Is Mel Gibson at it again?

[AZBlue]

Why is he portraying his new film as factual and historical when it is actually sensational and misleading?

Dec. 11, 2006 issue - Let's get right to the point, shall we? About halfway through Mel Gibson's movie "Apocalypto," which opens this week, viewers are treated to a stomach-turning scene of human sacrifice, set in a Mayan city around 1500. It's not revealing too much to say that the movie's hero is captured by a gang of marauders, bound, marched through the jungle, painted blue, and forced to the top of a pyramid where heads roll.

In a smaller version of the outrage and skepticism that preceded the opening of "The Passion of the Christ"—is it historically accurate? is it anti-Semitic?—scholars who study the ancient Maya are concerned that Gibson's film will distort the great civilization and demean its descendants, six million of whom still live in Central America. Yes, the Maya sacrificed humans to the gods, but these rituals were part of a complex worldview: the Maya believed that their bodies, their blood, were created by the gods and that they occasionally needed to repay this debt with human life. "The gods need you," explains David Carrasco, professor of religious history at Harvard. "They depend on human life for their own existence, there's this kind of reciprocity." In sacrifice, he adds, the people are becoming like gods. Based on the trailer, Carrasco believes that Gibson has made the Maya into "Slashers," and their society a "Hypermasculine fantasy."

William Fash, Carresco's Harvard colleague, is irked about the pseudo ancient wall painting of a chief holding up a dripping, severed head featured in the trailer. Although a few Mayan murals do illustrate the capture and even torture of prisoners, none depicts decapitation. "That is wrong. It's just plain wrong," Fash told NEWSWEEK. Robert Hansen, the Idaho State University anthropologist who worked with Gibson for two years to ensure "Apocalypto" 's authenticity, concedes the wall painting is fake, an artistic choice that was entirely Gibson's. "The murals I recommended were rejected because this one made the point more clearly." Hansen hopes viewers will see the movie, as he does, as a contemporary allegory on the squandering of natural resources and the abuse of power, but he says that "the movie is designed for people who don't have the intellect to grasp the deeper concepts." No matter. With Gibson's generous seven-figure donation to his dig in northern Guatemala, Hansen believes he can do more to protect Mayan civilization past and present than the people he calls whiners ever can.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15994163/site/newsweek/

Seems to me like someone doesn't have the intellect to grasp the difference between reality and fiction.

[valerief]

1. Is anyone paying attention to him? nt

[AZBlue]

3. I guess so - in the threads I saw previously about the film, many DU'ers were planning to see it.

Who knew?

[martymar64]

15. I saw it at a sneak preview . . . it was excellent

As far as accuracy, who can name an absolutely accurate non-documentary film? It was a great film, the cinematography, the costumes and makeup and everything else are oscar-worthy.

[The Count]

2. When bigots have too much money and power...sigh

Just in case anyone missed this "Bigots of all stripes unite" moment:


'Heart goes out' to
Kramer, Mel sez
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/475841p-400282c.html
Michael Richards may still be reeling from public reaction to his racist rant at a comedy club, but he should know he's not alone. Mel Gibson feels his pain.

"I felt like sending Michael Richards a note," Gibson says in an interview in Entertainment Weekly's Dec.8 issue. "I feel really badly for the guy. He was obviously in a state of stress. You don't need to be inebriated to be bent out of shape. But my heart went out to the guy."
snip

Gibson's new movie, the Mayan-language adventure "Apocalypto," opens Dec. 8. He's confident his past remarks won't hurt the box office.

"The movie will stand on its own, regardless of any unfortunate experience I may have stumbled upon," he said.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Those Mayans were horrible people.

They tortured and killed their prisoners. What a bunch of barbarians. Uh... Waitaminute...

[Tellurian]

5. I haven't seen the movie yet..

But, I would think Gibson did as Hanson said and is taking artistic license to drive the point home..
That is, if we don't respect the planet and it's environment, which sustains us...we will end up like the Mayan culture.


EXTINCT!

I don't have a problem with it. And I respect the implication in the message Gibson is sending via APOCALYPTO!

[Disturbed]

6. Sado-masochistic blood fests are Mel's

speciality. Historical facts are not on his agenda.

[Tellurian]

10. My response is according to the posted article..

I haven't given Mel's proclivities a forensic minute.
And I doubt, I ever will. I could care less.

[knitter4democracy]

13. They're not extinct, though.

They're still around, still speak their language, and some even still practice the same lifestyle their culture espouses. They don't live in their environmentally unsound cities anymore, but they're still living and fighting for their rights in Mexico. There's a good article about this in the latest Nation mag.

[Tellurian]

14. So, what is the message he is sending from the movie..

It opens here on the 16th..

[knitter4democracy]

17. He seems conflicted on that.

One interview I read says that he's saying it's like "Bush and his guys" (his words), another about environmental disaster. I'm not sure what his message is anymore.

[Tellurian]

18. I picked this link up a few minutes ago..

another twist:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16058423/

[Cleita]

19. Thanks for bringing this up.

In spite of ethnic cleansing attempted in the last century, they are still around.

[tanyev]

7. Mel sure loves the blood and the gore.

[soothsayer]

8. I'm happy that it points out the end of the Mayan calendar is

coming on Dec 22, 2012. I don't know if he's going to mention the time lords who created the calendar in the first place, and that they are supposed to return on that date (and there's a big party, and all of creation is invited according to one recently translated Mayan urn), but I'll be happy that it gets on peoples' radar screens. Gonna' be interesting to find out what it all means!

[applegrove]

9. Does he talk about how those human sacrifices were used to feed

the elites some protein? If he left that part out he was being soft. I've read that with no big game or domestic animals to eat.. they started to eat each other. Anyone who blames today's indigenous peoples for what type of civilization they had 500 years ago is nuts. Look at what Americans did until 1865? Slavery.

Huge early civilization was not nearly as civilized as what came before with hunters and gatherers. They destroyed their empires by overusing what nature gave them. And they often destroyed each other.

[Selatius]

11. Carrasco has only seen the trailer, yet he knows what the whole movie is about?

The trailer != the movie in all cases.

How about we let the movie come out first, view it, then talk about it?

[cali]

12. The movie has been reviewed

and it's not been pretty.

[cynatnite]

16. So he made the movie understandable for stupid people?

:crazy:

Well, that just went on my list of 'I'm not gonna see it until it's free' list.