I've been to the Tulum ruins.
That village in the film in no way resembled the Tulum ruins.
The pyramid/temple staircase heights in the film were very steep and had about 100 steps. The highest staircase in Tulum is about 24 steps.
Posted on 12/13/2006 4:59:55 AM PST by UltraConservative
According to Mel Gibson, his new movie, "Apocalypto," is a metaphor for the death of American civilization. "The precursors to a civilization that's going under are the same, time and time again," Gibson explained at a film festival in Texas. "What's human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?"
Gibson's comparison between Mayan and American civilization is deeply offensive. To elucidate just how offensive the comparison is, I must review the film's portrayal of Mayan society. (Warning: There are spoilers. If you are intent on seeing this movie, read no further.)
"Apocalypto" portrays two societies within Mayan civilization. The first is a hunter-gatherer sort of Rousseau-ian society, wherein noble savages tell colorful stories, cherish their pregnant wives and play practical jokes involving eating raw tapir testicles. The second is the decadent Mayan city, where slave laborers covered in powder cough up blood as they pound rock; where throngs cheer wildly as power-mad priests engage in ritual human sacrifice, pulling still-beating hearts from chest cavities, beheading victims and tossing those heads down towering flights of stairs to a waiting crowd, which then sticks the heads on pikes; where the headless bodies are dumped in Holocaust-like mass graves, to rot in the sun.
The Mayan city society invades the Rousseau-ian hunter-gatherer society, brutally and graphically raping and murdering its way through village after village. Citizens of the hunter-gatherer society are kidnapped and used for ritual sacrifice, or for sport killing.
Gibson's point is this: Mayan civilization in decline had corrupted itself through brutality and barbarity. It sacrificed its own citizens on the altar of fear. The values that made Mayan civilization worth preserving -- the values embodied by the Rousseau-ian society -- were destroyed so that the fears of the population could be assuaged. In doing so, Mayan society made itself ripe for conquer by the Europeans.
Gibson likens Mayan civilization to American civilization. "We're all afraid," Gibson told Entertainment Weekly. "That's something I've been finding out more recently -- how racked by fear we are as a society." We are discarding our values, Gibson implies. We are engaging in Mayan barbarities in Iraq, sending our own citizens off to die on the altar of fear.
"Apocalypto" opens with a quotation from historian Will Durant: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it destroys itself from within." Durant is correct -- but the film's exposition of Durant is utterly wrong. If American (and Western) civilization falls, it will not be because our fears drove us to "Mayan barbarities," but because, like Gibson, we failed to distinguish good from evil.
Not all civilizations are created equal: Some deserve to fall because they are deeply corrupt from the outset. Mayan civilization, with its human sacrifice and primitivism, was never a beacon of liberty. The Rousseau-ian values Gibson sees were not what distinguished Mayan civilization. The strength of Mayan civilization was based solely on its power -- it was doomed to fail from the moment it encountered a society more powerful militaristically and economically than itself.
Western civilization has values worth protecting -- liberty and equality of opportunity -- and those values give it strength. Those values make us stronger than our enemies, unlike the Mayans. Equating all civilizations, as Gibson does, is what undermines Western values. There is a world of difference between using violence out of superstition and using violence to both ensure domestic security and free others from the oppression of a death cult that ritually beheads its citizens or dumps them in mass graves. It is moral barbarism of the highest order to equate the two, as Gibson does.
Critics have rightly focused on the stunning violence of Gibson's "Apocalypto." The movie is certainly one of the most violent ever filmed -- Gibson's camera lingers lovingly over each wound. But it is the violence Gibson does to morality that should worry us. It is that violence that contributes to the internal destruction of Western civilization. If Western civilization is doomed to failure, it will not be despite Mel Gibson's best efforts, it will be because of them.
Mr. Shapiro is a student at Harvard Law School. He is the author of "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future" (Regnery, a Human Events sister company) and "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctinate America's Youth" Thomas Nelson).
As another poster said, if it weren't for FR, I wouldn't have heard of that conference.
It's quite clear regarding Gibson's opinions on US foreign policy that he doesn't pay much attention to events either.
"Please. Which David Lean movies have you seen? Not one Gibson film has a story or screenplay to rival The Bridge On The River Kwai, or Lawrence of Arabia. Not even in the same league."
We have all seen those movies, and many of his others, I never watched Dr. Zhivago but most everyone else has.
I shouldn't have said Mel was much better, but so far I think Mel has already equaled, or surpassed David, yet Mel has only been at it a few years.
David Leans really great movies were made at a stage of his career that Mel hasn't reached yet.
It is a little unfruitful arguing about movies, but we can try comparing their talent again when Mel gets another 30 years under his belt, by then I think there won't be much argument to it.
David Lean made a couple of my favorites, but he never reached the glorious heights of " The Passion of the Christ".
Besides, it would be quite easy to avoid news of this conference.
I believe films released in December have been proven to have an inside track for Oscars.
Short attention span of public and media, IMO.
He has the number one movie, I think not suckering for all the middle east baiting is a good way to go.
The American people in general, want to hear Hollywood great Mel Gibson talk about his latest smash hit about the Mayans, not foreign affairs.
And, as my post made quite clear, that excuse doesn't wash for a "professional" entertainer/movie producer ostensibly trying to promote his business. No matter what else you think it to be, the movie business IS a business, and failure to do the extremely simple things that help maximize your success, such as doing a little basic prep and giving a little forethought to issues and questions that you should know ARE going to be raised by interviewers, is both unprofessional AND foolish. It denotes a dangerous detachment from reality. I'm not trying to bash Gibson - I'm pointing-out these things in the spirit of trying to help him.
As far as I know David Lean wasn't a raving anti-semite or a drunk. He has those facts in his favor too.
Well, I'm happy to bash Gibson, I just don't think that what you suggest is reasonable, either from a realistic standpoint or from a Machiavellian one.
"Mel Gibson didn't direct or produce We Were Soldiers"
Correct, I caught that after I posted.
Some of my confusion came from the high level of involvement Mel had in the lead role as an actor.
Soldier of Fortune magazine did a long article about the movie, Mel, and fellow Catholic Lt.Col. Hal Moore, and how Moore and Gibson and Galloway worked so hard to make the film realistic, and the close personal relationship that developed between Moore and Gibson.
I've been to the Tulum ruins.
That village in the film in no way resembled the Tulum ruins.
The pyramid/temple staircase heights in the film were very steep and had about 100 steps. The highest staircase in Tulum is about 24 steps.
Western Civilization has been going on for a long time and through most of that time neither liberty nor equality of opportunity were much in evidence. This redefining of Western Civ as a set of (liberal) values is part of the problem, after all if these values define your civilization then anyone who holds them is part of that civilization, a radical redefining of the concept. (While it might be debated whether equality of opportunity is increasing in the West, liberty clearly is in decline from its height.) I'm sure the author understands that civilizations are more than some contemporary values but unfortunately most of our political and intellectual leadership do not. Radical Islam has two great recruiting tools: the decadence of the modern West that most traditional people find repugnant, and the clear fact that the West is being colonized and its natives dispossessed by policies of elites who believe in the "creedal nation" (or civilization) concept. In the not-so-long term the West is doomed to suffer the fate of all conquered and colonized peoples and everyone outside of West can see that, why hitch your wagon to a suicidal loser?
I think you have made some interesting and cogent points but before I comment further,could you please explain what you mean by a "creedal nation". Thank you.
Global Warming Bump!
It all starts with the massive tattoos and the ubiquitous body piercings.
Be afraid! Be very afraid!!
Could have released it on the Feast of the Assumption.
He said that a year or two ago.
I saw Mel on either Leno or Letterman and could't believe how he couldn't sit still. I seriously wonder if he has a disease he's keeping quiet....
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