The Last of the Mohicans

I've always been interested in how other people live -- in other countries, or historically. When I was in 7th grade, I  studied hard to learn all the New York State history required to gain a coveted a membership in the Yorker Club, which got me a free bus ride to Cooperstown's Farmer's Museum.  James Fenimore Cooper's works were required reading, of course.  Honestly, as much as the Leatherstocking Tales featured intrigue and frontier action, and I never was that enamored with Cooper's literary style, a little too baroque for my middle-school taste.  Nonetheless, Alison and I decided to watch the Last of the Mohicans for our evening's entertainment recently.  Neither of us had seen it, and it seemed like a good idea as a reminiscence of our recent forays into the New York State wilderness.


FORGET THE WILDERNESS!  We both gasped watching Daniel Day-Lewis running. OMG, can that guy run!  The whole movie can be summarized as DDL, in the character of Hawkeye running through the woods, leaping over fallen logs, dashing through raging waterfalls, and bounding up mountainsides, all without a shirt, while carrying a long rifle, wearing moccasins!  Whew. Alison's imitation of an eighteenth century descriptive sobriquet for Mr. Lewis in the character of Hawkeye:  "Hot-eth".  Oh Ya!

After the movie ended and we regained our breath, we asked each other what it really took for Daniel Day Lewis to condition for the filming of that movie.  In actuality, the amount of time he is truly in motion on screen is probably under 10 minutes, although the question remains how many hours he had to run and jump to get the exactly right 10 minutes worth of takes.  It doesn't take much to find out that DDL spent a LOT of time conditioning for this role, however.  Numerous private trainers are willing to take credit for their contribution to DDL's fine appearance.  According to DDL's biographer, Dominic Wills, as sourced in a Wikipedia article, "Day-Lewis's character research for this film was well-publicized; he reportedly underwent rigorous weight training and learned to live off the land and forest where his character lived, camping, hunting and fishing.^[9] "  In short, he definitely put the effort in, with eminently visible results.


Today was my turn to put the effort in.  I'd like to tell you that I ran barefoot up Slide Mountain in the Catskills in under 5 minutes, but instead I'll proudly mention that I ran more consecutive miles than I have in more than twenty years. 
Até amanhã... 

8/6/11 - 7.0 miles | 97 mins | 4.3 mph | 745 kcal