最后的莫希干人

干瘪的历史，片子开头很快就说完了。
片子的战斗基本都是慢动作，片子我是冲着那些推荐狙击手的电影文章来的，看封面还以为很劲爆，失望至极点。
片子两个女儿很漂亮，还有男主那句“无论多久，无论多远，我都会找到你”，很动人。原来很快就跑去和族长理论去了。
片子没啥节奏，也没啥张弛，没亮点，一杯白开水。不过对英国和法国打仗那些礼仪倒是见识了，真的很绅士！
看豆瓣一面倒的推捧，看来我绝对是二逼青年了，文艺路踩不上腿。

Michael Mann (b. 1943)

Like Bruce Beresford, Michael Mann might claim to be slightly other than the “typical” Hollyoood director, though he is Chicago-born and works a little more comfortably within American genres and conventions. But his apprenticeship includes a B.A. in literature from University of Wisconsin and a film degree from the prestigious London Film School. Returning to the USA in the1970s, he moved smoothly into commercial advertising where, like Ridley (Blade Runner) Scott, he quickly claimed distinction for his remarkable sense of lighting and décor. By the early 1980s he had segued off into television, gaining fame as the executive producer of a popular and long-running investigative crime drama, Miami Vice. The series established the city of Miami as the new site of “film noir” and its impact on the industry is still visible in contemporary shows like Miami CSI and The Glades. Lots of neon, lots of light on water, lots of with-it music.

Frequently, directors who gravitate towards television sink below the horizon and are never heard from again. Mann was spared this fate because his skills-set fit nicely with the popular neo-noir revival of the 1980s and 1990s, to which he contributed Manhunter (1983). LA Takedown (1986) and Heat (1995), and The Insider (1999). In the new millennium Mann would add Miami Vice (2006) and Public Enemies (2009) to his screen credits: the first is a film vaguely evolved from the television series of the 1980s and the second a reprise of the 1930s gangster film, built around the figure of John Dillinger. It has never done any harm to Mann’s career that he is also a capable screenwriter and a competent business manager with a knack for collecting first-class theatrical talent (think, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and Russell Crowe, among others). Though his proven achievements would seem to best suit him for films with contemporary, urban settings and accents of the thriller, it didn’t surprise too many people when he was contracted to direct The Last of the Mohicans (1992), the sixth remake of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel of the same name, the favorite narrative of “Leather-Stocking Tales,” which founded the western genre in the 1820s.

As in Black Robe, we have in Last of the Mohicans a narrative of the earlier American west, when the “frontier” began on the northwest outskirts of New York City. We are now slightly more than 100 years downstream from the period of the Jesuit chronicles, but the war we are plunged into is the same world-historical battle between the empires of France and Britain for the control of North America. Now in its final phase, a seven-year encounter which in the USA is called the French/Indian War (1756-63), this protracted battle leaves Britain the master of the continent, but also brings to the world stage a new set of actors who are beginning to call themselves “Americans,” and even remarking, quietly and hesitantly still, that they might prefer not to be servants of the English crown. The tribal tensions remain much the same: the Indians south of Lake Ontario (the Iroquois and the Mohicans) are allied with the English; the Algonquins and the Hurons, both north of the lake, take their marching orders from the French. A little incongruously, the Mohicans are tribal kin of the Algonquins, as indicated by their language, and bear no great love for the Iroquois. But the Iroquois Confederacy, the most powerful Native American political force of New York and New England, pursued a policy of “assimilation,” which forcibly drew members of other tribes into their own, sometimes effectively erasing the tribe’s original identity. Hence the dire threat state to the Mohicans, which gives Cooper the title of his novel.

Fenimore Cooper, of course, is much more invested in these historical events than Michael Mann. The creator of “Leather Stocking” belongs to the first generation of post-revolution Americans: he was born in 1789, virtually at the outset of Washington’s first term as President. And one of the crucial events of Cooper’s teenage years was the journey of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri river to map the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. More to the point, perhaps, is that he was growing up during the second war with Britain (1812-14), in which the USA had decisively defeated English forces in the west. A decade later, just three years before the publication of Cooper’s novel, President Monroe sent to Congress a message known as the Monroe Doctrine, which decisively asserts the claims of American nationalism against all the European powers. Cooper writes out of this intensely nationalistic milieu, but is aware of some of its complexity, working very self-consciously with issues of race and ethnicity. What place, if any, do the native peoples have in the new nation? How have they contributed to the creation of a unique American sensibility? How do we gracefully invite them to leave the land to us? As you will see in our small excerpt from the novel, Cooper struggles with these questions, finding them a bit awkward.

Mann is far less interested in American history and operates at a much lower level of political fervor. You might notice, for example, that Nathaniel, the archetypal American, turns out to be the British actor Daniel Day Lewis, who manages somehow to look pretty authentic in the costume of a backwoodsman. Mann handles the Native Americans differently as well, nodding appreciatively towards their value system but excluding them from real relevance. Interestingly, the film was released in the same year that marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage, which caused it to be charged in some circles with “cultural imperialism.” That’s a matter we will almost certainly discuss in class. What also seems reasonably certain is that Mann tries strenuously to reduce the political concerns of the novel and replace them with a love story. But as with other purveyors of western myth, the love story has an added dimension. We are really being invited to fall in love with the American west.

很久以前看过电影后把原著买来摆在书架上却一直没有动过，可能也正像电影给我的感受一样，结合了战争、殖民、种族、爱情等诸多“大片”要素却最终落脚成一部简单的历史动作片，没有太多值得回味的地方（配乐除外）；其实不到两小时的片长就很能说明问题，加之人物性格刻画太过简单，剧情也谈不上怎样跌宕。Alice跳崖的场景很经典很凄美，最后一幕三人站在悬崖边凝视远方、金加克的独白也颇为悲壮慨然，可惜这也几乎是电影的全部了。

PS不过仅从配乐角度，这绝对是任何一个电影爱好者都不能错过的影片。

三星半
太过于关注个体，所以整个时代背景只是出来了，但不够深刻
倒是把英国人的自大体现了出来

作为殖民者，还要求被殖民者放弃自己的家来保卫你的荣耀
Death and honor are thought to be the same,but today I have that sometimes they are not.
其实，我很想体会Chingachgook在最后说我是最后一个莫希根人时的凄凉，但终究是体会不到的

民兵，职业军人，特种部队
英国姑娘那一跳是有些悲剧色彩的
明明可以避免的悲剧看来实在是。。。