You haven’t necessarily seen this feature film directed in 1992 by Michael Mann and entitled “The Last of the Mohicans”, for which its main actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, gave everything.
Rated 4 out of 5 by AlloCiné spectators, The Last of the Mohicans is considered one of the best adventure films in cinema. Directed by Michael Mann and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Ressell Means, Eric Schweig and Steven Waddington, it won the public’s vote by totaling $143 million at the box office, for a budget of $40.
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The action takes place in 1757. In the State of New York, the English and the French are at war to appropriate Indian lands. The young English officer Duncan Heyward escorts two sisters, Cora and Alice, to their father. The group falls into an ambush from which they are saved by Hawkeye accompanied by a Mohican and his son. Together, they hit the road again in an increasingly hostile territory.
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An actor who gives everything
To play the role of this English officer finding himself in difficult survival conditions, Daniel Day-Lewis learned to track and skin animals, build canoes, fight with a tomahawk, and fire and reload a flintlock musket. 5 kilos while running, as the New York Times at the time of the film’s release in 1992.
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Additionally, Day-Lewis and his trainer Richard Smedley spent 5 days a week for six months building the actor’s fitness for the role, who then traveled to North Carolina for a month – where the feature film would be shot. – to live with Native American experts.
Despite this involvement of the actor and filming under the direction of one of the greatest filmmakers of recent decades, editing The Last of the Mohicans proved to be a real headache.
A complicated assembly
Michael Mann delivered a 3-hour version to the studio, which asked him to cut an entire hour in a very short time before the theatrical release, postponed for the occasion from the summer to September 1992. In the end, the version which was released at the cinema lasts only 1h52.
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In 1999, Mann was allowed to revise his edit for the DVD release, but never reverted to the original version, simply going back to 1:57, then in 2010 for the “Director’s Definitive Cut” Blu-ray of the film, he went back down to 1:54. And for hardcore fans, a box set released in 2023 brings together all the versions!
If it has aged in its representation of the “White savior” and Native American culture, Mann’s direction and the total involvement of Daniel Day-Lewis alone justify the vision of the film, unfortunately not available on a platform .