1492: A Conquista do Paraíso

1492 casts a long shadow over my filmgoing life. It is one of the first films I remember seeing where I started thinking of all the activity that went into making a film. My young mind did not process a lot of the plot - and in retrospect I can partly blame the makers of this film - but I did notice shots, sounds, music. Perhaps the music more than anything.

So fast-forward a decade and a half at least... 1492 was massive in Europe when it came out. Ridley Scott, director of Alien, Legend and Blade Runner, was telling the story of Christopher Columbus, starring the venerable Gerard Depardieu, all to a score by Vangelis which flew off the shelves faster than any film score since, well, Blade Runner. What did they have to show for it.

We know the story, or we think we do: Columbus, an Italian immigrant, gets a grant from Queen Isabella of Spain to map a shorter route to India, sailing West. What he discovers is a whole new world, the Caribbean islands. But the "new world" experiment fails badly and before long utopia becomes a stage for jealousy, manipulation, superstition and even genocide.

It took several studios to co-finance this massive undertaking, based on a screenplay by journalist Rose Bosch. Supposedly, Scott immediately had his sights set on Depardieu, which paradoxically leads us to both the film's greatest asset and liability.

Depardieu exudes a very un-Hollywood brand of charisma: grounded, vulnerable, but also prone to hardness and anger. His Columbus is a tragic idealist, likable even when carried away by his own arrogance. It's hard to imagine anyone else in the role. It is a pity then that his English was nowhere near good enough to carry the film.

For many years, I had been warned and had only seen the film dubbed in my native French (it did help that Depardieu dubbed himself, as did supporting actor Tcheky Karyo), but upon seeing the film "as intended" I was simply baffled. This, coupled with a script that leaves a few motivations unexplained and sometimes gets bogged down, severely undermines a film that is otherwise brimming with first-rate craftsmanship.

Despite the odd heavy-handed use of orange gradient filters recalling the younger Scott brother's feature-length Air Force commercial, the film is littered with unforgettable imagery. Vangelis' music, though even more effective listened to on its own, plunges you headfirst into another world, one of infinite possibilities.

The net result is a very imperfect film, but as an exercise in world-creation, an admitted Ridley Scott hobby, you'l be hard pressed to find its equal.

Yes, too long, too boring, too much license on the culture, and the characters aren't very believable. Also very surprising how it can be so outrageously kind to Columbus since this film was produced at a time when politically correct forces were raking the guy into infamy. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the music was beautiful. Maybe too much so. A inconspicuously second-rate score might have been more appropriate.

1992 marked the 500th anniversary of the 'discovery' of the Americas.

It meant there were a plethora of documentaries and articles on Columbus. Some were critical that he discovered a continent that already had 1 million people living there.

Others suggested that the Americas might had been discovered by others before. Also Columbus found the wrong place as he thought it was India.

Ultimately many of the original inhabitants of the continent suffered from his discovery.

1492 from Ridley Scott tries to makes sense of these contradictions. It is a gloriously flawed film that has great art direction, production and music.

A multinational cast with Depardieu speaking his lines with a heavy French accent but bringing presence. Scott scored with his supporting cast of villains, all of them hiss-able as vipers on the head of Medusa. You know early on things are going to turn ugly for the native in the new world.

Scott likes his history, he admires Islamic history and you see it early on when it comes to the Reconquista. When Moorish structures are destroyed and lost forever, it shows that the Spanish aristocrats were not appreciative of the arts and noble causes.

They only care about the monarchy, church and gold.

Columbus is painted as a romantic adventurer, misguided even naive.

Depardieu cannot quiet hold the film together, frankly his English is not good enough. It is still a bold attempt at filmmaking but we lack the real, more complex and a more greedy Columbus.

What a bad movie. In the worst tradition of Hollywood, this film is full of cliches and simplifications. Every character's actions and personality can be predicted the second s/he appears on the screen. The past filtered through political correctness and ignorance looks very black and white. The queen is independent and intelligent, the nobles are greedy and selfish, the churchmen are a bunch of fanatical, ignorant liars. Anything else? Oh yes, I cannot believe that Depardieu agreed to play in this pathetic excuse for a movie.

This film is not completely historically accurate, although it is fairly true to events. Some omissions are Columbus' mistress by which he had a second son, which is not even mentioned in the film, which tends to paint Columbus almost as a saintly figure. He was far from that. In addition to his infidelity, he was an advocate of Indian slavery, which is not mentioned in the film as well. Those miscues aside, the film is gorgeously shot, well-directed and acted, and the sense of the realities of the royal court appear to be fairly accurate. The film also fails to mention that Columbus took Indian prisoners away from their homes back to Spain against their will. The film is quite engaging, otherwise.