Affect and the Immersive Experience of Bodily Excess: The Revenant (2015)

This chapter considers the way in which The Revenant (2015) allows the spectator to confront themselves with extreme bodily experiences within a safe, virtual space. In the expression of ‘body spectacle’ the film presents episodes that might be described as either ‘gross’ or ‘excessive’. In the abuse of human bodies that is displayed the film becomes, on one level, a Western offered as a festival of gore. This is ‘pain porn’ packed with relevance to the post-9/11 American experience. Brutality against the body can be seen, for example, in relation to battlefield trauma. Here the story of a legendary frontiersman is being re-packaged within the context of the early 21st century in such a way as to express American exceptionalism for a contemporary audience. However, for the audience the physicality of the images means the primary experience is one of bodily ‘affect’.