Welcome to Will’s Core Canon, a series covering some of my all-time favorite movies and why they work. This series seeks to go beyond surface-level analysis to strike at the core of why these films resonated the way they did.
Every year around my birthday, I like to revisit one of my favorite movies. This year, I could not be happier to have picked The Last of the Mohicans, 1992’s epic historic romance set in colonial America directed by Michael Mann and based on James Fenimore Cooper’s classic 1826 novel. This movie also credits a previous film adaptation from 1936 as a source of inspiration. The film follows Nathaniel “Hawkeye” Poe (Daniel Day-Lewis), the adopted son of Mohican warrior Chingachgook (Russell Means), in upper New York State during the French and Indian War.
A party escorting the two daughters of a commanding colonel is sabotaged, only for Hawkeye to step in and save them. The oldest daughter, Cora (Madeleine Stowe), and Hawkeye begin to bond as they return to the fort, only to find it under siege. The traitorous Mohawk warrior Magua (Wes Studi) seeks revenge against Cora’s father. Though they must be separated, Hawkeye pleads with Cora to stay alive and that he promises come what may, he will always find her. Lives are not spared as negotiations between the various warring parties take place on what to do with our cast of heroes.
(Twentieth Century Fox)
Director Michael Mann has been discussed a lot recently, as his first movie in 8 years, Ferrari, was just released to positive reception. The Last of the Mohicans was Mann’s first bigger-budgeted movie, and only his fourth movie overall. He was mostly known before this for smaller thrillers like 1981’s…