Are there claims from Mel or the producers of absolute historical accuracy? It’s a movie, and the story itself is completely made up. It’s put into a historical context, but if he stuck to only things we knew wtih 100% certainty it probably would’ve been pretty boring. I don’t expect it to be anything more than one guy’s interpretation of what life might have been like during that time. Not sticking things in that we know for sure they didn’t do seems like a good enough code, for me.
You did not imagine it! I about fell out of my seat!
But I want to know about the Dedication: to Abel. I mean, like, in Cain and Abel???
What the. . . .?
From the Onion:
John Mace, what happened? Post #1: “I love films that try to portray Native Americans accurately.” Post #5: “I’m sure Mel has taken lots of artistic license in portraying Mayan society, even if he has hired experts to help make it as authentic as possible. . .” What happened to your standards between the OP and post #61?
Haven’t seen it, so take my comment FWIW:
I think MG is an accomplished, but not great director. He’s got enough money and clout to be able to do whatever he wants and - good for him - he doesn’t suck. There are a number of actors-director-wannabees (never-gonna-bees), that have tried putting together a movie, who have failed.
However, looking back at M-Gibb’s career, one thing that stands out is not his religeous beliefs, nor the violence - he seems obsessed with revenge as a theme, both as a director and as an actor. So, this poster want’s to know, is this yet another revenge movie?
I can’t like all those types of films? Note the use of “try” in post #1.
But I haven’t seen the film yet, so I don’t know if I’ll experience any :rolleyes: moments, as I often do with films about Native Americans. If Mel has them doing some hokey rain dance and saying things like “me wantum…”, then I’ll come back in here and pan it.
Not really, no. It’s more of a fugitive movie. A hero escaping from and being pursued by villains. When the hero kills, it’s always in immediate self-defense. There is a revenge oriented plot point in that one of the characters chasing him is trying to avenge something the hero did, but it’s a small point (really only designed to give the bad guys a motivation to keep chasing him) and his desire for revenge is depicted as selfish and unjustified (the thing the heo does which makes the bad guy want revenge is done in purely justifiable self-defense and the bad guys all know it).
I finally got around to seeing The Departed (which was a very enjoyable flick and deserves some award nominations).
But I have to ask: why is there a huge bandwagon decrying the violence in Apocalypto, but with The Departed, which is at least as graphic in its depiction of violence (and arguably more so), no one seems to notice? Are people just looking for a reason to run down Gibson’s film because of his bigoted tirade (which was deplorable, for the record)? If not why does the violence in Scorcese’s film seem to be met with crickets chirping? Not one mention of it in the Cafe Society thread on The Departed.
So where is the self-righteous outcry against Scorcese?
My guess is that, for the most part, the violence in “The Departed” is, more or less, your run of the mill shooting violence. The shootings are shown in extremely graphic detail, much more so than in most films, but they’re shootings.
In “Apocalypto”, we’re looking at hearts being cut out and shown to their still-living owners, faces being chewed off by jaguars, heads being rolled down a mountain of stairs … it’s not as much the graphic nature as the novel ways with which the characters meet their ends.
If you walked up to someone on the street and said “which is worse, a gangland movie where a bunch of people get shot and one guy falls off a roof or a tribal movie where people are sacrificed by having their hearts ripped out their heads cleaved off?” most people would pick movie #2.
That’s my guess, anyway.
The Departed is not just shootings, though. We get:
bloody beat-downs, Jack Nicholson fondling and removing the ring from a bloody severed hand, long, loving shots of bloody corpses, and (as you mentioned in passing) a body exploding onto the sidewalk and showering a bystander with blood.
Every bit as disturbing, objectively, as what we see in Apocalypto.
I caught this last night. I don’t know what everyone else got from this but this was pure action to me. I didn’t really go watch it for the historical accuracy of it or anything like that. I wanted awesome fight scenes and great acting, and this movie delivered.
My only complaint about this movie is that
The fat wasn’t killed
Other then that, this movie was awesome.