Who is Hugh?

The Revenant, a novel by Michael Punke, is soon to be a motion picture. It will have a wide release on January 8, 2016 with a limited release (Oscar politics) on December 25, 2015. It tells a story about Hugh Glass.

The director and cinematographer of Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki, respectively) are collaborating for another probable Oscar contender for 2015. Emmanuel Lubezki is an extremely talented cinematographer, especially in collaboration with Alejandro, Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity and Children of Men), and Terrence Malick (Tree of Life, The New World).

They shot the upcoming film using only natural light over 9 months. I'm excited to see the results.

"The revenant, he knew, searched for him." This sentence was on page 201 (there are only 257 pages if you include the Historical Note). It wasn't until reading that sentence that I decided to look up this word that is the title of which I did not know the definition. It refers to an individual who returns after a very long time, or in fictional cases, the dead, which makes a good title for a book about Hugh Glass.

Hugh Glass was a frontiersman of the early 19th century. In a company of men, he was attacked by a bear, and nearly killed. Two men were left behind to bury him upon his death.  They left him before he died without any provisions. Somehow, he survived.

Not too unlike The Martian, it is a story of survival. Michael Punke's story, which is a work of fiction, tells the story as one of vengence. The thought of revenge is what motivates Hugh Glass to crawl/trek back to civilization.

Upon watching the trailer a second time after reading the book, I noticed that the movie will definitely deviate. There is no mention of a son in either the book or historically.

In doing a little research on this amazing story of survival, I found the 1971 movie "The Man in the Wilderness" starring Richard Harris which is loosely based on Glass's story. There is also the 1976 book "Saga of Hugh Glass, Pirate, Pawnee and Mountain Man" as well as the 1994 book "Wilderness" by Zelazny and Hausman.

I'm exploring no further, however. I'm content with having read the book and embellishing in the anticipation of the upcoming movie.