's not just that. We hear music, like, almost
[1:33:36] constantly, and it's always helping with the tone.
[1:33:38] And the world building is this blend of like 18th century
[1:33:42] period music and almost modern Celtic music, it seems like.
[1:33:46] I mean, why Scottish folk music is playing over colonial
[1:33:48] America, I'm not sure. But it captures that sense of,
[1:33:50] like, romanticism that we get all the way through.
[1:33:53] In fact, I think the music is a key part of that.
[1:33:55] But yeah, it is the main title theme that people usually talk
[1:33:58] about, and for good reason. It's absolutely massive.
[1:34:01] Yeah. Right from the start, the score
[1:34:03] builds with that back story titles that we talked about.
[1:34:05] And then when it kicks in, we get the logo, The Last of the
[1:34:07] Mohicans, huge on the screen. It's crazy.
[1:34:11] But what I love is how kind of following the narrative
[1:34:13] structure. There's two main themes, the big
[1:34:15] action one and the softer romance one.
[1:34:18] And what works really well is that they're both based off the
[1:34:20] same piece of music. The romantic piece is the melody
[1:34:23] and the action pieces, like the harmony.
[1:34:24] Yeah. So in a film that's part love
[1:34:26] story, part action epic, if you had two very distinct themes, it
[1:34:29] might be a bit divisive maybe. But that link, I think, is one
[1:34:32] of the things that helps bring everything together.
[1:34:34] Yeah. And when the music does come
[1:34:36] together, like in the climax, we're going to talk about when
[1:34:38] we hear the romance theme and the action theme at the same
[1:34:41] time. Oh yeah, I mean, get out.
[1:34:42] Who's not liking that? Forget about it the first time I
[1:34:45] had The Beatles, because the love and the action are harmony
[1:34:50] together on the inside. The upper third.
[1:34:52] Yeah, they are. It sits perfectly well.
[1:34:54] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:34:54] I mean, the music is the film, isn't it?
[1:34:56] For me, yeah, it is so, so important.
[1:34:59] It's almost up there with like Star Wars and how it turns it
[1:35:03] into this absolute epic because the shots are great.
[1:35:06] Yeah. But to have the melody go the
[1:35:09] same speed as the camera pan. Yeah.
[1:35:11] When they're running and you have the and it's the same beat
[1:35:14] as the steps, it just integrates so well into the whole tapestry
[1:35:19] of the film. But this is so noticeable as
[1:35:22] well as doing that like it really stands.
[1:35:24] It was like a spotlight on the music.
[1:35:26] You know you're listening to it. Oh yeah.
[1:35:28] But at the same time, it's not taking you out of the film.
[1:35:31] This is 2 separate things. Then visuals and that music, but
[1:35:35] the way that the layered and the way that they put on top of each
[1:35:37] other, it's two different flavors, but they work so well
[1:35:40] when you get through them and they just melt together.
[1:35:42] Yeah. I can't even think of half of
[1:35:45] these sequences without that music.
[1:35:48] Yeah. Like this just picks it up and
[1:35:50] just puts it in the spotlight. It doesn't just whisper.
[1:35:52] This is what you're watching. It screams like this is romantic
[1:35:56] house book cry. I mean, if you're watching this
[1:36:01] and all you're watching is words, like you said, the main
[1:36:04] titles comes up, it fills the screen and you get.
[1:36:09] If you don't like that, just turn it off because that's what
[1:36:14] you're in for for the next two hours.
[1:36:16] You really are. That is, it's unabashedly,
[1:36:19] brilliantly done, and it's so on the nose that I want to get
[1:36:23] punched in the face over and over and over again.
[1:36:25] I love it. I really love it.
[1:36:27] It on the nose, the romance is on the nose.
[1:36:29] Of course it is, but it all kind of works.
[1:36:31] But it's that on the nose that I want it to be.
[1:36:33] I want to be like head butted by it.
[1:36:35] The music really, really, really reinforces that.
[1:36:38] It absolutely does. And Man said he hired Trevor
[1:36:40] Jones to write the score because of his reputation for writing
[1:36:44] epic, sweeping scores on films like Excalibur and The Dark
[1:36:47] Crystal. But the main theme actually came
[1:36:49] from Man's wife, Summer. They were struggling to come up
[1:36:52] with a melody for the main theme, and Summer told Man to
[1:36:55] listen to The Gale, which is a modern Scottish folk piece of
[1:36:58] music written by Dougie McLean in 1990.
[1:37:00] Man listened to it, loved it at the studio, licensed it and then
[1:37:04] gave it to Trevor Jones to adapt for the film.
[1:37:07] Yes, that's the GAIL Gael, if anyone wants to listen to it.
[1:37:10] Yeah, it is both the main theme from the film, basically, and
[1:37:13] the guy playing the fiddle on there, the main melody for the
[1:37:15] Love theme. That's Alistair Fraser, like a
[1:37:17] renowned Scottish musician, right?
[1:37:19] I mean, you pay for the best, you kind of get the best, don't
[1:37:22] you? Yeah.
[1:37:22] Absolutely. When the film's release was
[1:37:24] moved from summer 1992 to September, Man realized he
[1:37:28] needed some new pieces of music written for the score.
[1:37:30] Trevor Jones had other commitments by then, so that's
[1:37:33] when Randy Andelman came in. He had a reputation for working
[1:37:36] very, very quickly, so it was hired to complete what man
[1:37:38] needed. Yeah, So they didn't actually
[1:37:40] work together, Jordan Edelman and the Edelman wrote some of
[1:37:43] the more restrained pieces like Cora Poly were written by him,
[1:37:46] right. And he wrote the Courier the
[1:37:48] piece for the sniper sequence we talked about.
[1:37:49] OK. Yeah, yeah.
[1:37:50] Which is good as well. Yeah, that's great.
[1:37:52] The worst job in colonial America?
[1:37:54] The Korea really is. Horrible.
[1:37:56] Terrifying. Yeah.
[1:37:59] And there's also a piece of music not composed by Trevor
[1:38:02] Jones or Randy Edelman that plays over the montage towards
[1:38:05] the end when the Mohicans attracting Hue on to rescue Cora
[1:38:08] and Alice. That song is called I Will Find
[1:38:10] You and was written and recorded for the film by contemporary
[1:38:13] Irish folk group called Clanad. Nice.
[1:38:16] Yeah. How good's it?
[1:38:17] Yeah. Like Clonard make.
[1:38:19] Yeah, it's clearly a more modern piece, but I kind of, Yeah,
[1:38:21] ethereal pipe and percussion sound to it works great.
[1:38:24] Yeah. And again, there's a TV
[1:38:25] connection clad. We're known for writing the
[1:38:27] theme from Harry's game and also the main theme to Robin of
[1:38:30] Sherwood from the 80s. Ah, yes, that's right.
[1:38:33] That's very serial. Yeah, Robin, that one.
[1:38:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one, yeah, I've just went
[1:38:39] straight back when you did that. It reminds me of, you know, may
[1:38:43] it be again Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, Lord of the Rings.
[1:38:45] Totally. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[1:38:47] What was that, Enya? That was Enya, yeah.
[1:38:49] Well, there you go. She was in Clanard, wasn't she?
[1:38:51] She was, Yeah. There.
[1:38:52] We're cool, you see, We're putting it all together.
[1:38:54] Yeah, guess what? Episode's coming up soon
[1:38:56] everyone. There's been a few references.
[1:38:58] Yeah. Isn't it?
[1:38:59] Yeah. It's the one on Clanard.
[1:39:05] Or they work on The Last of the Mohicans.
[1:39:07] Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman received new Oscar nominations
[1:39:10] for The Score. The winner that year was Alan
[1:39:12] Menken for Disney's Aladdin, right?
[1:39:14] Was it because Trevor Jones was brought in later though that was
[1:39:17] the reason why they weren't nominated for an Oscar?
[1:39:19] Trevor Jones was the one in first and Randy Edelman came in
[1:39:21] after. I think that's why it was kind
[1:39:23] of disqualified because it needs to be 1 concise piece by 1
[1:39:26] composer I think because it definitely would have been up
[1:39:28] there for a nomination. This Oh.
[1:39:29] Yeah, it would have been a contender.
[1:39:30] Yeah, surely. Chris Jenkins, Doug Hemphale,
[1:39:32] Mark Smith and Simon Key. They did win an Oscar for best
[1:39:35] sound though, right? The sound design is pretty
[1:39:36] great. Brilliant.
[1:39:37] Yeah, but All in all, music and sound design, some great sounds.
[1:39:41] And last, the Mohicans. Oh yeah, yeah, easily.
[1:39:46] A first time collaboration with Man on the writing and mostly on
[1:39:49] the music, but not on the cinematography.
[1:39:52] No, the director of photography was Dante Espanotti, who'd shot
[1:39:54] 25 films before this and was working with Man for the second
[1:39:58] time after Manhunter. Yeah, shooting firefights on the
[1:40:02] frontier this time we're steep. Sure.
[1:40:03] So what are your thoughts on Dante's Inferno?
[1:40:07] It's a beautiful thing. I warm my hands on it.
[1:40:10] It's just great. It's really, really accomplished
[1:40:11] work and done this, but not he was Spider man's go to.
[1:40:14] He did he as well. That's you know, forget about.
[1:40:16] But even Manhunter. It has these stylistic
[1:40:18] flourishes where I feel like Spinati lights not with light,
[1:40:22] but with color. It's the color of light or the
[1:40:24] color of the atmosphere that he uses to connect with the viewer
[1:40:28] and that emotion. So I've mentioned the thought
[1:40:31] that's the warm orange, but he goes for these amazing Blues of
[1:40:34] the landscape. They've got that real contrast
[1:40:36] between, you know, the blue and the orange kind of work together
[1:40:38] and the harmonious. And like we said with the love
[1:40:41] story and the action, that's a harmony.
[1:40:44] And I think the Blues and the Reds in this film are
[1:40:46] incredibly, incredibly powerful and it works really, really
[1:40:49] well. That's just one element of it,
[1:40:51] though. He really loves saturation and
[1:40:52] he really loves color, and it really works because this should
[1:40:55] be quite desaturated. It should be quite dour for the
[1:40:58] natural light that's being used a lot of the time, but it
[1:41:00] really, really works. But what he also does really
[1:41:03] well is how to tell a story with the camera.
[1:41:05] And Michael Mann knows that. And I'll just give you a little
[1:41:07] bit of an example about the two relationships that are in the
[1:41:10] film. So you've got Cora and Duncan.
[1:41:11] So when they meet, everything's telephoto, everything's on the
[1:41:14] long lens, the cameras away from them.
[1:41:16] There's always distance. Look at them when they sat in
[1:41:18] the field and they've got the table, they're apart from each
[1:41:20] other. Even later on, they're always
[1:41:22] separated by a telephoto. Once you first meet all guy and
[1:41:25] the family's being killed at the farm, that shot in a telephoto
[1:41:28] when they disagree, as they get closer, the lens gets shorter,
[1:41:32] so their chemistry and their connection gets closer together,
[1:41:35] right? So they keep shooting on shorter
[1:41:37] lenses and it goes shorter and shorter and shorter.
[1:41:39] And then I'll cut straight to the final shot when they embrace
[1:41:42] on that mountaintop. That's a wide angle lens.
[1:41:44] So he's bringing in the whole environment and they're in the
[1:41:47] middle of that environment together as one, and the
[1:41:49] environment has surrounded them. So they're now complete as a
[1:41:51] couple. So he's gone from a long lens to
[1:41:54] a shorter lens. And their relationship is
[1:41:57] basically built on the focal length and how close they get is
[1:42:00] then reflected in the camera movements and in the camera and
[1:42:03] the lens choices. Amazing.
[1:42:05] So Dante, espionage and cinematography and camera work
[1:42:08] and lens choices, this just shows how important that is to
[1:42:11] tell a story. And that's just one little bit
[1:42:13] of it. Yeah, that's a really good
[1:42:14] example in this film though of how we do it probably.
[1:42:17] Amazing. Beautiful and yeah big fan of
[1:42:20] the cinematography here as well. As I said about everything else,
[1:42:23] the challenge is kind of covering 2 genres at the same
[1:42:25] time in action and love story and having to blend it all
[1:42:28] together into one like cohesive piece of work.
[1:42:31] And but not he does that. I think he leads quite heavily
[1:42:33] on some classic techniques. This reminds me of like your old
[1:42:36] Hollywood action and adventure movies going back to the 40s and
[1:42:39] 50s with huge white establishing shots of misty forest saw.
[1:42:43] Yeah, sweeping landscapes of the mountainsides and then lots of
[1:42:45] very intimate close-ups for character moments.
[1:42:48] Very different tones and feels in those scenes.
[1:42:50] But the cinematography always feels very much of a piece, I
[1:42:53] think. I think it's great how natural
[1:42:55] it all looks with minimal lighting.
[1:42:57] It seems like to maintain all the authenticity, and that
[1:42:59] works. The woodland scenes always pull
[1:43:01] me in the way the sunlight light peeks through the trees.
[1:43:04] Yeah, yeah. The mud and the rain feel like
[1:43:06] you can touch it. And there was some real
[1:43:08] dedication. No, but.
[1:43:10] And his crew had to hike their equipment into the forests and
[1:43:12] the mountains for 45 minutes at the start of every day.
[1:43:16] Wow. Yeah.
[1:43:17] So it's classic stuff. And I've seen people compare the
[1:43:19] visuals to David Lean, and I see why.
[1:43:21] Yeah, but the filmmaker reminds me of most is probably John
[1:43:24] Ford. Like, natural settings,
[1:43:26] energetic camera moves, intimate and epic at the same time.
[1:43:30] Yeah. But I mean, either way, if
[1:43:31] you're tapping into classic era Hollywood and you pull it off,
[1:43:34] you're probably gonna get something pretty special.
[1:43:36] Yeah. And I think Spot only gives us
[1:43:37] that here. Oh yeah.
[1:43:38] Definitely. I mean, obviously the location
[1:43:40] shooting itself is incredible, but all the same, that's not
[1:43:43] enough. I mean, I could put a camera on
[1:43:45] a tripod and pointed at some mountains and I'm not going to
[1:43:47] make it look like less the Mohicans.
[1:43:49] So for me, it's all the logistics that Spinotti has to
[1:43:53] work with here. It doesn't look an easy place to
[1:43:55] put a camera, but Spinotti makes it look easy, No.
[1:43:57] And he moves it as well. It's not stationary the way that
[1:44:00] he gets that camera going. It pace over and across this
[1:44:04] rugged landscape through the forest.
[1:44:06] Yeah. Cross water.
[1:44:07] All the potential problems of not the light ebbing and flowing
[1:44:10] of clouds of changeable weather. They're finding somewhere to put
[1:44:13] the camera and put the lighting set up in places where you think
[1:44:17] there's barely any room for the actors, let alone a camera rig.
[1:44:19] Surely, like the up the side of a mountain.
[1:44:22] Yeah, like, say the up and down the crossing rivers, the running
[1:44:24] through thick forests and Spinod, he keeps up and he makes
[1:44:27] it look easy, which is the thing that like, blows my mind about
[1:44:30] this. I mean, I would describe the
[1:44:31] Cinema Trophy in this as invisible because it doesn't
[1:44:34] feel like Cinema trophy, just feels like real life that he's
[1:44:37] captured. And that is just the highest
[1:44:39] compliment I could give him. Yeah, I mean, a few years later,
[1:44:41] if you look at the woodland shots or the jungle shots, I
[1:44:43] guess in thin red line they're pretty close.
[1:44:46] Yeah, he's kind of set the benchmark.
[1:44:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And man, it's been running.
[1:44:50] Agreed that a subdued monochromatic look for the film
[1:44:53] would work best to make it look more authentic.
[1:44:55] The lighting came from period accurate sources.
[1:44:57] Wherever possible would light scenes by sunlight or torch
[1:45:00] light if they could make it the work.
[1:45:01] But again, there's colour added to that as well.
[1:45:03] Definitely. Some clever lighting as well.
[1:45:05] Yeah, I'll let the lighting in the waterfall scene that we'll
[1:45:08] talk about because they couldn't film into actual waterfalls,
[1:45:10] obviously. So that kind of pounding water
[1:45:12] lighting effect was done by bouncing light from the lamps
[1:45:15] under these huge reflective screens and then shaking the
[1:45:18] screens to create the effect of running water.
[1:45:20] Yeah, I never even questioned. It just looks great.
[1:45:22] Definitely. Looks fantastic.
[1:45:23] And Spinodi said he was inspired by famous landscape painters.
[1:45:27] Thomas Call and Albert Bierstadt were 19th century American
[1:45:31] painters. We were both part of the Hudson
[1:45:32] River School, and that was an art movement known for its
[1:45:35] landscape painters who focus on the beauty of the American
[1:45:38] wilderness, especially the Hudson River Valley.
[1:45:40] Yeah, if you look at their work, those painters, the influence is
[1:45:43] pretty obvious. Yeah, it is.
[1:45:45] The framing of stuff. The color palette as well.
[1:45:48] It's all very wide, isn't it? And the people are tiny in the
[1:45:50] frame, like the start of the massacre shot or the bridge
[1:45:52] shot. Exactly.
[1:45:53] Yeah. The shots, yeah, that are like a
[1:45:55] Thomas Cole painting come to life.
[1:45:56] That shot at the start of the massacre is one of them.
[1:45:58] Yeah, Yeah. Before we finish on Dandy
[1:46:00] Spinotti in the cinematography, we have another ATRM page, one
[1:46:03] question, this time from Jacob Perry.
[1:46:05] Hello, Jacob. Hello, Jacob.
[1:46:07] So Jacob says Man and Spinotti shot this film in upstate New
[1:46:10] York in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.
[1:46:13] Both of those regions have a rich indigenous history for
[1:46:16] Native Americans, which lends the film a level of
[1:46:18] authenticity. What are some of your favorite
[1:46:20] movies where the shooting location has offered the same
[1:46:23] effect to the film? Right.
[1:46:25] And then Jacob says thanks again for the best movie part in the
[1:46:27] business. Oh, it's very nice.
[1:46:29] Very. Kind of him.
[1:46:30] Yeah. Thanks a lot, Jacob.
[1:46:31] And that's a great long question, Jacob's Ladder, that
[1:46:33] question. Nice.
[1:46:35] Yeah, Yeah. So what do you think Westie?
[1:46:37] Great location shooting in the film.
[1:46:39] I mean this right up my street, to be honest, but I've tried to
[1:46:41] think of ones that really out of flavor and without the location,
[1:46:44] it just really, really wouldn't work.
[1:46:46] So I didn't want the location to necessarily be a character, but
[1:46:48] I wanted the location to really affect the visual of the film.
[1:46:51] So the first one, I'll always go to his Days of Heaven, which I
[1:46:54] think shows like the American Midwest of Texas is just like
[1:46:58] without that setting, without that light and you know, it just
[1:47:00] wouldn't work at all. Fargo, I think you need that
[1:47:04] dark cold, that Minnesota, that's snow.
[1:47:06] You can feel it. That's, you know, it really,
[1:47:08] really adds to the pool vision. That's the proposition which I
[1:47:11] think shows the Australian Outback.
[1:47:14] Oh yeah. Before anyone had been there.
[1:47:16] Better than anything else I've seen, to be honest.
[1:47:18] I think it's just really, really powerfully done.
[1:47:20] Your favorite Christmas film? That one W season.
[1:47:22] It's up there. Yeah, it's definitely up there.
[1:47:25] Yeah, I'm not going to argue with that.
[1:47:26] No, yeah, all of them. Films really work for me.
[1:47:28] I could be here for hours, so I've just read it in a little
[1:47:30] bit. But yeah, there are some main
[1:47:32] ones for me. Nice for me.
[1:47:34] Have you seen In the New World by Terrence Malik?
[1:47:37] Oh yeah. Of course I have, yeah.
[1:47:38] Of course you are worthy. I mean, not one of his best
[1:47:40] probably, but it's about the Jamestown, Virginia settlement
[1:47:42] in America and was actually shot in Virginia where the settlement
[1:47:45] was. Yeah.
[1:47:46] I mean, knowing that, watching it and it looks like it as well,
[1:47:48] it gives it this authenticity but also feels kind of weird and
[1:47:52] ghostly. Yeah.
[1:47:53] And the Revenant 2 in your retail shooting in the actual
[1:47:56] wilderness where the real huge glass survived.
[1:47:58] Authentic and brutal. It makes surviving on the
[1:48:00] frontier look like the hell I'm sure it was.
[1:48:03] And I think an obvious 1. Lawrence of Arabia.
[1:48:05] Yeah, Lean filming. Not actually in like the Arabian
[1:48:08] Peninsula, but in actual deserts.
[1:48:10] Well, it's done well. I think the landscape can become
[1:48:12] like a character like we talk about.
[1:48:14] And I think man pulls it off here as well.
[1:48:16] Yeah. Definitely, yeah.
[1:48:18] I mean, like you 2 fellas, my head automatically goes to
[1:48:21] Thames Malacanat. See the thin Red Line, the
[1:48:23] shooting in that, the heat, just that sense of those soldiers in
[1:48:28] such a foreign land that they can't make sense of nothing.
[1:48:31] Location shooting really emphasizes that.
[1:48:34] One film I've already mentioned, but again, I would mention the
[1:48:36] search is just that Monument Valley location for John Ford is
[1:48:40] incredible. And then at the other end, the
[1:48:43] scale, I'd say The French Connection.
[1:48:44] You can smell that film. You feel how cold and miserable
[1:48:49] it is there. So yeah, French Connection as
[1:48:51] well, I think from New York. Yeah, I can't believe none of us
[1:48:54] have mentioned New Zealand Lord of the Rings.
[1:48:57] Well, that's coming. Up saving it, yeah, yeah.
[1:48:59] Saving it. Yeah, fair enough.
[1:49:00] I went to Australia instead with the probably just over the
[1:49:04] water. No Oscars for Dante's for not
[1:49:06] even his work on the last The Mohicans.
[1:49:08] Winner of Best Cinematography that year was Philippe Rusolo
[1:49:11] for A River Runs Through It Right.
[1:49:13] Still, for us, this is a great example of some beautiful
[1:49:16] location cinematography. Incredible.
[1:49:18] Yeah, it's really up there for me.
[1:49:20] And we are through the crew section on The Last of the
[1:49:22] Mohicans, from Michael Mann and Christopher Cross stripping the
[1:49:25] novel to its essentials. Trevor Jordan and Randy Edelman
[1:49:27] creating one of the 90s most epic scores on Dante Espinati,
[1:49:31] painting the frontier in torch light.
[1:49:33] Adding the others were mentioned.
[1:49:34] And you've got a crew working very much together to bring
[1:49:38] Michael Mann's vision to the screen.
[1:49:39] Very much. Everyone working in harmony, you
[1:49:41] might say. You might.
[1:49:46] The end. The final act of The Last of the
[1:49:50] Mohicans sees man stripping everything down even more to its
[1:49:54] essentials. We're going to talk about the
[1:49:56] climactic battle on the mountainside, but first it's the
[1:49:59] aftermath of the massacre and a journey into Huron territory.
[1:50:03] Yeah, it is. So, following the massacre at
[1:50:05] Fort William Henry, The Who Runs track our heroes through the
[1:50:08] wilderness. It all leads to a cave behind a
[1:50:10] waterfall where Magua gets his hands on Cora and Alice before
[1:50:13] arriving at The Who Run village, where some character fates are
[1:50:16] decided. Yeah, enemy territory.
[1:50:18] Matt, how does this all play out?
[1:50:21] I mean don't go chasing waterfalls right?
[1:50:23] Just stick to those rivers and they say used to 1 for the TLC
[1:50:29] fans. Nearly as good as westies who
[1:50:30] run run run or who run run that you just did.
[1:50:35] I think though this. Is maybe the same everyone
[1:50:38] remembers the most because it's absolutely massive.
[1:50:41] I mean, and this is where I want to talk about how good the sound
[1:50:43] design is, which we've mentioned won the Oscar.
[1:50:45] Because the boom of that water, which makes everyone have to
[1:50:50] shout their lines, which then in turn emphasizes the emotion of
[1:50:53] the performances, is incredible. The tension is still unrelenting
[1:50:57] because they've bought themselves a couple of minutes,
[1:51:00] but they've also discovered all the gunpowder is now soaked in
[1:51:02] useless. But Margaret is still on the
[1:51:05] tail, so Hawkeye has to leave them.
[1:51:06] Like, everything about this just resonates so well.
[1:51:09] I think that's a good bit of foreshadowing where Alice seems
[1:51:12] to be in a trance, nearly falls, but to see if by Uncas.
[1:51:14] And I think, yeah, that's the first clue that mentally she's
[1:51:18] just broken now by what she's seen in being through, which
[1:51:21] obviously leads to her tragic end and which we'll talk about.
[1:51:24] But it's those visuals of Hawkeye and Cora framed against
[1:51:27] the backdrop of that water thundering down like that might
[1:51:31] be the most romantic visual I think I've ever seen.
[1:51:33] Oh, yeah. And then the way that Mantis
[1:51:35] punches into those close-ups of them.
[1:51:37] Yeah, it works so well. And the dialogue, which I think
[1:51:40] we've said could be cheesy, but, you know, you stay alive.
[1:51:42] I will find you great. I.
[1:51:45] Don't think I've ever been more convinced by any character
[1:51:47] saying they're going to do something than I am here.
[1:51:50] I believe him. He will find you.
[1:51:52] Oh, definitely. Are you not more convinced when
[1:51:54] Ethan Hunt does it in Mission Impossible?
[1:51:56] Woo, stay alive, I'm not going to lose you.
[1:52:00] And that jumps out the window. Total RIP off.
[1:52:04] And then just when you think he can't get any more convincing,
[1:52:06] he jumps in that waterfall. And we talked about the fugitive
[1:52:09] couple of episodes go. I mean, this puts the fugitive
[1:52:11] in the absolute cheer without similar scene.
[1:52:13] It does. Yeah, I mean, The Cave behind
[1:52:14] the waterfall, it's a beautiful setting for a scene.
[1:52:17] The water thundering down as a backdrop, everyone's soaking
[1:52:20] wet. And that show of The Who runs
[1:52:22] approaching. We're going to see their torches
[1:52:23] on the way through the tunnels. Yeah, yeah.
[1:52:25] Great moment that So it's a great place and a great way for
[1:52:28] the sisters to finally get caught.
[1:52:30] Only thing for me, I'm not sure I totally buy Hawkeye's reason
[1:52:34] for leaving Cora behind. I mean, I understand the logic.
[1:52:37] They've got no gunpowder either. Wrong number, they'll die of the
[1:52:39] fight. Fine, just take the women with
[1:52:42] you, surely through the magic waterfall, take your chances.
[1:52:46] I mean, not your typical Hollywood heroics, but maybe
[1:52:48] that's the point. To be fair, I don't know.
[1:52:50] Well, yeah, I'm glad you're not in charge for that.
[1:52:55] But the moment the Koran hawk I say goodbye to each other is
[1:52:58] massive. Stay alive.
[1:52:59] I will find you. That's great.
[1:53:01] Yeah, it's great. Dia Lewis sells the hell out of
[1:53:03] it and stores great as well, because she has to do it mostly
[1:53:05] through reactions, not dialogue and her lingering looks to
[1:53:08] Hawkeye while also getting across that she's pretty
[1:53:10] terrified. Yeah, I mean, that could have
[1:53:12] been like Vivian Lee in the 40s or something.
[1:53:14] Yeah, yeah. Looks brilliant, don't just
[1:53:16] leave the girls but some great acting in there.
[1:53:19] Yeah, but don't take them with you to sudden death.
[1:53:21] They can't swim in them dresses. For a star, he's just left them
[1:53:24] the near certain death. He actually says if they don't
[1:53:27] kill you. Exactly, this is what it is.
[1:53:28] Do you know when he jumps out you see a shot of them going
[1:53:30] down? I just think that Waterfall
[1:53:32] doesn't stand a chance. So the exterior waterfall
[1:53:38] scenes, they were filmed at Hooker Falls and Bridal Veil
[1:53:41] Falls, but The Cave was a set built in a warehouse in North
[1:53:44] Carolina and this was the only in TV set built for the film.
[1:53:48] What was that? In the used recycled river water
[1:53:50] to create the fallen water in front of The Cave and it was the
[1:53:53] last sequence shot D in production.
[1:53:56] Makes sense. I mean, taking all that
[1:53:57] equipment behind the waterfall will be asking for trouble,
[1:54:00] surely. Yeah, surely.
[1:54:01] Yeah, I think so. I think they enhanced the shots
[1:54:03] of the real waterfalls with digital effects as well to make
[1:54:05] them look even more thunderous. Right?
[1:54:07] Wouldn't have had the same effect if it was just trickling
[1:54:09] over the edge, no? To be there watching that.
[1:54:12] Stay alive, bloop. The original novel does have a
[1:54:18] scene behind a waterfall as well, which is where man got the
[1:54:21] idea. Apparently.
[1:54:22] In the 1820s, James Fenimore Cooper took some English
[1:54:25] aristocrats on a trip around New York.
[1:54:27] They went to a waterfall cave called Glens Falls, and one of
[1:54:31] the group said this would be a great setting for a romance
[1:54:33] novel. Yeah, he'd be right.
[1:54:35] He was right. Not the whole novel.
[1:54:37] Or she'll just shout, I think I love you.
[1:54:40] That'll be nice. Well, that person was Lord
[1:54:44] Edward Stanley, future British Prime Minister.
[1:54:46] No or less. All right, all right.
[1:54:48] I think politicians tend to inspire Hollywood in slightly
[1:54:50] different ways. Now it is.
[1:54:52] I think they do, yeah. And there's a moment under the
[1:54:55] waterfall where we see Uncas and Alice together, the idea being
[1:54:58] that they've got their own relationship and there was
[1:55:01] supposed to be more made of that as well with the love scene
[1:55:03] written between them. But Jodie May, who plays Alice,
[1:55:06] she was only 17 at the time and her mother was on set and
[1:55:09] completely vetoed the scene. Yeah, there's another deleted
[1:55:12] scene as well where Uncas bridge Alice's hair, right?
[1:55:14] I mean, the love scene, yeah, fair enough, but they could have
[1:55:16] kept the other one maybe. Yeah, that would have worked
[1:55:18] because I think the youngest knowledge relationship is
[1:55:21] definitely underserved in the story.
[1:55:23] A. 100% so they don't kill them thankfully.
[1:55:26] Thankfully. Yep, the tip of the hill.
[1:55:28] So you know everything pays off. All guy knows what's going on.
[1:55:31] But this is genuinely terrifying.
[1:55:33] When Nathaniel walks in there, you know you can feel this
[1:55:35] animosity. You don't feel like there's an
[1:55:39] unnecessary hatred, you feel like this is really, really
[1:55:41] historical hatred, like they've got a reason to hate these
[1:55:45] people. This is the reality of the
[1:55:46] situation. And I honestly find that this
[1:55:49] sequence, now, I'm not saying it's better and more
[1:55:52] entertained, but I find it more engaging than some of the early
[1:55:54] action sequences. Yeah, I know what you mean.
[1:55:56] Yeah. I'm drawn into it.
[1:55:58] Oh, yeah, It's got an incredible way to it and it shows.
[1:56:01] Magua has lost his way. His heart is twisted, and that's
[1:56:04] what is being said. The sachems brought in, Who's
[1:56:07] the chief of the Huron? Who sits down?
[1:56:08] This is to everything. And I'll be honest with you, I
[1:56:11] think he's pretty accommodating. To.
[1:56:13] Everyone's wishes. He's kind of like, right, OK,
[1:56:16] you're pissed off, but you're in love with her so, well, I'll
[1:56:20] burn her. She can go.
[1:56:22] He can go back to the English and house about that.
[1:56:24] Everyone's down with that. And everyone's like, no, I'm
[1:56:27] like, oh for fuck's sake, just take me.
[1:56:29] Then he said, yeah, whatever, whatever.
[1:56:30] I'm old. Is that great twist as well.
[1:56:32] Was that the sacrifice of poor guy where he's like, take me and
[1:56:35] you as an audience. Never going to happen in a
[1:56:37] million years. No, no.
[1:56:38] And then when Duncan says British officer, take me, you're
[1:56:40] like, yes, that'll do that. But Duncan, when he's getting
[1:56:45] taken away, I mean, it is a hard breaker, but he can't help it,
[1:56:48] can he? He's like, well, did you tell
[1:56:50] him? He's like, no, I said take me
[1:56:54] and then says, my, what do you see?
[1:56:55] My compliments. My compliments to you, Sir.
[1:56:58] Compliments to you, Sir. Like, oh God, it is fantastic.
[1:57:03] And then that music kicks in and you're like, oh, yes, right.
[1:57:08] And we are just in from that moment, the minute that music
[1:57:11] starts. Yeah, yeah.
[1:57:12] I just kind of stand up out me chair, lean forward a little bit
[1:57:15] and I'm kind of just at the edge of my seat and I'm leaning
[1:57:17] forward and I'm going. This is the end of last
[1:57:19] Moheaton's and know for a fact I'm going to be reminded that
[1:57:22] this moment five more times. Oh yeah, it's great when Hawkeye
[1:57:27] comes in and dunks fans leading for him.
[1:57:29] Hawkeye's trying to be a dip of the March, but he's clearly more
[1:57:31] comfortable with action, so that's good, yeah.
[1:57:33] But yeah, it's Big Dunk going for me.
[1:57:35] I mean, it's a bit of a classic trope.
[1:57:36] The guy who's been a bastard all the way through turns out to be
[1:57:39] honourable after all. Yeah, he's like Gorman and
[1:57:41] aliens. Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:57:43] Of course I should have said you always were an asshole.
[1:57:45] Big dunk. Just like.
[1:57:50] Everywhere it's done well, it's always good, and I like it.
[1:57:52] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:57:53] I would say I find the pacing a little odd.
[1:57:55] We spend ages at 4, William Henry, and then the final act is
[1:57:58] all these huge moments, feels a little bit crammed in.
[1:58:01] We go from the waterfalls straight to the village,
[1:58:03] straight to the climactic showdown.
[1:58:05] I mean, let it breathe a little bit maybe.
[1:58:07] But the first time I saw this film, the image in the moment
[1:58:10] that stayed with me afterwards was Hawkeye's mercy killing of
[1:58:13] Big Dunk, being burned to the stake.
[1:58:14] It's massive. Absolutely massive.
[1:58:17] But in the original script when Hawkeye shoots Duncan, he fight
[1:58:20] immediately and the historical advice once set was Mark Baker
[1:58:24] and he said that Hawkeye should take careful aim and firing soon
[1:58:27] was more realistic to firing that kind of rifle.
[1:58:30] Oh, nice. I mean, that shot itself, when
[1:58:32] he kind of lifts that rifle up, I mean, look at that as a
[1:58:34] composition. It's just done in one frame.
[1:58:37] It's the shot on a wider lens. So Cora's in there, she's in the
[1:58:40] kind of in the background, incredible shot and a whole
[1:58:43] guys, he's just lining up the shot.
[1:58:44] She turns around just as he fires.
[1:58:47] She can't just see the final moment because this is riddled
[1:58:50] with guilt. It's brilliantly done, but he
[1:58:52] just takes his time. Like Matt said, they just takes
[1:58:55] his time to get the shot right. And I'm pretty sure I've watched
[1:58:58] it a couple of times. I don't know if it's a chest
[1:58:59] shot, I don't know if it's a headshot.
[1:59:00] I'm just going to have to pause it and kind of zoom in and see
[1:59:02] if I can do it on the on the 4K if there's one.
[1:59:05] Well, he's a pretty good shot, and he's called Hawkeye for a.
[1:59:07] Reason he is called Hawkeye and he's been sniping from a Fort of
[1:59:10] using a massive long musket which I think is pretty
[1:59:13] impossible. Anything's possible to be
[1:59:15] honest. He's probably shot him back to
[1:59:16] life, and apparently it would have been more accurate to have
[1:59:21] this meeting take place in a longhouse, but man decided to
[1:59:24] have an exterior set built instead.
[1:59:26] It was created just South of Lake James where they were
[1:59:28] filming, and the set remained there as a tourist attraction
[1:59:31] for years afterwards. They even installed an elevator.
[1:59:34] Take tours of the Cliff trail where the climax takes place.
[1:59:36] Love to go there. Oh, I'd be going on that for
[1:59:38] sure. It's your own Christmas weekend
[1:59:41] away. Another. 1.
[1:59:44] Just makes lighting of a Cliff more.
[1:59:49] And the sachem is played by Mike Phillips, who was a respected
[1:59:52] Mohawk leader who occasionally acted in TV projects before
[1:59:55] this. But the characters in the scene
[1:59:57] are all speaking different languages.
[1:59:59] Magwa is speaking Cherokee, which is where Studi's native
[2:00:02] language, while Phillips is speaking Mohawk and some French.
[2:00:06] Absolute chaos. It's great though, the
[2:00:08] authenticity is just fantastic. Yeah, it's wonderful.
[2:00:11] I think Mike Phillips is really good as the sachem as well.
[2:00:13] Well, he's wonderful. Yeah.
[2:00:14] Got a real dignity, hasn't he? Yeah.
[2:00:16] Yeah. So that's a set up for our
[2:00:17] climax, the waterfall, Duncan's redemption and Magua taking
[2:00:21] Alice while Cora goes free. But the chases Nova yet is it?
[2:00:25] It's not. No.
[2:00:28] The climax of The Last of the Mohicans is frenetic, to say the
[2:00:31] least. Magua and his warriors head to
[2:00:33] their settlement with Alice, pursued by Hawkeye Kora
[2:00:36] Chingachgookadungas. What follows is an epic final
[2:00:39] confrontation on the mountain. Yep, Magua kills Uncas, Alice
[2:00:43] takes her own life, and Chingachgook kills Magua.
[2:00:46] Yeah, the conclusion is yeah. Matt, how does it all work for
[2:00:49] you? I mean, it's just an absolute
[2:00:52] bloodbath. It really is.
[2:00:54] Is that it? Yeah, that's it.
[2:00:56] We're done. So you need know about the end
[2:00:58] of Last the Mohicans. I mean, Uncas Thorn himself in
[2:01:01] the Maguas party like an absolute hero, but then he's out
[2:01:04] of there. Yeah.
[2:01:05] I think after everything Alice has seen and she has no idea
[2:01:08] that there's a rescue party just around the corner.
[2:01:11] And I think she's suffering PDSE at this point to a completely by
[2:01:13] her decision to throw herself off the Ridge rather than submit
[2:01:16] to Magwa, which is an absolute heartbreaker.
[2:01:20] But it's the fury that this sets off in Hawkeye and Tinker Truck.
[2:01:24] Like Hawkeye charging up that mountain, taking out Hurons all
[2:01:27] over the place, firing with two rifles at the same time.
[2:01:30] Cinema has peaked at this scene by this point.
[2:01:33] Like, it's not going to get better than that, but I love how
[2:01:35] it up ends expectations. Because you would think, well,
[2:01:38] the final battle's obviously going to be between Hawkeye and
[2:01:41] Magua. And even when Chinga Truck gets
[2:01:43] to Magua first, you think, oh, he's going to get killed and
[2:01:47] it'll be all down to Hawkeye to avenge his family.
[2:01:49] But it's not. It's Chinga Truck who gets to
[2:01:51] avenge his son. And I think that works so well,
[2:01:54] just like the fact that it doesn't become a big drawn out
[2:01:56] battle between them like you might expect.
[2:01:58] To me, when they confront each other, Magua is so cocky that
[2:02:02] he's got this swagger about him. He thinks he's invincible.
[2:02:05] But no, he doesn't lay a finger on Chinker Chunk.
[2:02:08] It just takes him out no problem.
[2:02:10] And it's so satisfying how he outclasses him so easily.
[2:02:14] And all this is going on to that piece of music.
[2:02:17] Like I said, cinema picked at this point.
[2:02:20] There's a great shot that takes us from the village into the
[2:02:22] climax. It's another epic wide shot
[2:02:24] where we see the mountains, a bit like in the opening.
[2:02:26] Yeah. And it pans across the range.
[2:02:28] It almost was like it could be stock photography or something.
[2:02:30] But then ends with The Who run coming into frame on the left.
[2:02:33] Yeah. Yeah.
[2:02:33] Incredible establishing shot. Yeah.
[2:02:36] And it's an outstanding climax in my eyes.
[2:02:38] I love how the score is used. It starts to play the village
[2:02:41] when The Who run like Cora go, and it's just like, relentlessly
[2:02:44] driving away all the way through.
[2:02:47] Between Duncan giving himself up and Magua being killed, it's
[2:02:49] about 10 minutes. Yeah, Lords happens, Hawkeye
[2:02:52] kills Duncan, Magua kills Uncas, Alice leaps to her death, and
[2:02:55] then Chingaju kills Magua. And there's not a word of
[2:02:58] dialogue? No, just those strings going
[2:03:00] round and round. It's so weird, but so great.
[2:03:04] It's also a little confusing when Uncas and Alice go off the
[2:03:07] Cliff. It cuts the reaction shots of
[2:03:08] Chingajuku and then Cora, but it's like, where are they?
[2:03:11] How can they see that from where they are?
[2:03:13] I don't really get the logistics of it, but the moment Alice
[2:03:16] goes, we get that close up of her and it's like she's looking
[2:03:19] into the camera. Yeah.
[2:03:20] It's genuinely upsetting. It's horrible, but I mean, great
[2:03:23] filmmaking. Jodie May's best moment, I
[2:03:25] think, as well. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[2:03:26] But all together, that's brilliant.
[2:03:28] When you climb up just 10 minutes with no dialogue, just
[2:03:30] music and just action, you know, the man must trust his visual
[2:03:33] storytelling. And for me, his greatest ever
[2:03:36] sequence, I think it's that good.
[2:03:37] Wow. Yeah, yeah.
[2:03:39] I mean, this music should come in.
[2:03:41] It's like a rave. The matrix.
[2:03:47] I'm surprised it was like this is early 90s.
[2:03:49] I'm surprised on sample this is put a beat in the.
[2:03:51] Probably did. Probably.
[2:03:53] Did somewhere if anyone can find it to send us on Patreon?
[2:03:55] I'd love that. It's my Friday night sword.
[2:03:58] It's. Absolutely incredible.
[2:04:00] It's that shot of Chinga Choo when he just comes out and he
[2:04:03] screams. Yeah, as he falls, you can just
[2:04:07] see the pain on his face and the fury that's going to happen.
[2:04:11] And just the nonchalantness of Magua just stabbed him in the
[2:04:15] throat and thrown him away as if he's nothing.
[2:04:17] That's pure Michael, man. That doesn't really need to
[2:04:19] happen. I don't know if Alice, when she
[2:04:24] falls off, I don't know if that shot from the bottom where she's
[2:04:27] just falling over the top of the camera kind of pulls me out
[2:04:30] slightly. Yeah, I know what you mean.
[2:04:31] That's my only kind of gripe with it.
[2:04:33] Slightly jarring that bit, isn't it?
[2:04:35] And that moment after Uncas has died and Alice is looking over
[2:04:40] and like you said it, they, John, you touched on it, the
[2:04:42] mag, what drops the knife when she looks back to the camera and
[2:04:46] that light kicks and you just get that catch light in our eye.
[2:04:50] That's one of my most favorite frames, I think in any film.
[2:04:55] It's beautiful because you've got the separation of the
[2:04:58] background, you've got a hair in exactly the right place.
[2:05:01] You've got the rain coming down in front of it, which
[2:05:03] accentuates her emotion and our tears and our face is perfect.
[2:05:08] She just looks beautiful and empty and gone, and I think it's
[2:05:12] just an incredible, incredible shot.
[2:05:15] It's a sensational close up, isn't it?
[2:05:17] Because there's like a whole story going on in that one shot.
[2:05:20] It's unbelievable. And that he cuts to a knife
[2:05:22] being lowered in between them. Two shots, right?
[2:05:25] And there's just that, come here, come this way.
[2:05:27] Yeah, yeah. There's so much going on, but in
[2:05:30] our eyes, when they got that shot and she looked in the Cam
[2:05:33] Michael, Mama just spent. I'm not doing that 20 times
[2:05:36] because the way that rains coming down, that separation,
[2:05:39] the light and everything is just perfect.
[2:05:41] Eyes are just perfect. I mean, I would have that framed
[2:05:43] in me house if it wasn't weird. People like you know her.
[2:05:47] I was like, no, not really. Don't really a little bit.
[2:05:51] I've seen the film that many times.
[2:05:52] I feel like I know. And then you get, you know,
[2:05:56] Hawkeye, 2 guns coming out of there.
[2:05:58] They're a blazing and it's just Jingle just slicing through them
[2:06:01] as if the children. And he's just furious.
[2:06:04] And that music is just. And he's just like, right, and
[2:06:07] I'm having you. I don't care.
[2:06:09] I am absolutely having you. And you know it.
[2:06:12] I think they could have shot him and he would just keep going.
[2:06:14] Yeah, yeah. He's not stopping until Mag was
[2:06:17] dead, no matter what happens to him.
[2:06:18] And then you get that amazing moment where he just stops and
[2:06:20] just rolls underneath. Yeah, great.
[2:06:22] Bang, it's in the back. Yeah, Bang.
[2:06:24] He breaks his arm. The thing that takes me out a
[2:06:26] little bit, then hits on hard enough, they're not powerful
[2:06:29] enough that I wanted to be fucking bang.
[2:06:33] Just be furious. It's the fury to wipe the seed
[2:06:38] from the earth is what Michael wanted to do.
[2:06:39] That's his gun. Now he can't have that back.
[2:06:42] His stuns gone. And what you've both haven't
[2:06:45] touched on, which I am amazed at, is that two shot where Magua
[2:06:48] knows he's beaten. Oh, it's incredible.
[2:06:50] And Chinga cheeks just looking at him.
[2:06:52] He's looking at him going, you fucking idiot, you piece of
[2:06:55] shit, because you know for a fact I'm absolutely solid and
[2:06:59] you've killed me so. And for me, when he turns
[2:07:02] around, does that spin and buries that into him.
[2:07:05] That could cut on that two shot, right?
[2:07:07] Buries it into Magua, Just bang, cut the black.
[2:07:10] Written and dreaded by Michael. Man, like the way Fincher one of
[2:07:15] the N7, but it's great the way that his body just drops.
[2:07:18] He doesn't push him off, he doesn't give them any kind of
[2:07:20] ceremony, he just leaves them there.
[2:07:22] What an incredible sequence. And it kind of spoils the film
[2:07:26] for me now to get to that point when Magua hits the ground and I
[2:07:29] rewind it back to Duncan Burn. It's a great 10 minutes.
[2:07:33] I do that three or four times. I'm not even bothered about the
[2:07:35] end. Yeah, I'm the last.
[2:07:36] The more he can see. Whatever.
[2:07:37] Let's see you kill some more people again.
[2:07:40] It's fantastic. It's not my favorite Michael
[2:07:42] Mann sequence. It'll always be the heist from
[2:07:43] Heat, the gunshot. There's always going to be up
[2:07:45] there for me. But I mean, it's a very fucking
[2:07:47] close setting. Yeah, so man knew how we wanted
[2:07:50] the setting for the climax to look.
[2:07:52] And it took three weeks to find the mountainside Ridge.
[2:07:54] They were flying over Blue Ridge Mountains in a helicopter,
[2:07:57] looking for an area untouched by modern civilization.
[2:08:00] And then they spotted this Cliff trail.
[2:08:02] It's an incredible setting. That's amazing.
[2:08:04] Not just funny to look at, but creates this real jeopardy where
[2:08:07] they're fighting, like, literally on the edge of a
[2:08:08] Cliff. I think it's a huge part of what
[2:08:10] makes it all work. Yeah.
[2:08:12] Oh yeah. The ending of the book is
[2:08:13] different from the film, obviously.
[2:08:17] Why wouldn't it? Be well of course.
[2:08:19] In the book, Cora is the sister who dies.
[2:08:21] She's the one taken by a Magua, and she's killed by a Huron
[2:08:24] warrior when the Mohicans try to rescue her.
[2:08:26] In the book Magua does kill Uncas, but then a tall guy who
[2:08:30] kills Magua, not Jingaju. It's much better the way it's
[2:08:33] Chingatu getting revenge surely. What it is?
[2:08:36] And it's great how Chingatu totally destroys Magua.
[2:08:39] It's not even a contest. No, it's no.
[2:08:41] No, no, he's like a child. Yeah.
[2:08:44] That death blow, 360° swing, it's massive.
[2:08:48] Love it straight through his back for these mohawks.
[2:08:53] Snooker bat. We don't end on Magua's death,
[2:08:57] though, despite what Wesley might want.
[2:08:58] I. Love that.
[2:08:59] No, we get the den you more Chingatchu, Kokai and Cora on
[2:09:02] the mountain, mourning their loved ones and contemplating
[2:09:05] their future. A good way to end.
[2:09:07] I think so. I mean, unless you're Wesley,
[2:09:09] obviously. Another thing is it could be
[2:09:14] sore on the nose that the last line is basically, I am the last
[2:09:17] of the Mohicans, but it's anything but because I think you
[2:09:20] need this minute of just taking a bit of a breath after that
[2:09:22] last battle. And I just think the emotion is
[2:09:24] so well played here by them all. It's victory, but it's also
[2:09:27] defeated the same time. Yeah, because they've saved
[2:09:30] Call, but they've lost so much. It's the end of the bloodline,
[2:09:33] and you've just got to end this film over one more shot of that.
[2:09:36] Amazing. Landscape, yeah, man said that
[2:09:38] the final shot is we'll look over that landscape as they're
[2:09:40] looking at the future, like the future of America, not their own
[2:09:43] futures. And I do get a bit of a sense of
[2:09:45] that, yeah. And it's a pretty downbeat way
[2:09:47] to end, which I quite like. Yeah, I would say I wouldn't
[2:09:50] mind getting some indication of what Hawkeye and Cora future
[2:09:53] might be. Maybe there's nothing yeah at
[2:09:55] all, I don't think. Right, but the way the book ends
[2:09:58] is actually Monroe giving his blessing for Duncan to marry
[2:10:01] Alice, and the final scene is a joint funeral for Cora and
[2:10:05] Uncas, where the Satcham comes back and he has a monologue
[2:10:08] about how they're all now entering a new era.
[2:10:11] Yeah, we get Shin Gashuk instead giving that monologue at the
[2:10:13] end, calling himself The Last of the Mohicans.
[2:10:16] I mean, that stuff's all really good.
[2:10:18] Yeah, it's fine. He's just lost his son and he's
[2:10:23] got Nathaniel next to him. He's adopted son who's grown up
[2:10:25] with him and he's feeling the pain.
[2:10:27] Just leave your ass alone for 5 minutes.
[2:10:31] I'm literally dying here. I've lost everything.
[2:10:34] I'm standing by myself, more or less, and you're.
[2:10:36] Canoodling. Can I have a hug please?
[2:10:41] And the last of the boheat is not the last of the emotions.
[2:10:45] Then cut the black written and dreaded by my old man.
[2:10:49] The man filmed a much longer monologue where Chingachuk
[2:10:51] explained that after he was gone, the frontier would go and
[2:10:55] men like Hawkeye and his white wife, as he calls her, would be
[2:10:58] everywhere. Then one day they will go to.
[2:11:02] Yeah, it's like, yes, I mean, you're right, Chingachgook, but
[2:11:05] a bail on the nose predicts the next children 50 years, like
[2:11:08] perfectly. And that is the end of The Last
[2:11:12] of the Mohicans. A desperate chase to a
[2:11:14] devastating climax. But it's an ending that stays
[2:11:17] with you, I think. Yes, very much.
[2:11:20] Absolutely. Reception and awards.
[2:11:27] So that is the story of The Last of the Mohicans on the screen
[2:11:30] and behind it, and it opened in cinemas on September the 25th,
[2:11:33] 1992. How do they do?
[2:11:36] Well, no matter what occurs, Matt will find the box office
[2:11:39] numbers so well. So take it away, Matt.
[2:11:43] So production budget was $40 million and Mohicans ended up
[2:11:48] grossing 75.5 million domestically and $143 million
[2:11:53] worldwide. And at the Oscars, it won one
[2:11:55] Academy Award. As we said, Chris Jenkins, Duke
[2:11:58] Hemphill, Mark Smith, Simon Ker. Best Sound.
[2:12:01] Must have been those basketballs.
[2:12:02] Oh yeah, and believe it or not, that Oscar win is the one and
[2:12:06] only Oscar ever won by a Michael Mann film.
[2:12:09] What? Oh wow.
[2:12:10] Really? Yeah.
[2:12:11] Really crazy talk. Wow.
[2:12:13] The film was originally scheduled for a release in the
[2:12:15] summer of 1992, and you can find that date on all the posters.
[2:12:19] But when the first version came in at 3 hours, Fox asked Man to
[2:12:23] cut the film down and the release was postponed to
[2:12:25] September. Yeah, so it was then that had to
[2:12:28] bring Randy Edelman in to help with the score because Trevor
[2:12:30] Jones had other commitments. But three hour Mohicans, I
[2:12:33] definitely watch that. What the hell out of that?
[2:12:36] If that first version came in at 3 hours an hour, we worked for
[2:12:39] Fox, I would just say can you put it out now?
[2:12:41] Yeah, yeah. Just stick with if.
[2:12:43] You're listening, Fox. Get it out there.
[2:12:45] Yeah, I need to see it. Hashtag release the man code.
[2:12:48] Yeah. Under the critics, And we'll
[2:12:50] start as we usually do, with Roger, Roger Rebut that is
[2:12:54] talking about like he's one of the guys.
[2:12:55] Yeah, Yeah. So what did Roger Enio make of
[2:12:58] the film, do we think? 3.
[2:13:02] I think he's going to give it a full whack, you know?
[2:13:05] It was much right three out of four stars from Roger, and he
[2:13:09] said The Last of the Mohicans is not as authentic and
[2:13:12] uncompromised as it claims to be, but it's probably more
[2:13:14] entertaining. As a result, the scenes of
[2:13:17] forest fighting follow the usual Hollywood rules.
[2:13:19] The hero rarely misses and the villains rarely hit anyone.
[2:13:22] But I didn't care. It were the successor to the
[2:13:25] Randolph Scott version. Yeah, uncompromised.
[2:13:28] I mean, Maguire does RIP a guy's heart out and hold it up to the
[2:13:31] camera. I mean, the villains hit a lot
[2:13:32] of people, to be fair. Yeah, yeah.
[2:13:34] Yeah, and someone gets burned alive.
[2:13:36] What do you? Want Rog?
[2:13:39] Gene Siskel gave the film a thumbs up and called it a little
[2:13:42] messy, but nevertheless has some compelling characters and ended
[2:13:45] up succeeding as an epic film. It's one of the most
[2:13:48] entertaining modern westerns, right?
[2:13:51] I do not think it was a western, mainly because there's no
[2:13:53] Cowboys. Probably, but.
[2:13:54] I don't think it was a western at all.
[2:13:55] I guess it is though, isn't? It suppose technically, yeah.
[2:13:58] Yeah, I think it's more of a frontier action.
[2:14:01] It is that. I guess more.
[2:14:03] Western inventing a super genre. Do what I want.
[2:14:10] I'm usually platform for good. And Empire Magazine's Ian Nathan
[2:14:14] gave it the full 5 star treatment and said The Last of
[2:14:17] the Mohicans mind is a remarkable double life.
[2:14:19] It is pure escapism, traditional heroics, red huge.
[2:14:23] Yet it is also realistic, each and every inch imbued with
[2:14:26] authenticity and conviction. Nice.
[2:14:29] Yeah, escapism and authenticity. Couple of good words for this
[2:14:32] film, I think. Yeah, definitely.
[2:14:35] And today on Rotten Tomatoes, Last of the Mohicans has an 88%
[2:14:38] Critics rating and 88% from audiences and on IMDb 7.6 out of
[2:14:44] 10. Nice critics and audiences
[2:14:46] Perfectly In Sync, yeah. Yeah.
[2:14:48] Just like the Mohicans, get them on the DI hunt drill.
[2:14:51] Yeah, just like the action and romance, everything's
[2:14:53] harmonized. Yeah, it is.
[2:14:55] So the Last of the Mohicans did well and release more than solid
[2:14:58] box office critical acclaim and 1O win for great sound design.
[2:15:03] Fair to see it's Ng were better than most 1992 releases.
[2:15:07] I would definitely, yes, definitely.
[2:15:08] So. Better than most period films to
[2:15:10] be honest. I mean, it's no California man,
[2:15:12] obviously. Well, what is?
[2:15:15] California Man is not even California Man sequels and
[2:15:22] influence. Michael Mann never made a sequel
[2:15:27] to The Last of the Mohicans. There was a 1994 TV series
[2:15:31] Hawkeye that was nothing to do with the film but inspired by
[2:15:34] his success. OK, right.
[2:15:35] Also, there was a 1971 BBCTV series of Last of the Mohicans,
[2:15:39] which is what introduced the term Mohican as in the haircut,
[2:15:42] into the British kind of lexicon.
[2:15:44] Oh, really? Well, really, that's.
[2:15:45] Where it came from? Yes, we came from this novel.
[2:15:47] Interesting. So there you go.
[2:15:48] No sequels. Do we need one?
[2:15:50] Would we want one? No, no.
[2:15:53] Surely not. The film feels completely as a
[2:15:54] story, I think, doesn't it? Yeah, it's a complete story,
[2:15:57] Yeah. So nor the first of the
[2:15:58] Mohicans, a prequel. No, none of that.
[2:16:02] Just the three hour cut of this will be fine.
[2:16:03] Yeah, yeah, that's what we want. Yeah, that's all we need.
[2:16:06] But what about this film is impact?
[2:16:07] What kind of influence and legacy has The Last of the
[2:16:09] Mohicans had since 1992, do we think?
[2:16:12] I mean, I think it's just the films we've been talking about
[2:16:15] as we've gone through. I mean, Mel Gibson is definitely
[2:16:17] a fan of this and he's watching this in preparation for Brea
[2:16:19] Fart. I think this is runs through
[2:16:21] that and then you go from that to Gladiator, as we've been
[2:16:24] saying. Quite funny though.
[2:16:25] We are talking about Lord of the Rings soon because that takes so
[2:16:28] much from this. I mean the seeds of the Fort,
[2:16:32] that's Helms Deep for me. Helms Deep takes loads from that
[2:16:36] in The Revenant as well about getting out there in the
[2:16:38] wilderness and shooting. So actually, I think it does
[2:16:40] have a big, big influence was something that at the time was a
[2:16:43] little under the radar. Yeah, I think an immediate
[2:16:46] influence was they did show Hollywood the historical epics
[2:16:48] could work in like the modern era.
[2:16:50] This was 1992. Within a few years, we've
[2:16:52] mentioned them. We had Braveheart, the Patriots,
[2:16:55] Rob Roy as well. Rob Roy.
[2:16:57] Yeah, historical action dramas. And I mean, not all great, but
[2:17:00] the awesome thing that what man did I think take historical
[2:17:02] events, make a brutal I love story and boom, you're aware.
[2:17:06] Yeah, I think the way man and Dante Espinati shot, the actions
[2:17:09] being influential as well, that handheld kind of in your face
[2:17:13] approach to period battles, that's kind of the way it's done
[2:17:15] now. It's probably more down a
[2:17:17] Braveheart, to be fair. But like Game of Thrones, the
[2:17:19] battle scenes there would fit into Mohicans, I think, not the
[2:17:22] Dragons, maybe. But apart from that, Yeah.
[2:17:24] And the music, obviously. That main theme's been borrowed
[2:17:27] so many times. You still hear that kind of
[2:17:29] thing in trailers. Yeah.
[2:17:30] It's like epic historical drama. Mohican sail strings, please.
[2:17:34] Yeah, I've heard that the Olympics before, which is mad.
[2:17:36] Yeah. I mean, Dougie McLean must be
[2:17:38] laughing all the way to the bank.
[2:17:39] Yeah, he. Must be like the Two Towers
[2:17:41] trailers, very similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2:17:44] I mean, I'm trying to think of films to say that you guys
[2:17:46] haven't already. I mean, I've got Braveheart
[2:17:48] there, but the period. I've got Gladiator, I've got The
[2:17:50] New World, which we mentioned earlier, The Revenant, obviously
[2:17:54] for the realism over the style. There's one film that we haven't
[2:17:56] touched on that I think is the most influenced by this,
[2:18:00] especially for Gibson. And I don't think it's
[2:18:02] Braveheart, I think it's Apocalypto.
[2:18:05] Great shout, yeah. All right.
[2:18:07] Yeah, I've not actually seen that.
[2:18:08] It's definitely more Apocalypto than it is anything else.
[2:18:11] A. Lot of running in Apocalypto.
[2:18:13] A lot of running. That's colonial America as well,
[2:18:15] I think, isn't it? It is, yeah.
[2:18:17] Which ends in a similar kind of vein to this, but with a lot
[2:18:20] more of a good punch of like, what's going to happen next?
[2:18:23] Yes it does. I'll not spoil it if you haven't
[2:18:25] seen it, John or anybody else listening.
[2:18:27] Is it worth watching? It's.
[2:18:28] Brilliant. Really.
[2:18:29] It is good, yeah. It's very, very good film.
[2:18:30] Yeah. You know, it went underneath the
[2:18:32] radar a little bit because people are expecting more of a
[2:18:34] Braveheart kind of action or I think, again, it's very honest.
[2:18:38] It's very respectful of the cultures and very respectful of
[2:18:41] everything that happened at that time especially.
[2:18:43] So I think if you're looking for a sequel to this, what's your
[2:18:45] Apocalypto? Nice.
[2:18:47] You'd be pleasantly surprised. That's great show.
[2:18:50] So no sequels lost the Mohicans, but its influence on historical
[2:18:53] filmmaking, on film music and on how to adapt classic literature,
[2:18:57] I think it's still being felt. Yeah, I think some films don't
[2:18:59] need sequels. This might be one of them.
[2:19:02] Yeah, it definitely doesn't. It's all done and dusted, The
[2:19:05] last of the adaptations. All the right movies ranking.
[2:19:15] And we've cracked all the way through The Last of the
[2:19:16] Mohicans. Now it's time for our final
[2:19:18] verdicts, where we each rate the film out of 10.
[2:19:22] Matt, you chose this one, so why don't you lead us off your
[2:19:25] summary and score for The Last of the Mohicans, please?
[2:19:28] Very simple one for me, really, no need to elaborate too much.
[2:19:31] We've had to look really, really hard to find flaws in this I
[2:19:34] think. And if the biggest flaw in the
[2:19:35] film is it's just not long enough, I think that says a lot
[2:19:39] about how good the film actually is.
[2:19:42] Acting, direction, cinema, trophy music, that all
[2:19:45] incredible. And like I say, I think it
[2:19:47] deserves more peace than it gets and it is very, very
[2:19:49] influential. Is that still enough for top
[2:19:51] marks? It's just not quite in that top
[2:19:54] echelon of films that mean a lot to me personally and I've got a
[2:19:57] real personal for, and I think we'd find it hard to argue.
[2:20:01] It's a really historically significant piece of cinema.
[2:20:05] You know, he didn't reinvent the genre.
[2:20:06] There's nothing technical going on that we've never seen before.
[2:20:10] So overall it is a masterpiece in my eyes and it's very, very
[2:20:14] close to the perfect mark, but it just doesn't quite get there.
[2:20:17] So it's 9.5 for me. Right.
[2:20:20] Still a great score. So yeah, for me, coming back to
[2:20:23] this one for the first time in a while, and I thoroughly enjoyed
[2:20:26] the rewatch when it confirmed why it's as popular as it is.
[2:20:28] Yeah, Michael Mann taking his, like, intense modern style and
[2:20:32] applying it to the historical epic.
[2:20:34] That works far better than it usually does when directors do
[2:20:37] that, I think. And it's in no small part down
[2:20:40] to the crafts. The cinematography is part epic
[2:20:42] sweeps of stunning landscapes and part intimate character
[2:20:45] moments. The score massive, Yeah,
[2:20:48] absolutely massive. The production design,
[2:20:50] especially the build of four William Henry 2 historical
[2:20:53] specifications. If you don't like that, then
[2:20:55] this isn't for you. And the performance is all
[2:20:58] excellent. DDL brings the intensity and the
[2:21:00] commitment that's become his kind of trademark of really like
[2:21:03] Madeleine's door as the emotional heart and where
[2:21:06] studios Magwa. Yeah, one of the best films of
[2:21:08] that decade, I think. Yeah.
[2:21:10] I mean, like I mentioned, I find the pacing a little or even at
[2:21:12] times we might spend too long at 4 William Henry, then rush
[2:21:15] through the ending a little bit. And Alison Duncas I think
[2:21:18] definitely needed more development.
[2:21:20] Yeah, but looks great and massive.
[2:21:22] It sounds great and massive. Not man's best for me, but one
[2:21:25] of his best. And I do like it and respect it
[2:21:28] a lot. And it's a nine out of 10 for
[2:21:29] me. Lovely.
[2:21:31] And Rusty, your Mohican summary and score please.
[2:21:34] For me, we've mentioned a lot throughout the episode and we've
[2:21:37] given a lot of praise. Much, right?
[2:21:39] We have found little to say about it that's necessarily
[2:21:42] negative or anything that brings out of the film.
[2:21:44] And I think it is the person really.
[2:21:46] And when you think about it as a whole, in people say about what
[2:21:49] really happens in it, nothing much really happens in it.
[2:21:51] It's always quite thin, isn't it?
[2:21:52] Yeah. It's a very thin story and it's
[2:21:54] a journey more than it is trying to explain anything else.
[2:21:57] So it's putting you in the middle of this period in this
[2:22:00] environment, but you are then expected to know a lot about
[2:22:04] that period in that environment and then be taken on that
[2:22:06] journey. If you're not happy about that
[2:22:08] journey, then you're quite stuck.
[2:22:09] Whereas a lot of films will have springs going off left, right
[2:22:12] and center. It's all very linear.
[2:22:13] It's they've been stuck in that canoe and you're going down that
[2:22:15] river and you can't deviate from where you're going.
[2:22:18] If you want to go off the waterfall at the end, that's
[2:22:19] what you do when you're rewarded for sitting in the river for
[2:22:21] that long, going off the end. But watching it again, I mean,
[2:22:24] it's been a couple of years since I watched it and it was
[2:22:27] top marks for me. A couple of years ago, I watched
[2:22:29] you thinking that's fantastic. And then coming back to it and
[2:22:32] watching it again two or three times over the space of a week,
[2:22:35] I do feel like there's something missing.
[2:22:39] And to realize that, you know, we've all discussed it, to do
[2:22:42] research on it, to realize the first cup was 3 hours.
[2:22:45] Yeah, isn't. It He's taken a third out of
[2:22:47] this film. Yeah.
[2:22:49] And I don't know if he's taking the right things out.
[2:22:51] And it feels quite rushed. It doesn't feel like a final cut
[2:22:53] to me. We've said this earlier.
[2:22:55] It feels a bit edited for television.
[2:22:56] That's where the advert needs to go.
[2:22:58] You know, there's that Uncas and Alice relationship that needed
[2:23:01] to have more to it, to what I added even more to the end.
[2:23:05] The end feels a little bit rushed as well, so for me it's
[2:23:07] not going to be top marks. If it was a three hour version,
[2:23:10] it'll be a 10 you. Haven't seen it.
[2:23:13] I know for a fact that would be because all that's missing is
[2:23:16] more of this. Yeah, yeah.
[2:23:17] Because it's great. And I think he's taken out too
[2:23:19] much. He's taken out bits that I
[2:23:21] needed to see, and I know they exist and that's annoying.
[2:23:23] So for that reason, it loses a mark.
[2:23:25] So it's going to be a nine out of 10 for me as well.
[2:23:27] Wonderful. Well, we also put this out there
[2:23:29] to our ACRM patrons out on the frontier to get their thoughts.
[2:23:33] So some of their comments on The Last of the Mohicans, Kim
[2:23:35] Jackson said. The ending made me want to
[2:23:37] conquer the world. And how perfect was DDL 9 out of
[2:23:41] 10? Yep.
[2:23:42] Beautiful. That ending does make you kind
[2:23:44] of want to conquer the world. I think does.
[2:23:46] Or at least run through the woods.
[2:23:47] Just do something. One of the two.
[2:23:49] Get off your ass at. Least Ryan Douglas less a few
[2:23:52] servers said. Loved it back in the 90s but it
[2:23:54] unfortunately has not aged very well.
[2:23:57] DLA was as fantastic as in pretty much everything, but it's
[2:24:00] not man's best. That has to be heat 8.5 out of
[2:24:03] 10. Yeah, OK, I'm not sure
[2:24:05] specifically what Ryan means by not aged well.
[2:24:07] I mean visually and musically I think it's aged pretty great.
[2:24:10] Maybe he means something else, maybe that's not right.
[2:24:13] And Philip Beatty said this definitely doesn't get taught
[2:24:16] about enough. DL Lewis is amazing and as Magua
[2:24:19] W duty is one of cinema's great villains.
[2:24:21] Yes it's under 2 hours long, but looks, sounds and feels like a
[2:24:25] great epic. Well afterwards buying on for 2
[2:24:29] 1/2 hours people might be saying it's been taught about for too
[2:24:31] much. Yeah, very possibly.
[2:24:34] Yeah, but I agree, it does feel longer than it is, I think in a
[2:24:36] good way. Yeah, I know what it means.
[2:24:38] Yeah, it's certainly good. So mostly positive from our paid
[2:24:41] runs and all together they rated the film as What do you think?
[2:24:46] 8-9. 8.5. It was 9 out of 10.
[2:24:50] Oh. OK, there we go.
[2:24:52] So in total, that gave the Last of the Mohicans 36.5 out of 40,
[2:24:57] right? Pretty great score.
[2:24:58] Yeah, it's up there. That's us done on the film.
[2:25:01] OK. Next time out, it's something
[2:25:02] slightly different. Yep.
[2:25:04] The whole ATRM gang will be here.
[2:25:06] A special mailbag episode where Matt, Westy, Luke and myself
[2:25:09] will tackle some big and bold questions from our patrons.
[2:25:12] Yeah, we have the questions, and there's some pretty great ones.
[2:25:15] Are there? There are.
[2:25:16] Yeah, some good ones, yeah. And then two weeks after that,
[2:25:19] Luke, Westy and Matt will be writing a shotgun through LA
[2:25:21] with Antoine Fuqua, Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke for
[2:25:25] Training Day. Oh yes, we will.
[2:25:27] Yeah. King Kong ain't got nothing on
[2:25:29] that. Sure.
[2:25:30] He definitely doesn't. We shall see, yeah.
[2:25:34] Well, in the meantime, to find out more about becoming an ATR
[2:25:36] and Patreon, supporting what we do, and accessing our archive
[2:25:39] and bonus episodes, please visit patreon.com/all the Right Movies
[2:25:43] or click the subscribe link on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or
[2:25:46] YouTube socially and keep up with all the right Movies on X
[2:25:50] wherever you are at. AT Right Movies we post threads
[2:25:52] on there that tell the stories behind classic films.
[2:25:55] Everything we post has been said by someone involved in the
[2:25:57] production or it comes from three separate sources, which is
[2:25:59] the same rule we follow on our podcasts.
[2:26:01] So check that out. You can find this on YouTube,
[2:26:04] Instagram, threads, Blue Sky, TikTok.
[2:26:06] We have a movie group on Facebook and our website is all
[2:26:09] the right movies.com loads of stuff.
[2:26:11] It is loads of stuff. We're all off now to reload our
[2:26:14] flintlocks while running. In the meantime, stay alive.
[2:26:17] We will find you specifically when we come back with training
[2:26:20] day. And yes, as always, thanks for
[2:26:23] listening. Thank you for listening guys.
[2:26:25] Thank you so much guys. Take care.

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