The story of Mel

Greetings and Salutations.

Holy Week is fast approaching which means that the Lion of Lebanon will be spending more time in the church in one week then most people do in their lifetime.

Because I am a devout Maronite Catholic, I was asked to be on my church's youth committee, we arrange a number of events for the youth ranging from social activities to missionary activities to spiritual activities.

Tonight we are showing Mel Gibson's masterpiece: The Passion of the Christ in the hope that those attending will gain a better insight into the true meaning of holy week.

Personally I am a fan of the movie, although very gruesome and graphical, it is the most realistic depiction of what Christ went through leading to his death. the movie also explores other themes which are important such as Truth and the meaning behind it.

As stated before I am a movie buff and am a fan of Gibson the director and actor (and not of the man). Although good his movies are gaining the reputation of being frightfully historically inaccurate.

His first venture into directing was Braveheart, which he also stared in the lead role. I don't think there is a human being alive who has not seen the movie or is not aware thereof, so I wont be giving a brief description.

However, during the actual Scottish Wars of Independence, the Scots won a significant battle at: The Battle of Stirling Bridge. Where the actual William Wallace and his army engaged the English on the narrow bridge which nullified their vastly superior numbers. Wallace and his army held the bridge the whole day by fighting conservatively and suffering few casualties. In Braveheart this battle is just dubbed: The Battle of Stirling and does not involve a bridge. The tactics used during this movie battle were tactics similar to those which the actual Scots used in the later Battle of Bannokburn.

After this he had a long hiatus as a director while he concentrated on his acting career. In fact his next movie, The Passion of the Christ, came some nine years after Braveheart in 2005.

He used the four gospels written about the life of Jesus very accurately and of the three films he directed, this is the one with the least historical inaccuracies. However, there is one mistake which can be identified.

The movie starts with Jesus, played by Jim Caviezel, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal and handing over to the Jews. In the movie, while praying, Jesus is tempted by Satan. None of the actual gospels make reference to this.

Granted, this could have possibly been the case, but when you only have gospels as a historical reference point, then you will be critiscised for being historically inaccurate if you deviate there from.

His final directorial movie, to date, was Apocalypto. The movie is set in Mesoamerica at the height of the Incan and Mayan empires. A troop of Incan's invade a village on the border of the Mexican rain forest, kill almost everyone in the village and take a number of captives back to their homeland. A warrior escapes, makes a run for the border while being pursued by his captors. He kills all but tow of them and gets home in time to save his wife and two kids.

The movie makes alot of references to human sacrifice and the bloodthirsty nature of the Mexican Indians. Although there is sufficient proof that human sacrifice did exist at the time, there is still no documented evidence that the Mayans themselves participated in such rituals.

For many these historical inaccuracies are unacceptable and many refuse to watch these movies because of it. But because of the aims of the movie, which is to get asses in seats, one has to exercise some measure of creative license in order to make the movie appealing to the public. If one takes: The Lord of the Rings into account. If Peter Jackson stuck to the book 100% the three movies would have been well over five hours long.

After the Passion of the Christ, Mel lost his damn mind. He make very anti semetic remarks when a Jewish police officer pulled him over for a DUI charge. He also got very very drunk one night and phoned up his now ex-lover Oksana Grigorieva and had a full go at her over the phone using quite possibly the most unacceptable language alive even by my standards, and I swear like an Irishman at the best of times.

Follow the link below to have a listen at the full conversation.

http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=18288&count=0

To end off, my feelings towards Mel are exactly the same as towards Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury. I don't agree, or support, what the man does in his personal life. But give the mans acting and directorial abilities the respect and credit they deserve.


Footnotes:

-In David Gemmells Tory Trilogy, he makes reference to a battle involving the Bridge of Pathia where one of his antagonists Argurios holds the bridge for the greater part of the day against vastly superior numbers. This bears similar reference to the actual Battle of Stirling Bridge.
- Peter Jackson holds the record for one of the longest movies ever made. His adaptation of King Kong is a cool 3 and a half hours long. Indecently the longest movie ever made is Gettysburg which is over four hours long.