In this big-screen adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's classic adventure novel, Randolph Scott plays Hawkeye, a frontiersman and ally to Chingachgook and Uncas, the last of their Mohican tribe. When two daughters of an English commander are captured by Huron tribesmen led by the fiendish Magua, Hawkeye and his compadres fight to restore them to safety, and in the process become snagged in the larger French and Indian War. Philip Dunne's screenplay departs crucially from the novel in its depiction of the erstwhile stolid Hawkeye as a softer-hearted romantic lead, a departure echoed and furthered by Michael Mann's 1992 adaptation.
Twenty-five years after its release, Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans stands as one of the director's greatest achievements. It is a symphony of light and sound, featuring some of the director's most hypnotic vistas and kinetic sequences. It is also one of his purest love stories, between Nathaniel (Daniel Day-Lewis), the adopted white son of a Mohican warrior, and Cora (Madeleine Stowe), an English general's daughter. The movie is also a remake of sorts that owes more to the 1936 film The Last of the Mohicans directed by George B. Seitz and written by Philip Dunne, than to James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel.
Museum of the Moving Image - Bartos Screening Room
36-01 35th Ave
Astoria
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