Posted on 04/14/2005 11:33:01 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Gladiator director Ridley Scott returns to the historical epic with a film about the Crusades. Will the potentially controversial tale starring Orlando Bloom be enough to revive a flagging genre?
With the failure of King Arthur, the critical mauling dished out to Troy and the disastrous performance of Oliver Stone's Alexander, the historical epic has been unable to capitalise on the surge of interest instigated by Gladiator's enormous success. It's only right then that Hollywood's continued interest in the genre will rest with Ridley Scott's Crusades film Kingdom Of Heaven. If it works it will give the historical epic a much-needed shot in the arm.
The film focusses on the run up to the third Crusade in the 12th century and promises to deliver onscreen carnage on a vast scale. Orlando Bloom stars as Balian, a French blacksmith reluctantly drafted into the Crusades after travelling to Jerusalem to absolve himself of sin after his wife's suicide. Jerusalem at this time was ruled by the Catholic king, Baldwin IV, but he's suffering from leprosy and his policy that Muslims, Jews and Christians should be able to co-exist is under threat from his brother-in-law, Guy De Lusignan (Csokas), who is intent on wiping out the Muslims.
Given that one of the film's biggest set-pieces is the Battle of Hattin, in which the Crusaders are slaughtered by the forces of Muslim leader Saladin (Massoud), and the other major battle is Saladin's subsequent siege of Jerusalem, the film sounds potentially controversial, especially in the current political climate. According to Scott, though, it's actually the Christian forces that come off worst. "All you've got to do is tell the truth," says the director. "The whitest knight was Saladin and the worst fundamentalists were Christian. They made the problem."
Predictably the film has already upset some people. An article in The New York Times, which attempted to stir up controversy by supplying a number of academics with a purloined copy of the script, quoted one expert on Islamic history as saying the movie would teach people to hate Muslims by propagating stereotypes of them as "retarded, backward [and] unable to think in complex form". An article in the 'Telegraph' quoted several British academics who believed the film (which no one has seen) pandered to Islamic fundamentalism by portraying the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised and the Crusaders as brutes and barbarians.
Seems Scott can't win, but he has nothing but praise for writer William Monahan's script, describing it as "the best material I've ever had". A former journalist, Monahan used primary sources as much as possible to shape the story and while some will question the film's accuracy, as Scott points out, history is conjecture anyway. "There's 300 years of perception and a mass of material so what you do is you glean through a lot of it and form your own opinion."
What's not in any doubt is the quality of the cast Scott has assembled. Bloom may not have impressed in Troy but his character here is more chivalrous and it certainly promises to be a meatier, grungier role if he can muster the necessary gravitas. He's joined by rising star Eva Green (The Dreamers), who plays Lusignan's wife Sybilla and adds romantic tension by falling for Balian. Add to this mix Liam Neeson as Balian's father, Jeremy Irons as Tiberius, an uncredited Ed Norton as King Baldwin and the likes of David Thewlis and Brendan Gleeson in supporting roles and it's hard to see how Scott can go wrong.
Between 1981 and 1994, the rate of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church dropped 93%. I'd say Rat-Zinger did a pretty good job.
I generally like Ratzinger. I am sure he helped. But the approach past inquisitors would take would have been more effective: establish a tribunal in every bishopric under direct Vatican control; examine all suspects, from the bishop down, for heretical views, not merely for acts of abuse; defrock and shame the heretics; relax the criminals to the civil authority for prosecution. Both the internal integrity and the prestige of the Church would have been much better preserved.
And Jews and protestants (Waldensians), etc. Lots of folks from all over were painted as heretics over the course of several centuries.
Muslim Scholars Denounce Upcoming 'Kingdom of Heaven' (poor babies)
Posted by Paul Atreides
On News/Activism 08/12/2004 1:13:08 PM PDT · 37 replies · 992+ views
IMDb.com ^ | 8-12-04
I can't say that I am really surprised. Here is yet another movie that I will be sure to miss.
I saw this movie advertised on TV and, for a nanosecond I was interested, but then I figured they would lie about it.
See my other comments on my thread. I'm sort of "pulling a Kerry" on it. ;-)
NORTON!!!!
&&&
ROTFLMHO!
That was also the Norton who came into my mind. You must be an old geezer like me!
I don't even know who Ed Norton is.
Crusades film 'will help Muslims'
Posted by Pikamax
On News/Activism 04/08/2005 5:38:50 PM PDT · 112 replies · 1,361+ views
BBC ^ | 04/08/05 | BBC
Really?
My understanding is, it was applied primarily to the allegedly heretical Christians. That would include Christian converts from other faiths, most notably the Jewish Conversos in Spain. It would not apply to non-Christians. In fact, an apostasy would often terminate the case, since the issue of heresy would be rendered moot.
You mean it could have been worse?
After seeing some honkin' big Kingdom of Heaven displays in my local theater, I was really looking forward to seeing it. After reading this thread, now I'm not so sure.
Are you saying the Catholic Church has been actually tracking and measuring the "rate of sexual abuse" even farther back than 1981? And that, within the Catholic Church, it was much worse prior to 1981 than it was in 1994??
What you write is true, and contradicts only what I said if you take what I said out of context. The real target of the Inquisition were those Moslems falsely claiming conversion. Not so much as heretics, but infiltrators.
>> Are you saying the Catholic Church has been actually tracking and measuring the "rate of sexual abuse" even farther back than 1981? And that, within the Catholic Church, it was much worse prior to 1981 than it was in 1994?? <<
No to the first, and yes to second.
In 2003, the US Council of Catholic Bishops released an independent study which collected all the incidents of reported sexual abuse. These included cases as far back as the 1940s. The vast, vast majority of cases were reported in the late 90s or early new millennium, but were of incidents which had taken place decades earlier. The incidents were plotted on a chart, which illustrated that there was a drastic reduction in sexual abuse beginning in 1981.
The scary truth, however, is that the sexual abuse was not a recent problem, but had plagued the church in the 1950s: it was not a result of the radical changes in society that took place in the 1960s. In fact, it's very hard to tell how much of the increase in cases throughout the 1960s and 1970s represents a worsening of the problem, or simply the fact that the culprits were still around to be complained against.
The phenomenon of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is almost the opposite of what is presented in the media. THe truth is that the Church did indeed have a massive problem with pedastery, but that the problem was largely defeated during the reign of John Paul II.
Now the tough question: Did the Church try to and manage to conceal the problem until the righteous elements of the Church had the upper hand in what had to have been an incredible war within the Church?
You forgot this part:
who were just sitting in their fields tending their sheep and camels, reading the Koran and praying...
I think it is a great movie. Based loosely on Artorius Castus, a Roman commander of conscripted Sarmatian Knights from the 2nd century, it was departure from the stories of King Arthur that we are used to. But this one presents a perfectly good candidate for Arthur as a Roman, I thought..
I think the movie would be more interesting if it were about the 1st and 2nd crusades when Christians were mowing
down Jews.
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