Sioux City Journal from Sioux City, Iowa • 15

The Sioux City Journal Friday, Sept. 25, 1992page B1 Brutal 'Mohicans dazzles visually By Bruce R. Miller Journal staff writer The race is over. The sound effects Too much of Cooper's book is left to chance. Even a crawl could help those unfamiliar with the landscape; Mann, though, stops for no one.

He tells his story forcefully and soars with some very strong performances. Easily, Tom Cruise could have played Hawkeye. Day-Lewis, ever, lends a dignity that resonates. When the screenplay fails him (as it often does), he steps in with attitude and lets the moments smolder. Indian Activist Russell Means (as Hawkeye 's adoptive father) benefits from the reflected glow.

Though limited in his participation, he registers as a powerful force in the young man's life. Far more memorable is Wes Studi, a marvelous Indian actor who goes beyond mere villainy to give the Native American community dimension. He's the vengeful Magua, a Huron who sees the encroaching Europeans and reacts in kind. He has a mesmerizing finish that gives the sound men their ultimate workout. When he plows through the forests, no one safe.

A particularly brutal battle leaves no head unturned. Obviously, "Last of the is not for the weak-willed. It's a tough, obtuse film that's stuffed with irony and blessed with visual beauty. Perhaps with more films of this caliber, audiences may 'change the way they view Indians and the classic literature that has depicted them. As "Dances With Wolves" showed, truthful storytelling can be entertaining.

Rated "The Last of the Mohicans "features lots of violence. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, directed by Michael Mann; written by Mann and Christopher Crowe; produced by Mann and Hunt Lowry; starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, in The Last of the Mohicans are so brutally authentic they're bound to win next year Oscar. When Indians race through the New England woods, tomahawks in hand, the stampede is deafening. When they plant weapons in the backs and heads of their opponents, the result is horrifying. Director Michael Mann isn inter ested in painting a "Dances With Wolves" greeting card.

He wants to show the 18th century, warts and all. In scene after scene, he realigns the history written by other filmmakers. Here, Indians battle Indians; Brits kill their own. It's a very realistic sit uation one that openly provides clues to the world that is about to follow. Daniel Day-Lewis expands his vast resume with a beefy turn as James Fenimore Cooper's hero, Hawkeye.

As the Caucasian adopted by Indians, he affects an odd, American accent, sets his steely eyes on the prey and sets out to save the world that has embraced him. When he encounters a British col onel's porcelain daughter (Madeleine Stowe), the intensity shifts. He's still determined to protect his people. But now, there's someone else to fight for. Stowe, meanwhile, finds her ac ting legs with a role that less woman-m-jeopardy than anything she has done.

Ironically, she's held in others' clutches and forced to defend herself throughout the story. Now, however, she's an early feminist, not a victim. When the two leads fall into each other's arms, "Mohicans" seems like a romance novel. Mann, though, isn't about to tread the path of least resistance. He loads his film with history, packs it with extras and shoots with the eye of an artist.

His vast battle scenes are reminiscent of those in "Glory. If Mann's going to gain a reputation, it's as a master of the broad stroke. A David Lean is budding, if only he could get a handle on an unwieldy screenplay. 1 -I 7 i3 4 AT ti, all VL-J- -O7 Vi vv A -v ---y 1 preparing for 'The Last rifle, spoke with an American accent and wore buckskin. The process, British-born Daniel Day-Lawls spent months of the Mohicans." When the cameras weren't rolling, the character, The film opens today.

Allen opens veins with compelling film By Bruce R. Miller NEW YORK Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't warm to 'obvious' roles. Look at "A Room with a View," "My Beautiful Laundrette" or the acclaimed "My Left Foot." None of them had anything to do with the real Daniel Day-Lewis. Ana yet, the Oscar winner says, "the final creation, whatever that may be, is closer to you than you originally imagined. You reel as you go all the way to them, but 'they're coming toward you as well." With 'The Last of the the latest iscreen adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's nnvf rim rr1.

nf A frnntiWKmnn hv In. The first time Day-Lewis read the script, "I liked it very much, but I put it aside because it 5 uite obviously didn't seem something for me. aid then I kept coming back to it and rereading more he resisted, the more he felt it was 'lhe right thing to do. Russell Means and Wes Studi. On a scale of four stars, "The Last of the Mohicans" gets: Mia Farrow and Judy Davis play friends in "Husbands and Wives." Juliette Lewis, one of his it's impossible not to see scenes or, for that matter, life.

The director has employed an an- noying hand-held camera to capture- inose spontaneous moments, a sia- uuiiaijr uiiv iui aiaui. 11111.1 with the participants. The conceit is apt, though heightened. In this day of video literacy, it's doubtful anyone would shake as much as this film's photo- iapiik-i. Nonetheless, Allen has taken a risk that merely ups the stakes of a very high-stakes production.

Consider "Husbands and Wives" his most compelling drama yet. Rated "Husbands and Wives" features profanity, adult talk. HUSBANDS AND WIVES, written and directed by Woody Allen; produced by Robert Greenhut; starring Allen, Mia Farrow, Judy Davis and Sidney Pollack. On a scale of four stars, "Husbands and Wives" gets: Vt I he often carried his he says, helped him He's an acting chameleon and he likes it that way. As soon as Day-Lewis got the Oscar, he flew to Ireland, celebrated yeah, you with those who cheered his win and began to unwind.

"The strangeness (of the win) couldn't really reach me where I was, but from time to time I read scripts." Some immediately seemed wrong. Others like "Mohicans" intrigued. Michael Mann, the film's director, knew Day-Lewis was right for the part. He pushed and, finally, the actor relented. The first day on the set (the film was shot in North Carolina), Mann knew he had made the right choice.

"Daniel can do just about anything," Mann says. "What excited me as a director was his process. He's excited by leaping off the edge into something he's never done before. It gets his blood running." The 34-year-old Day-Lewis became so immersed in the part he wore a loincloth and moccasins while training; he carried a rifle wherever he went. "Sometimes when you're working," he explains, "you just do things without knowing why you're doing them." Carrying the gun, he says, "drove everyone mad, but I felt very unsettled when I didn't have it with which is right." Day-Lewis pumped iron to give himself an appropriate look (something he doubts he'll ever do again) and acquired an early-American accent to approximate what his character might have sounded like.

The tall, pencil-thin actor refuses to reveal details of his preparation because he believes such talk takes away from the performance. "It's like kids today are all experts on special effects. Ask any 7-year-old on the street how you walk through a wall and they ust know about it. That's really it's rather sad." Clint, the role model When he was a boy, Day-Lewis knew he wanted to act. Yet when filmmakers came to his neighborhood to shoot "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," he didn't see that as a way to break into the business.

Still, because many of his friends were signing on to play extras, he did, too. "Three particularly nasty-looking kids, which 1 was one, were chosen for bigger roles." The film had no impact on his life at the time, but it did give him a credit. When he moved on to British television and stage, Day-Lewis (the son of British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis) was more than ready. 01 find "Virtually everything else I ve been Interested in has been obviously not for me, too," Day-Lewis says with a shy grin. "Normally, the "first thing I recognize is a life that's entirely "I've always admired people who seemed remarkably secure and managed to make deci- sions without appearing to sweat too much about it," Day-Lewis says.

"I've always had a capacity for hero worship." Early on, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was an idol. Strangely, Clint Eastwood was as well. Spaghetti westerns, he says, proved fascinating. Day-Lewis loved their sense of adventure and, naturally, the thought of appearing in one seemed appealing. "Mohicans," though, involved much more than riding into town on a horse.

More than two months in the North Carolina wilderness required extreme fortitude and more than a passing acquaintance with the times. Further, Day-Lewis says, he was very aware of the film's Used to being in low-budget films Left Foot" was made in seven weeks for what most producers consider pocket change), he knew there was "an obligation to take account of the amount of money spent. At the same time, you have an obligation to completely ignore it as well. "If you're weighed down by a sense of responsibility to that, it's an impediment to the work you need to do. I wish that films were incredibly cheap to make, but they're not." When Day-Lewis finished he vowed to rest and, if needed, wait another two years to work.

Instead, he quickly segued into Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence," slated for release next year. The experience was more than he could have imagined. Calling the man "the best living director working in films," he says "the greatest wish I could bestow on a friend or a colleague is that they someday have the chance to work with him. "For years I just assumed that I would never have the chance and found it sad. It was a wonderful discovery to be able to take pleasure in his company." Similarly, the quiet, self-effacing actor never imagined he'd be among Hollywood's elite.

Nevertheless, in 1990 he won the Best Actor Oscar. "I did look at it a good while," he says of the statuette, "and yes, I was surprised." Now, the trophy is in a friend's apartment and the actor's focus is on rest. "If you don't have the enthusiasm and you don't have the energy, sure as hell, three-fourths of the way through any film, you're going to be ready for the knackers yard and you'll just be hanging on for dear life." By Bruce R. Miller Journal staff writer Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives" is the cinematic equivalent of a car wreck. You want to stare, but you just don't think it's proper.

Had Allen's recent separation from longtime amour Mia Farrow not paralleled the film's plot so closely, no one would have thought anything of the husbandwife battles. In the harsh light of media exposure, however, comparisons are impossible to ignore. When Allen fights with Farrow before connecting with a 20-year-old, moviegoing seems oddly voyeuristic. This may be the most fictional thing Allen has ever written, but the odd way life imitates art changes things drastically. Certainly, "Husbands and Wives" is among Allen's most intense works.

When it opens, two lifelong friends (Sidney Pollack and Judy Davis) announce they're separating. Allen is surprised; Farrow can't take the news. Perhaps she sees the devastation it could cause. And so she begins to question her own marriage. Davis and Pollack, meanwhile, find others to share their lives.

He opts for an aerobics instructor; she hooks up with a sensitive intellectual. The uncoupling appears to work until both realize they're better married to each other. Both actors wring every emotion available out of the parts. Davis, in particular, creates a unique, though wholly recognizable, woman. Her catty suburban matron is among Allen's most realized characters.

She seizes each trait and pushes, pommels and parades the woman to the top of the pack. No doubt an Oscar nomination is in her future. She's that memorable. Farrow, too, does better work here than she has in a handful of other Allen features. If she's not acting, she's certainly brave.

She cuts so close to the heart, it's impossible not to feel sorry for her or her character. Conversely, Allen plays yet another variation on the same character. When he begins to fall for sufficiently interesting at the same time, there's a kind of conflict and I feel drawn toward it '-without understanding it in any way whatsoever. If the compulsion to understand it is sufficient, I think, 'Well, what the and do it. "I'm always more interested by things that I know very little about than things I know more about." quickly.

Following his Oscar win for "My Left Foot," he waited two years to do another film. The move, he says, was necessary. "There was probably a lot of pressure to make the right choice," he says, "but I have quite a high resistance to that. If you've ever been able to make an honest decision, you know you have the capacity to do it again. But the sur- rounding din, the noise, sometimes makes it harder to listen to yourself, i "The noise seems to grow in proportion to the attention you get." After the "My Left Foot" win, attention was intense.

Producers everywhere wanted to put him in their projects. Never mind that they couldn't get i. a handle on who he was. He was hot and they t' wanted him. An acting chameleon 'r Unlike Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzeneg-' Jger, Day-Lewis doesn't fit neatly into any.