Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Cindy Davis | Videos | February 24, 2016
I know ripping apart The Revenant is what all the cool kids are doing pre-Oscars, but I’m just not into it. Sure, I left the theater feeling it was an empty affair, but the same could be said for Carol; neither movie was what I’d call enjoyable; both were beautiful. Maybe the ire is a last-ditch effort to throw off the award mojo that seems imminent, or the Leo haters are that determined the film be forever tainted by his “It was so hard” publicity, which was clearly a huge mistake. And not for nothing, but there was much less publicized coverage of how difficult it was to get Mad Max: Fury Road made, even though the road to that film was hella nightmarish and long, and resulted in a much better, highly entertaining moviethrillride. Is Tom Hardy the misery link? (Just kidding. Even if he’s due for a little break, we love him dearly.) It’s actually pretty nifty that the two films are up against each other for Best Picture, and while our Pajiba preference is clear, they’re both visually impressive — each tells a story more through visuals than with dialogue — in its own way. You could say George Miller’s Fury Road was an homage to himself and the previous Mad Max installments; the director threw in callbacks, while using vivid color to change things up from the usual post-apocalyptic fare.
Similarly, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Revenant was made with a very particular visual style — shot in only natural light — and the director said he’d been inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, among others. Lo and behold, after hearing about that inspiration and seeing a few screenshots, Russian graphic designer for The Petrick Misha Petrick began going through Tarkovsky’s films, and found seventeen shots that she worked into a compilation. The results are pretty cool.
The question we have to ask now is: Is The Revenant homage, or do that many similar shots seem more like plagiarism? How many shots (seventeen) are too many? Are the shots truly copies, or merely comparable? DID INARRITU STEAL HIS WHOLE ABOUT-TO-WIN-BEST-PICTURE-FILM?
How many of you are snidely shaking your head right now, mentally adding up the list of things that piss you off about this movie?
Cue the Twitters!
17 (embarrassingly similar) scenes of The Revenant in comparison with Andrei Tarkovsky scenes https://t.co/NvrLT1bjnJ
— Andra Chira (@andrachira) February 13, 2016
This is not an influence. This is simply & utterly plundering.
— Santi Trullenque (@santitrullenque) February 22, 2016
Iñrritu ripping off Tarkovsky/Parajanov https://t.co/Bcd7MS4fwi #TheRevenant
I knew there was a reason why I liked The Revenant so much..Iñrritu just ripped off Tarkovsky (but in a good way) https://t.co/agDB6EVDDP
— James Dyble (@JamesDyble) February 11, 2016
Revenant by Tarkovsky - hommage, theft or coincidence? https://t.co/IYCsTLWmQM @CreatorsProject @RevenantMovie pic.twitter.com/Kh8Ol3xfo8
— Film Real (@DocFilmReal) February 10, 2016
https://t.co/c38ZfOmDB6 Revenant, as it seems, is a carbon copy of several films by Tarkovsky.
— Serguey Zefirov (@sergueyz) February 9, 2016
I loved the Revenant, but was it maybe just a wee bit nicked from Tarkovsky? https://t.co/cymApfBPH1
— DavidMapstone (@DavidMapstone) February 6, 2016
Hey, wait a minute…
Well, will you lookie here.
We are all Tarkovsky.
Good luck on Sunday night, boys.
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