Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” was not, it’s safe to say, an easy shoot. Temperatures in the film’s remote locations in the Canadian Rockies reached 40 below zero, until suddenly the snow unexpectedly melted and the entire production had to move to South America to shoot the final scenes.
The budget soared, the director was demanding and the cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, could only shoot for an hour or so a day because Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki were so enamored by the beauty of natural light that they waited for that so-called magic hour.