Forget the ImmaX, the 4D with the armchairs moving and the most technological Surround systems you can think for a cinema room. On 22 August and 25 September, in fact, the film L’ultimo dei Mohicani will be screened outdoors in the courtyard of weapons of Fort William Henry, in Lake George, in the state of New York. Guides and re-evoires will follow the live film, intervening in the predetermined moments with shots and performances among the public: during some battle scenes, therefore, the shots of musket and cannon will arrive from outside to the screen.
According to the program published by the museum, the audio system will have a power of 8 thousand watts. The effect will then depend on the overlap between the soundtrack, the noises played by the speakers and those produced by the revokes. The show is held in the Parade Ground of the fort, without covers and with spectators sitting on camping chairs brought from home.
Fort William Henry was built by the British in 1755 at the southern end of Lake George, along one of the streets connecting New York and Montreal. In August 1757 he was besieged by the French forces led by Louis-Joseph de Montcalm and surrendered after six days. During the evacuation a part of the British column was attacked by the French native allies: the museum of the fort estimates that about two hundred people were killed or wounded, specifying that the reconstructions of the episode diverge.
The siege became one of the central events of the novel by James Fenimore Cooper, published in 1826 and set in 1757. The story follows Natty Bumppo, known as the Hawk Eye, and Chingachgook during the voyage of the daughters of the fort commander to Lake George. The last of the Mohicanis is the best known book of the Calza-di-Cuoio Tales cycle, as the Library of Congress recalls. The projections of 2026 therefore coincide with the bicentennial of the first publication.
The version will be directed in 1992 by Michael Mann, with Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe and Wes Studi. The landscape rebuilt on the screen belongs largely to North Carolina: some of the most famous scenes were shot between Chimney Rock and Hickory Nut Falls, while others used the land of Biltmore Estate, near Asheville, according to the official tourist sites of the state. The film won the Oscar for sound in 1993, a detail particularly suitable for a projection built around the explosions: the award went to Chris Jenkins, Doug Hemphill, Mark Smith and Simon Kaye, as shown by the Academy Awards archive.
The strong visible today in Lake George is a reconstruction made in the Fifties on the plant and the foundations of the 18th century structure, which the French burned after the conquest. The projections will therefore take place in the place of the siege, but in front of a rebuilt fortress and with images turned hundreds of kilometers south.
For the evening of August 22 the gates will open at 7 pm and the film will begin around 20:15. On the 25th of September the entrance will be allowed from 18, starting at 19:15. The Sutler Shoppe will sell snacks until 10:00. In case of rain the show will be cancelled and the tickets refunded; availability and reservations are indicated on the official page of the event.
L’articolo <i>The last of the Mohicani</i>, in a fort with muskets and cannons around the screen proviene da IlNewyorkese.