Mel Gibson’s deep thoughts about Apocalypto
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Wow. Check out this interview (hat tip to Newspaper Rock) in which Mel Gibson shares his inspiration for the film Apocalypto:
CS: What was it about the Mayan people or that era that got you interested in trying something like this?
Gibson: Well, no, it wasn’t that. At first, I was just trying to make a chase film, but I wanted to make it a chase film that didn’t have automobiles, so I thought of a foot chase. And I thought, “Well, where would you have a foot chase? You’d have a foot chase in some place that was a long time ago. And let me see, where can that be? Oh, this is interesting. No one’s really looked at this much before. And what’s more interesting is that the civilization dates back to millennia before the Europeans arrived.” And that to me, musing on what might have happened before Europe arrived—because we have this conceit that history began when we got here–I thought that was interesting. Most people do it when the boats arrive, and then the fun starts, but I wanted to do it the other way around, and look what was before all that.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Y. Carrington wrote:
Wow. And I thought that calling Hollywood stars stupid was just hyperbole.
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 10:44 am ¶
sylviasrevenge wrote:
“hay look a civilization i’ve never really heard of b4…… i can make it sparkly =^_^=”
What the hell, Mel Gibson. That’s horrid exploitation and appropriation if ever I’ve seen it.
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 1:14 pm ¶
justin wrote:
There isn’t a lot that bothers me in the interview. The mythic archetype thing is kind of irksome.
From reading the quote I was expecting to discover something about sedan chairs, I am disappointed.
Even if Gibson doesn’t have grandiose intentions this is still a prestige movie, it’s built on various principals (language and casting) that imbue it with authority and it cannot be taken at face value because of the strategic relationship to Gibson’s racism and the Passion of the Christ.
I should spend more time entertaining the possibility that people like Gibson are redeemable but Apocalypto is not the thing to do that. He has broken new ground in the past, like when he took the Eddie Murphy role in lethal weapon, I guess.
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 7:12 pm ¶
Just Wondering wrote:
Movies that aim to be accurate portrayals of the past are called documentaries, and they air on the History Channel, not the local multiplex.
Seriously, I don’t understand the knock on Gibson’s movie. He’s a Hollywood actor/director, not a professor of ancient cultures.
Posted 21 Dec 2006 at 12:03 pm ¶
sylviasrevenge wrote:
I guess my qualms fall with this section of the interview:
I understand that Gibson intends to make his film an allegory, but how historically accurate is it that the Mayan culture was reaching its downfall before Europeans arrived? The whole scenario uses a similar structure to Things Fall Apart — telling the story of one man through the richness of the culture he fully participated while simultaneously exploring the environment threatening that culture — but how fair of a treatment is the Mayan culture receiving in this film?
Here’s an article from the Archaelogical Institute of America that explains my concerns clearer.
Posted 21 Dec 2006 at 2:43 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>Yes, Gibson includes the arrival of clearly Christian missionaries (these guys are too clean to be conquistadors) in the last five minutes of the story (in the real world the Spanish arrived 300 years after the last Maya city was abandoned).
This is the damning part of the “Archaeology” article for me – if it’s true that Gibson’s aim is merely to show a good story about a relatively unknown (to many) culture at a key moment in time, why bother to drastically change events, especially ones of such significance (the arrival of Europeans) – UNLESS YOU”RE TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING.
God forbid Gibson make a movie about Mayans without adding the white people? If that isn’t the point, then why add it? If it really is in the last parts fo the film, then it’s meant to wrap up the story. What was wrong w/ just leaving it as is, or show some early European explorers, or even modern day archaologists puzzling over the Mayan ruins?
Posted 21 Dec 2006 at 2:56 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Oh – and I wanted to repeat something I’ve written here before (thiefed without permission from an online history-major’s LJ): If a movie claims to be historically based, and Mel Gibson is in it, it’s probably wrong.
Posted 21 Dec 2006 at 2:58 pm ¶
makethelogobigger wrote:
I’m just glad his recent escapades have made me forget all about Bird On a Wire.
(Damn, until just now that is.)
Posted 22 Dec 2006 at 4:31 pm ¶