The Last of the Mohicans on France 5: Daniel Day-Lewis has the flame (review)

One of Michael Mann’s greatest films, with an actor at the top of his game.

The Last of the Mohicans by Michael Mann is broadcast this Friday evening on France 5 (and can be seen the next day in streaming on the France Télévision website).

In 1757 in the state of New York, while war rages between the French and English for the appropriation of Indian territories, a young English officer, Duncan Heyward, is responsible for leading two sisters, Cora and Alice Munro, to their father. They are saved from an ambush by Hawkeye, a frontiersman of European origin, raised by the Mohican Chingachgook and his son Uncas. The three men agree to escort the two girls to their destination.

The Last of the Mohicanss is one of the great classics of American cinema. Rarely, it was first released in France (August 26, 1992) before being offered to the public in its country of origin, on September 25 of the same year. Première had loved this historical fresco, publishing a long favorite review in the September issue of the time (No. 186) before offering an article on the treatment of “native Americans” in Hollywood entitled “Indians on the path to glory”. Because at the same period Dances with Wolves or 1492, Christopher Columbus were also released.

By adapting this novel, Michael Mann attacked a monument of popular American literature: The Last of the Mohicans, written in 1826 by James Fenimore Cooperhad already been adapted many times on both the big and small screens before it. Under his direction, The Last of the Mohicans underwent one of its most famous rereadings, inspired by the director’s version of it. George B. Seitz in the 1930s.

Carried among others by the couple formed by Daniel Day-Lewis And Madeleine Stowe but also by its unforgettable soundtrack composed by Trevor Jones And Randy Edelman (who replaced the latter, exhausted by the countless changes that had to be made to the music throughout production), the film received a very warm critical reception and proved to be a public success upon its release which attracted 1.3 million spectators in France.

Here is an extract from François Forestier’s review, published at the time:

“A very tight scenario, extraordinarily rich in documentation. Images of incredible beauty, where the English ‘redcoats’ wage war in close ranks, facing Montcalm’s henchmen. Directional tricks (camera movements, tracking shots in the forest, etc.) which energize the story… Michael Mann knows that, to convey ideas (the injustice of the white settlers towards the Indians), you need a strongly structured story (which the novel is not not) and well-defined characters In doing so, he gives Hawkeye an unsuspected depth: the latter evokes, in passing, his childhood and his taste for freedom. Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the hero, is simply extraordinary: he has the flame (…)

The Last of the Mohicans comes hot on the heels of Dances With Wolves, to which it is sure to be compared. However, they are two very different films. Where Kevin Costner took his time, Mann gallops. Where Danse… had a (small) weakness (on the female character, visibly too American), the other is sharp as a razor (not a ribbon, not an anachronistic hairstyle for Madeleine Stowe). Costner was more elegiac, Mann is more rhythmic. But the directors say, finally, the same thing: the time of the deceitful and cruel Redskins is over. John Wayne is dead.”

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