THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Michael Mann's LAST OF THE MOHICANS is finally available and while James Fenimore Cooper might cavil, this is still a film that teaches a lot about a little-dramatized chapter of history. In some ways it is more intriguing in concept than the source novel. Technical credits are good across the board including remarkable stylistic restraint coming from Mann. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4).
I would say that I am fairly interested in history in general and in military history in particular. But not so much the War of the Roses. That war just does not strike my imagination. Why not? I think I cannot picture the time. I cannot picture how the war was fought or how people lived. Mostly, I cannot remember off-hand seeing a good historical film set in the War of the Roses. So it is all just history. This morning the same was true of the French and Indian War. I have even recently read James Fenimore Cooper's LAST OF THE MOHICANS, but I just could not picture exactly what the weapons looked like or the style of fighting. But right now I have strong visual images of the French and Indian War. I can picture the cannons and how they were aimed. I am amazed at how remarkably quiet skirmishes in the forests were. Most of my impressions of the French and Indian War I got today. So THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS could be a terrible adaptation of the Cooper novel--and in some senses it really is--and I would still highly recommend the film. And I do.
Cooper's novel makes strange reading today. It has the action and adventure of a Republic serial told in the style of prose fit for an Oxford economic treatise. You want to read fast to find out what happens next, but if you do not struggle you will miss what does happen. Mark Twain wrote a famous essay on how unreadable Cooper is. And there is many times too much plot in the novel to tell the story accurately in a film. Michael Mann (who also directed) and Christopher Crowe wrote a screenplay too close to say it was only inspired by the novel, but not close enough to call an adaptation.
The year is 1757 in what is now upper New York state. The British and the French are fighting for the continent and each is making alliances with local Indians tribes. The British send a small party, led by Major Duncan Heyward (played by Steven Waddington) to take Cora and Alice Munro (played by Madeleine Stowe and Jodhi May) to the fort commanded by their father. As a guide, they send the Mohawk Magua (played by Wes Studi). But Magua is not a Mohawk; he is a hostile Huron who is acting as a French agent. He leads the party into an ambush only to have his plot dashed when the Major, Cora, and Alice are rescued by Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas (played by Daniel Day-Lewis, Russell Means, and Eric Schweig, respectively). In spite of himself, Hawkeye is attracted to Cora. So is the Major and so starts a conflict totally absent from the novel. A lot of the rest of this film is about people rushing someplace or other through dangerous territory, but under the protection of the valiant Hawkeye and his adoptive father and brother, Chingachgook and Uncas. The action is good; the love triangle is not.
One of my complaints about the often-shown trailer is that we do not see the title character. In fact, in the film the action pulls away from Chingachgook and we do not see much of the character. It is a combination of a casting coup and an endorsement of the script to have Russell Means in the role. This is Means's first film, but it is far from the first time that Means has been before the American public. Means has been a creative activist for Indian rights who has had a consistent policy of attacking symbols rather than people in demonstrations. In 1970 he captured the Mayflower II on Thanksgiving. The following year he occupied Mount Rushmore. In 1973 he occupied the site of the Wounded Knee massacre of Indians by United States soldiers. He is the co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Means castigated recent films such as DANCES WITH WOLVES, which he found full of cliches and which had all the Indians speaking the feminine language that only women spoke. He has nicknamed THUNDERHEART "South Dakota Burning" for making good guys out of the FBI. To have Means consent to appear in the film and to endorse the script is quite impressive.
When I think of films that Michael Mann has directed I think of flashy but not very intelligent style. I think of THE KEEP and MANHUNTER. (I have never seen an episode of his popular television series MIAMI VICE.) Perhaps his fans will be disappointed but there are no strange camera angles and no unnatural use of color. Many of his scenes come off surprisingly undramatic but also very credible. In one scene there is an ambush of a party of British trooping through a clearing. It could have been played for great dramatic impact. Instead it appears as a sudden commotion that could well have just been confusing for some of the victims, at least at first. The scene is very believable and realistic, if less dramatic than it could be. And that shows a real improvement in Mann's style. This film is amazingly better than anything else I remember seeing from Mann. While these are not the most beautiful landscapes in the world, cinematographer Dante Spinotti plays the natural beauty for as much as is possible. Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman have composed a remarkably good score.
For those familiar with the novel, there are a large number of variations, some very obviously improvements. Cooper had Hawkeye totally loyal to unquestionably good British. In this version, the British appear as bad or worse than the French. They are ready to betray the colonists for their own ends. Hawkeye, very reasonably, does not trust the British in the film and will have more reason not to like them in the course of the story. Heyward and Hawkeye are good friends in the book. But the film has Heyward attracted to Cora instead of to Alice and Hawkeye also loves Cora. In the book you have to read between the lines to see a relationship between Hawkeye and Cora. Certainly Cooper never had the close personal conversations between Hawkeye and Cora. They never talk in the book about how they feel about anything, much less about each other. Also, Magua is very much a one-dimensional character to Cooper and is much more interesting in the film.
So in spite of the fact that Michael Mann's film does not work well as an adaptation of the novel, it is a very good film to watch and from which to learn a little history. It lacks some of the dramatic and historic sweep of this summer's FAR AND AWAY, but it may be the better historical film. I would rate THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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