The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film)

The Last of the Mohicans (in Latin America: El ultimo de los mohicanos; in Spain: The Last of the Mohicans) is a 1992 American epic adventure film based on the homonymous novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. Directed by Michael Mann, it stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Jodhi May, Russell Means, Eric Schweig, Wes Studi, Patrice Chéreau and Pete Postlethwaite.

Plot

Classic Comics cover.

Nathaniel (Daniel Day-Lewis) is the semi-Caucasian adoptive son of an Indian who considers himself the Last of the Mohicans. During a hunt, Nathaniel, Uncas and his father detect the tracks of hostile Indians and follow them. Not far from there, a column of English soldiers, carrying Colonel Munro's daughters – Cora and Alice – to their father, is attacked by hostile Indians.

The women survive along with Officer Duncan, who claims one of them, while the garrison is killed, only saved by the timely intervention of Nathaniel and his men. An Indian, Magua (Wes Studi), who pretended to be his guide and who in his heart of hearts hates Munro, intervened in the massacre of the English soldiers. Magua's goal was to murder Colonel Munro's daughters for revenge.

Simultaneously, France and England are at war over Canadian territory, and Munro defends a fort on the border, where Munro's daughters are led by Nathaniel. The English situation against the French is compromised.

Cora, Munro's beautiful eldest daughter and intended for the surviving English officer, falls in love with Nathaniel and that creates conflicts and neglect to her fiancé until then.

Munro's defeat at the fort forces the evacuation of its occupants through hostile territory to the coast. The column is attacked by hostile renegade Indians under the command of Magua, who cruelly murders Colonel Munro by gouging out his heart with his knife after telling him 'Gray head; your daughters will fall under my knife", in revenge for ancient acts for which Colonel Munro was to blame, according to Magua, and he seizes his daughters to sacrifice them.

Cora is rescued by Nathaniel, who manages to convince the chief of Magua to let her go, sacrificing himself for her the English officer Duncan, who gives himself up for Cora's love. Instead her sister, Alice, is left in Magua's hands. Finally, the "brother" Nathaniel's, Uncas, dies trying to save Alice out of love, fighting against Magua to save her, and she, who was in love with him, commits suicide by throwing herself down the ravine. Uncas's father takes revenge by killing Magua in a fight to the death, and he succeeds, thus leaving "THE LAST MOHICAN".

Cast

• Daniel Day-Lewis like Nathaniel Poe.
• Madeleine Stowe like Cora Munro.
• Russell Means like Chingachgook.
• Eric Schweig as Uncas.
• Jodhi May as Alice Munro.
• Steven Waddington as Major Duncan Heyward.
• Wes Studi as Magua.
• Maurice Roëves as Colonel Edmund Munro.
• Patrice Chéreau as Louis-Joseph of Montcalm.
• Terry Kinney like John Cameron.
• Pete Postlethwaite as Captain Beams.
• Colm Meaney as Major Ambrose.
• Mike Phillips like Sachem.
• Dylan Baker as Captain De Bougainville.

Differences between the story of the novel and the film

Although the film is based on the novel, there are a lot of important differences, both in the narration, the events and the timeline, as well as the personality of some characters, so it can be deduced that the film is an adaptation What if of the original novel.

Personalities

Heyward and Munro's daughters

In the novel Duncan Heyward is the protagonist and friend of Ojo de halcón (Nathaniel). His personality is not arrogant and he is a young soldier - some naive - very disciplined, brave, honored and very respectful with the two young men in his office, the daughters of Colonel Munro, Cora and Alice Munro. These, in turn, profess the same feelings, devotion and affection, especially Alice, the youngest daughter. The mutual affection of this trio of characters is continually expressed throughout the work, indicating a trust and very close lives not as cold as in the film.

Cora Munro

In turn, Cora Yes, it possesses a personality very similar to the novel as it would correspond to the older sister; sacrificed, courageous, kind and with an understanding attitude, while fascinated, towards the natives and, in particular, towards the character of Nathaniel instead of Uncas. Her moral strength, stoicism and sense of justice makes her gain the affection and respect of those who know her, including the group of the Lenapes or delawares. In the novel, they are daughters of a different mother. Cora is the daughter of a native Delaware and possesses certain qualities and traits attributed to his people, while the delicate. Alice is of British blood.

Nathaniel PoeHawkeye)

The central character of the story is an expert hunter of about 40 years, but not too critical with the whites and very proud of his, in the words of the character, Pure bloodof his race; yes, equal to one and respectful to the natives and their way of life. His personality in the novel is quite arrogant, propitiated by experience and confidence in his exceptional qualities in the knowledge of the environment, of the natives and the use of the rifle and war. Nathaniel is also proud to have fought in the ranks of the English under the command of the former commander of William Henry and at any time presiding.

Subtle fox

The Magua It is not as ruthless and unjust as in the film, although it does feel extreme hatred and perversion from the same experiences, but without personifying them in Colonel Munro. In the novel he is represented as a great warrior, skilled, scurry and cunning; in addition to a perfidious speaker given to the lysonagery, highly valued by the ferrets; so much he is the leader of the war of the village.

Facts

• In the novel, the colonel Munro doesn't die. during the narrative or at the hands of Maguabut of tired of war and, according to the rumors in the work, of pain after the loss of Cora, shortly after the facts that are narrated.

• In the novel, Duncan. Heyward is deeply in love with Alice - which corresponds to him with feelings veiled by ingenuity - not Cora as he believed or wished Colonel Munro. This fact is a somewhat comical passage in the novel when the eldest expresses his feelings to the colonel, given the surprise of both of them before this revelation, which they believed inversely. She does not die and she does ask for her hand, but the older daughter, Cora, who, although very affectionate, also evade a quick response as in the first request of Heyward to Cora in the film.

• In the novel, Munro's daughter She's not Alice, but Cora.in a scene similar to that of the film, but he does not commit suicide or is not killed by the magua, but by a companion of this.

• For its part, in the film, the brief paragraphs to the reactions of A few before Alice, they can make a possible infatuation of the native to the youngest daughter of Munro; they can also be supported in the facts, because it does not cease in its vehement attempt to save her, even reaching to give her life in the attempt. Uncas is an exceptional warrior who dies at the hands of Maguanot for the qualities of his enemy, but for his despair to save Alice.

• Subtle fox, the MaguaHe dies in the novel trying to escape from his enemies after murdering Uncas when he jumps for a precipice and fails to reach the other side completely, to be exposed to Ojo falcon rifle that beats him while trying to climb the wall to the top.

• The scene of the cave inside the cascade it is given at the beginning of the work and it is when friendship and hatred are forged between the group of main characters. The daughters of Munro, with their protector the major Heyward and a singing teacher, David Lagamme - a fundamental character in the course of the events that do not appear in the film- are apprehended for the first time for the ferrets.

• The conditions and facts of the surrender of William Henry they are quite accurate, except Munro's death and the escape of the main characters in the film. Mann's version unites two different situations here in the novel:
  • First, the apparition second instance of the daughters of Munro and David Lagamme, is given in the evacuation of the British fort and not in the cave of the waterfall.
  • Second; the flight through the river of the characters occurs later and is not a flight, but the persecution by the Mohicans, Ojo de halcon and Heyward, to rescue the daughters of Munro and David from the hands of the Magua and the ferrets.

• In addition, in the film they mix two different native groups and enemies traditional, now united by interests in the War of the Whitesand representing the village where Zorro subtle takes his prisoners. In the novel, instead, Magua divide the daughters between the village of their adopted tribe, the ferrets, and a village of delawares (people belonging to Chingachgook and Uncass, of which the Mohicans are the original and pure branch, both being the only survivors with rights to lead the lenapes/delawares). This fact is fundamental in the development of events, as it triggers a final war between ferrets and delawares that ends the latter's victory and causes the death of Cora and Uncass.

• The scene of the parliament in the village and the sacrifice of Heyward in the film also mixes several situations that lead to the death of the elder. In the novel, this parliament is given when Zorro subtle takes the village of the delawares (not that of the ferrets as apparent in the film) to their prisoners who have escaped from the village of the magua to Cora. In this sense, the story gives a multitude of turns being the protagonists intermittently prisoners and rescuers, both from one village and another, until the revelation of Uncas as the leader of the delawares. This, together with Cora, is the true saviors of his friends. The first is revealed as the delaware leader of a people who were hostile or neutral until then. The second with his stoicism and sacrifice offering to Magua, forces the hearts of the delawares commanded by Uncas to the war to save her.

• The relationship Nathaniel with the Mohicans, Chingachgook and Uncass, is somewhat less narrow on the part of the latter, but perhaps more powerful and intimate by Ojo de halcon.

• In the novel No trace of the settlersnor the relations of Ojo de halcon and the Mohicans with them

Awards

• 1992: The best sound