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.
Since he was a homosexual, Oliver Stone should be interested.
http://www.arxpub.com/literary/Angels/AngelsinIron.html
NORTON!!!!
My thoughts exactly!
Ed Norton hits I haven't seen:
HARRY AND TONTO?
I guess Christians "made the problem" by being driven out of the Holy Land and North Africa, or being slaughtered or forced to convert, over the course of several centuries, before they determined to fight back.
I smell another anti-Christian Hollywood stink bomb. Unfortunately, this will play well in the Muslim world.
Of course, everyone (including most Catholics) believed this until about four years ago. Then some people began to reexamine the history that was taught them.
As was the Inquisition.
The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition"The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition," a 1994 BBC/A&E production, will re-air on the History Channel this December 3 at 10 p.m. It is a definite must-see for anyone who wishes to know how historians now evaluate the Spanish Inquisition since the opening of an investigation into the Inquisition's archives. The special includes commentary from historians whose studies verify that the tale of the darkest hour of the Church was greatly fabricated.
...The Inquisition Myth, which Spaniards call "The Black Legend," did not arise in 1480. It began almost 100 years later, and exactly one year after the Protestant defeat at the Battle of Mühlberg at the hands of Ferdinand's grandson, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In 1567 a fierce propaganda campaign began with the publication of a Protestant leaflet penned by a supposed Inquisition victim named Montanus. This character (Protestant of course) painted Spaniards as barbarians who ravished women and sodomized young boys. The propagandists soon created "hooded fiends" who tortured their victims in horrible devices like the knife-filled Iron Maiden (which never was used in Spain). The BBC/A&E special plainly states a reason for the war of words: the Protestants fought with words because they could not win on the battlefield.
...What is documented is that 3000 to 5000 people died during the Inquisition's 350 year history. Also documented are the "Acts of Faith," public sentencings of heretics in town squares. But the grand myth of thought control by sinister fiends has been debunked by the archival evidence. The inquisitors enjoyed a powerful position in the towns, but it was one constantly jostled by other power brokers. In the outlying areas, they were understaffed - in those days it was nearly impossible for 1 or 2 inquisitors to cover the thousand-mile territory allotted to each team. In the outlying areas no one cared and no one spoke to them. As the program documents, the 3,000 to 5,000 documented executions of the Inquisition pale in comparison to the 150,000 documented witch burnings elsewhere in Europe over the same centuries.
...Discrediting the Black Legend brings up the sticky subject of revisionism. Re-investigating history is only invalid if it puts an agenda ahead of reality. The experts - once true believers in the Inquisition myth - were not out to do a feminist canonization of Isabella or claim that Tomas de Torquemada was a Marxist. Henry Kamen of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona said on camera that researching the Inquisition's archives "demolished the previous image all of us (historians) had."
pffft....that all revisionist history :-)
As I said on a related thread, I'm going to wait until some Christian and Christian-sympathetic reviewers like Michael Medved actually see the film until I make my final call on whether I will see it or not.
So, in other words, as long as the depictions coincide with the liberal point of view, things will be okay.
It sounds as if he has Winston Smith's job.
I cannot say I admire Scott's thesis but I will not miss this movie. He's a helluva a movie maker. Alien and Gladiator assured his place in film history. His movies are really good. Did he do Black Hawn Down as well? I googled it and yep,you bet. Like his politics or hate them, he delivers the action goods in a huge way.
I cannot say I admire Scott's thesis but I will not miss this movie. He's a helluva a movie maker. Alien and Gladiator assured his place in film history. His movies are really good. Did he do Black Hawn Down as well? I googled it and yep,you bet. Like his politics or hate them, he delivers the action goods in a huge way.
I hope this won't be anti-Christian, but it probably will be.
I liked Troy.
Evangelical Christians are attacking it as well saying it presents the Muslims in a positive light and the Christians in a negative.
CAIR also says it is fair.
"Death to Smoochy" (2002)
That's alright. Nothing can ever take away from the powerhouse performance he gave in "American History X". Now there's a movie I never thought would be made in Hollywood.
Are you kidding? "Death to Smoochy" was hilarious.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.