LAST OF THE MOHICANS, THE 201
Method actor, Day- Lewis bulked up and worked hard to master it all, then stayed
in character on set by avoiding modern technology, rolling his own cigarettes, trav-
eling by canoe, and keeping his muzzle- loading .40- caliber Pennsylvania flintlock
rifle close at hand at all times. Dale Dye of Warriors, Inc., the military advisor for
Platoon, Casualties of War, and many other war films, provided technical assistance
on set.
Production
For the shoot (which ran 15 weeks, from 17 June–10 October 1991), Michael Mann
was a stickler for authenticity in the reproduction of period hairstyles, tattoos,
beadwork, costumes, uniforms, flags, canoes, weapons, fortifications, etc. He also
insisted on hiring hundreds of Native Americans to portray their colonial- era breth-
ren, most notably Russell Means (1939–2012), an Oglala/Lakota Sioux Indian and
first national director of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who portrays
Hawkeye’s close friend, Chingachgook, in the movie. Dennis Banks, a Chippewa
Indian and a close associate of Russell Means in AIM, plays Hawkeye’s friend, Onge-
wasgone. Wes Studi (Dances with Wolves), the actor who portrays the villainous
Magua, is a member of the Cherokee tribe. Though Cooper’s novel is set in the
vicinity of Lake George, Michael Mann chose to film in the Blue Ridge Mountains
near Ashville, North Carolina (900 miles to the southwest), in order to better rep-
licate 18th- century New York State because the area around Asheville more closely
resembles the untouched old- growth forests of 1757. Some scenes were shot at Bilt-
more, George Vanderbilt’s North Carolina estate south of Asheville, while other
scenes were shot in nearby DuPont State Recreational Forest. The real Fort Wil-
liam Henry was located on the southern end of Lake George in New York’s Adiron-
dack Mountains, but for the movie, a full- scale facsimile of the fort was built at the
northern end of Lake James, in Lake James State Park, about 40 miles east of Ashe-
ville. Another set built for the movie was the Indian village where Magua takes his
captives (Major Heyward and the Munro sisters). The location is 30 miles south-
west of Lake James, in Chimney Rock Park. In the movie the cascading waters of
Hickory Nut Falls can be seen overlooking the Indian village. It was at the top of
these falls where the final fight scene between Chingachgook and Magua was
filmed.
Plot Summary
It is 1757 and the French and Indian War is raging in the Adirondack Mountains.
British Army Major Duncan Heyward (Steven Waddington) arrives in Albany to
serve under Col. Edmund Munro (Maurice Roëves), the commander of Fort Wil-
liam Henry on Lake George, 60 miles due north. Heyward is ordered to bring the
col o nel’s two daughters, Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice ( Jodhi May), to their
waiting father. An old friend of the Munro’s, Heyward professes his love to Cora
and proposes to her. She leaves him without an answer. Major Heyward, the two
women, and a small detachment of British soldiers march through the forest, guided
by Magua (Wes Studi), a Huron warrior employed by the British as a scout, but
the treacherous Magua soon leads the party into an ambush in the deep woods.