Man in the Wilderness | |
---|---|
Directed by | Richard C. Sarafian |
Written by | Jack DeWitt |
Produced by | Sandy Howard |
Starring | Richard Harris John Huston Prunella Ransome Percy Herbert Henry Wilcoxon Norman Rossington Dennis Waterman |
Cinematography | Gerry Fisher |
Edited by | Geoffrey Foot |
Music by | Johnny Harris |
Production companies | Limbridge Wilderness Films |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 104 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | Less than $2 million [1] |
Man in the Wilderness is a 1971 American revisionist Western film about a scout for a group of mountain men who are traversing the Northwestern United States during the 1820s. The scout is mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions. He survives and recuperates sufficiently to track his former comrades, forcing a confrontation over his abandonment. The story is loosely based on the life of Hugh Glass. It stars Richard Harris as Zachary Bass and John Huston as Captain Henry. [2]
The expedition in the movie is notable for bringing a large boat with it, borne on wheels.
Zachary Bass is left for dead by his fellow trappers. He undergoes a series of trials and adventures as he slowly heals and equips himself while he tracks the trappers' expedition, intent on retribution for his abandonment, while earning the respect of the American Indians he encounters. When he eventually confronts his fellow trappers and their leader, Captain Henry, he chooses not to enact revenge, but instead to return to his infant son.
Man in the Wilderness is based loosely on the 1818–20 Missouri Expedition and "Capt. Henry" is likely a fictionalized Major Andrew Henry of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. It was based on an original script by Jack De Witt, and bought by producer Sandy Howard. In December 1970 Howard announced that the film would star Richard Harris, who had made A Man Called Horse for Howard. [3] Elliot Silverstein directed Horse but clashed with Harris so Richard Sarafian was brought in to direct this film. Howard said he was "convinced" that Sarafian "is going to be one of the most important directors in America very soon." [1]
Filming took three months from April to June 1971. The film was shot near Covaleda, Province of Soria, Spain, with the terrain looking more like the Adirondack wilderness and less like the Absaroka Range country of the Yellowstone River.[ citation needed ] Not technically a "Spaghetti Western",[ further explanation needed ]Man was filmed in the rugged highlands where David Lean had shot some of the scenes for Doctor Zhivago in 1964. [4]
John Huston joined the production a few days after quitting as director of the film The Last Run due to on-set fights with George C. Scott. [1]
The bear who attacks Harris' character was called Peg. The attack sequence was filmed using a dummy. [1]
"This movie is Genesis to me," said Harris. "It's my apocalypse. It's a very special and very personal statement about a man struggling for personal identity, looking for God and discovering Him in the wilderness, in leaves and trees. It's all the things that the young people, and we, are missing today." [5]
Harris only had nine lines of dialogue. [6]
Though survival and revenge are the main themes, Christianity and religion play a significant role in the evolution of the main character, who is shown through flashbacks to be at odds with religion and God in general due to his lonely and abusive childhood involving indoctrination into Christianity.
The film was theatrically released in the United States on November 24, 1971, including New York City, New York, and Los Angeles, California.
The film was the first feature to be shown in years at the newly refurbished Princess Theatre (renamed the Klondike Theatre, at the time) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on December 25, 1971.[ citation needed ]
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James Felix Bridger was an American mountain man, trapper, Army scout, and wilderness guide who explored and trapped in the Western United States in the first half of the 19th century. He was known as Old Gabe in his later years. He was from the Bridger family of Virginia, English immigrants who had been in North America since the early colonial period.
A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s. They were instrumental in opening up the various emigrant trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain men and the big fur companies, originally to serve the mule train-based inland fur trade.
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