‘Revenant’ Film Stretches Truth Beyond Book
March 22, 2016
Revenant (n) – a person who has returned from the dead
The novel The Revenant by Michael Punke is a true story about a frontiersman named Hugh Glass. Although there were no eyewitness accounts, based on other information, Glass is said to be attacked by a grizzly bear and then robbed by his friends who leave him to die. When he surprisingly survives through the attack, he seeks revenge on them, crawling his way through the American wilderness while avoiding the feared Indian tribes.
The movie, however, differs from the true story that the book more accurately represents. False information was added to make the viewers more interested in the plot. Having read the book and watched the movie, I thought both of them were incredible but in their own ways.
The grizzly charged, roaring with focused hate of protective maternal rage. — Michael Punke (The Revenant)
In both stories, Glass is an experienced frontiersman and fur trapper (someone who collects animal fur to trade with the Native American tribes). This is one of the few facts that was confirmed in the true story. In 1823, Glass joins an expedition with General William Ashley who founded the Rocky Mountain Fur Company the year before. This is where the movie begins, although the book gives more information what happened before that.
One of the most intense scenes was Glass getting attacked by a grizzly bear, leaving his neck punctured, his leg broken, and his head scalped. The actual injuries were probably way worse than what the movie portrayed mostly because it would have been too gruesome to show on film. The main focus was on his neck where the bear had sliced through it with his claw. Using his last bullet, Glass shoots the bear and his companions come to rescue him.
Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald are the two guys that leave him to die, portrayed by Tom Harder and Will Poulter in the motion picture. They stay with Glass for a few days but then decide to rob him and leave so that they can escape the Indians and to catch up to the rest of their crew. In the movie, Fitzgerald kills Glass’s son while making the escape.
However, there is no actual record that Glass even had a son or any children at all. Another false fact from the movie and not the book is that towards the end, Glass kills Fitzgerald and Bridger. The truth is that he forgives them for leaving and lets them go once he finds them. Although both the book and the movie are both based on the truth, there’s not really a way of knowing for sure what exactly happened.
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