By Rudi Anna
Certain movies never end. Ever
When reeling back through medleys of old memories, I often think about how intertwined many of them are between real life and the Pictures.
I remember watching that two-hour serving of grandiose derring-do and romance that is the historical matinee, The Last of the Mohicans, for the first time. I was thirteen, clueless about deep love, and had no idea my little pubescent heart was about to get spin-cycled and steamrolled by the images unfurling before me.
It was near the end of the movie. Young Alice Munro stands at the edge of a rocky precipice, neck deep in Huron territory, ready to jump to her earnest and dear-heartbroken death. She’s fallen in love with Uncas, the second-to-the-last of the Mohicans. The problem for Alice by this point is that Uncas, in an effort to save her life, now lays dead at the bottom of that cliff, having been sliced open and pushed over moments before in a failed attempt at mortal combat.
Maguai, Uncas’ killer, beckons Alice to step from the edge, and for a moment she holds that idea in her troubled head.
She looks over the edge. She turns back to Maguai. She repeats.
But tear-rimmed eyes betray her next move. The music subdues to an aching bass line threaded with ghosts of a violin (if you play the soundtrack backwards, you can hear pieces of my heart harmlessly mending back together).
Then, she leans back… back… and plummets into oblivion, slo-mo style, the cold mountain winds trumpeting her demise.
Why does this scene scar my memory so deeply? In the story, their love affair is minor– an afterthought of a subplot. Yet somehow, the images resonate.
I resolved that, aside from Alice’s grace (Jodhi May, you are special) in that ethereal moment, the resonance springs from experiencing kindred spirits united by a connection which transcends time and space, even reason. Acknowledging this can mark us, make us act inconceivably. What does it matter that they barely know each other, especially when love’s on the line?
And then, as I got older, I wondered if Alice was simply ingenuous and foolish. To her limited experience, what she shared with Uncas probably felt deep, but so are many love stories of the young, impulsive and romantic. Maybe she regrets her choice halfway down the fall. Maybe she jumps for other reasons. Her father’s just had his heart literally ripped out of his chest and eaten (that damn Maguai!), and her sister, not long before, has brushed-off a chance to marry into English nobility for a fleeting romp in the hay with a bastard vagabond (say goodbye to those summers in Cornwall).
In that moment, Alice’s life isn’t exactly awash in a sea of gilded prospects, so why not end it all? There’s no nearby musket barrel to swallow, so maybe some rocky high ground and a little gravity might do the trick. Maybe she’s hoping to get all 50 Shades with Uncas in an over-sexed afterlife.
I thought about the nature of love and relationships. I thought more about why she kills herself, my opinions shifting ever still. Then I compared Uncas and Alice’s connection with my own. Over the years lots of lovers came and went, and for most, on whatever terms we may have parted, I put them in the rear-view, cried two tears in a bucket. Then f*ck it.
Eventually, I realized I’d been using that scene as a touchstone for determining how serious all my relationships were. If the situation presented itself– if shit went down, and hard decisions had to be made– could I do what Alice does? Would I fight for her to the bloody end like Uncas?
I asked my wife to marry me because I knew for the first time that, for her, I would do either, maybe not happily, but with a certain zest, a strength of will—and belt out For Your Precious Love like Linda Jones while Maguai hacks away at me like I were a smirking pinata that just dissed his mother—and I knew after our first date. Or maybe it was the second one.
Like Alice, it was something from her eyes to mine. Currents connecting at high voltage… with enough juice to power a thousand sunsets more.
But without that memory from the multiplex so long ago, I’m not sure I would have drawn the same conclusion. Or?
I do know the arrival of disarming questions like these make certain films a blessing. They allow haunting stories, images and sounds to linger in the mind like wisps of smoke from the smoldering pages of tragic, tortured love songs.
And as for disarming questions, don’t even get me started on the last shot from A Clockwork Orange.
Oh my God, I know this article is almost two years old but I just had to comment. This post is great! Every few years I bust this movie out and watch it, literally over and over. Yes I appreciate Cora and Hawkeye but Uncas just does it for me. Even at 47 and after 17 years of marriage he makes my little heart flutter. After my 6th viewing in the last two days, I still imagine all sorts of alternate endings and wish it ended with Uncas as the last Mohican. I know it couldn’t because if he had him and Alice would have made babies and screwed up the whole “last Mohican” deal.
I’ve always wondered if Alice returned Uncas’s affections or if she had just lost it by that point. I mean she’s been taken from her sister, dad’s dead and she’s being whisked away to be Muguai’s sex toy and she’s taking in scenery like she’s on a nature walk. Her eyes have been pretty much blank since the waterfall scene and she hasn’t shed so much as a tear. I mean I could totally understand, she’s a pampered teenager whose been on a roller coaster from hell, for like a week.
Anyway I’m glad to know someone besides me marks the passage of time in their life by their first viewing of this movie. Thank you for the article it gave me the giggles.
Hey Shannon! I’m 42, I’ve been with my partner for 21 years and I too love watching this movie now and then (I think I first saw it more than two decades ago and Alice’s face still haunts me to this day). Although he loved the film too, he’s never watched it again.
Like you, I always imagine that Uncas and Alice end up happy enjoying life with their children in their house just nextdoor to Cora and Nathaniel 🙂
I’m so happy it’s on Netflix, I searched it earlier today just in case and was thrilled when it turned up !
I wish I could see the deleted Alice and. Uncas scenes. Maybe I’ll have to just accept Alice and Uncas fanfic. Ugh. Still. I have my memories and that will have to be enough.
I was also wondering about that deleted scene. Just recently I stumbled on the original script for the film. Don’t know if you’ve read it but that scene is in the script. Though not a lot of detail, you can see what was originally intended for Uncas and Alice under the waterfall and it’s very intense, and yes, they make love. Not sure what was shot and left on the cutting room floor, but I would have known, without a shadow of a doubt, why Alice jumped of the cliff.
Hi, I’d like to read the script, where did you find it?
Script can be found here with a simple search: http://www.script-o-rama.com/
Hi, I’d like to read the script, where did you find it?
It’s so good to know I’m not the only one that noticed what was happening between Alice & Uncas! After all these years, it’s a credit to the writers & actors.
This movie is based on actual events back in 1756. I would imagine this backstory is totally fiction but for me, it’s one of the many highlights of the movie.
The dynamic of love that converges on these two opposite characters in this film is special, the romantic connection between Alice and Uncas screams delicacy and “what could have been”. In a way it recalls the passionate distance that Jane Austen conveys in Pride and Prejudice between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. There is this silent interchangeable communication that demonstrates a passion waiting to flourish, this is highlighted in the gestures and looks between them. And the outcome… This outcome made me feel the same way as the end of The Silence of the Sea. That’s subtly passionate, intense and sad, all at the same time.
The look Uncas has in his eyes, a shot that can’t be interpreted in any other way than that he’s gazing at Alice as she climbs the falls and exudes a deep sense of desire, desire to keep her safe and the passion between them be forever, he has found the one to make babies with and live his life with. Each interaction between Uncas and Alice are why I watch the movie again and again. It’s one of my favorites but I’m not sure I would watch again and again without this couple. The last scene with Uncas attempting to reach Alice and rescue her kill me and I long to have had more showing the love story because I find it apparent there was one. I’ve also tried to tell in the scene where they cut to the bottom of the cliff where Uncas and Alice fell that they are laying touching but I have not been able to make it out clearly. If anyone knows I’d love to hear about it.
She was on her way to spend the rest of her life as a sex slave. I saw it as a way of taking control of her own fate.
We all breathe our own lives into these characters. Thanks for the perspective!
It is now 2024, I have rewatched the movie again after many years. Still touched by the same emotions I had when this movie first came out and I was 25. Back then I was trying forever to figure out if their bodies fell beside each other and I would rewind the VHS tape over and over. It took me weeks to get over the effects and stop thinking about it. I thought perhaps I was romanticizing about their unspoken relationship, but I see now that I’m not alone. I know that the script intended more for them, but it was decided to leave it up to the imagination of the viewer. This movie will stay with me forever as if it really happened. Uncas and Alice will stay young, even though the actors like me….have aged!
Now if only someone could tell me if Alice fell beside him. 🤷♀️.
Their relationship would have been frowned upon in those days and most likely destroyed by interference. In death, and in my matrix…they walk together without sorrow and prejudice. They are forever young.
Script can be found here with a simple search: http://www.script-o-rama.com/