Man in the Wilderness (1971)

Wonderful character development!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Absolutely Fantastic

Well I am putting this in after just watching the Revenant. I took another look at this film which scared the heck out of me as a kid. I can remember watching this on television, weekend days at least 2x. It is a horrifying story, but keeps your attention. The persistence and human will portrayed are somehow inspiring. The weird old boat and hunting party that drag along add to the weirdness that makes this memorable. This story of Hugh Glass has been told many times, I guess. The fear of native Americans on the frontier drives this plot of this film too. Portrayals like this trained me how to think in ways.....which are very hard to overcome. Having spent a lot of time in the woods, seeing bears (black only) and having spent time in the woods in winter, this story is very hard to believe. I can't imagine trying to fight a grizzly. As we all know now, watching survival shows, just getting water that doesn't make you sick is a big deal. You could die from something small like that let alone mortal wounds, no proper clothing, knives and hunting implements. This film seems to focus on the psychological, but its the tools and skills that would allow someone to survive.

Loved this movie when I first saw this. Richard Harris was outstanding. Worth watching.Let's see if DiCaprio is as good as Richard Harris was. And apparently short concise reviews on here are not allowed. They like verbose ones even those that are mostly just fluff.So the rest of this is exactly that.Said what I wanted to in the first two sentences.But we will add another.And another.And yet another. They say you need 10.

I have a feeling that many people who might give "Man In The Wilderness" a try will feel cheated at the end. A lot of the advertising material (and the DVD box) suggest the movie is about a man seeking revenge against his former friends. Well, that's sort of the truth, but the actual execution is a lot different than you might think. The central character doesn't actually start his pursuit of his former friends until two-thirds of the movie has passed. Up to that point, the movie is more of his survival after being badly wounded. And when he does manage to catch up to his former friends, what he does will probably let a lot of bloodthirsty viewers sorely disappointing. But I enjoyed the movie all the same. Seeing the wounded central figure struggle to survive was quite captivating. There are some haunting and striking shots here and there of the cold and deadly wilderness. If there is a big problem with the movie, it is that the Native American leader that Harris' character encounters twice speaks some narration that would have made some things much clearer had we been able to understand him (he speaks his native language without subtitles.) Also, the flashbacks Harris' character has of his past doesn't really end up adding much to the movie. If the movie still sounds appealing after what I've said, it's probably safe for you to give it a spin in your DVD machine.

**SPOILERS** Out hunting for food for the members of his expedition Indian scout Zachary Bass, Richard Harris,is suddenly attacked by a grizzly bear who savagely mauls him. Coming to Bass' rescue the frontiersmen of his expedition gun down the grizzly but not after the bear just about did Bass in.With both massive claw and bite wounds as well as having lost a near-fatal amount of blood it's decided by the leader of the expedition Captain Filmore Henry, John Huston, to give him a proper and Christian funeral but there's only one catch! Bass, as badly injured as he is, is still clinging on to life!With the two frontiersmen Fogarty & Lowire, Percy Herbert & Dennis Waterman, watching and waiting for Bass to finally kick off they turn tail and run at the sight of a group of Arikara Indians in the area leaving Zachary Bass to his fate. It turned out that Bass' fate was to survive and live to see his new born son whom at the time he never expected to live to see at all!Inspiring and touching story of how Zachary Bass defied the odds and survived in the bitter and frozen woodlands an mountains west of the Missouri River. Bass not a religious man who was very cynical of life-due to hie own life experiences-found a reservoir of new strength to help him struggle through life's hardships. Which turned out to be a combination of belief in himself as well as that of an Almighty omnipresent and benevolent higher power: God.Fighting off wolves and mountain lions for food in order to survive Bass soon becomes strong enough to make his way to the Missouri on foot just before Captain Henry's expedition. It's there that Bass finds himself in the middle of a life and death battle between Captain's Henry's men and hundreds of Arikara Indians lead by their chief Henry Wikoxon.***SPOILER ALERT*** With most of Captain Henry's men killed by the rampaging Arikara Indians and it looking like curtains for those still surviving another miracle, one of many, happens in the movie to have Chief Wikoxon call his warriors off. Chief Wikoxon's great respect for Bass whom, in what Bass went through, he considers to be one of his own.P.S The film "Man in the Wilderness" is actually based on a the true story of frontiersman and Indian scout Hugh Glass. Glass like Zachary Bass in the movie did survive a Grizzly attack and was left for dead by those in his expedition only to fool them surviving against impossible odds. Glass lived to be 53 years old, 13 years after that incident in the wild, only to be killed in 1833 together two fellow frontiersmen in an ambush by the Arikara Indians on the banks of the Yellowstone River.