Mel Gibson

Instead of Googling and perusing what Mel Gibson's agent wants us to know about him on the Internet Movie resource, I'd like to simply ruminate using what little I already know and speculate about what forces might be driving his apparently personal, even private, wide ranging movie career. 

I don't know exactly what ages Mel Gibson spent in Australia so I assume he was young and impressionable and that the influence of his strong willed, highly independent father (defying Rome and established a splinter Catholic church in or near Malibu, California) contributed to Mel's Gung ho defiant personality and work ethic.

There are a few facts about Australia which almost comically fit Mel Gibson's personality. Notice, he isn't a snob.  If he'd been a snob (some Aussies are actually anti-snob, snobs, ha ha) he wouldn't have bothered to inform working class Malibu cops his ethnic views. In his stupor he probably thought he was enlightening them, fellow workers that they were.  Australians consider themselves, each one, an aristocracy of One.

In what was one of Gibson's early movies he played a very young "Digger." (Gallipoli; 1981 Australian, Dir. Peter Weir, director of the superb Witness ) To this day, just now, typing the word "Digger" gives me the shivers.  Aussie soldiers in WW1 1914 - 1918 dug so many trenches in their battles with the Turks they came to be called "Diggers." To be an authentic, actual Digger was an ultimate badge of pride. Every town and city in Australia has a memorial to those who died fighting on the side of England in WW1.  Thirty or so years later, in Korea, Australian troops were so feared the North Koreans and the Chinese on their side avoided that part of the line defended by Aussie troops.  I read that years ago in an American magazine. So, I hope that is enough to make the point that Gibson's fierce pride, independence, and pugnacious personality is not solely individual choice, it is also cultural conditioning reinforced by another 'digger,' his pugnacious father. (Note lower case.)

Do Americans know the extent to which Australia was originally a penal colony? That was the place Dickens had his character of Magwich in Great Expectations 'Transported' to. It would be in character if Mel Gibson's father boasts his forebears were convicts sent to Australia. I wouldn't mind doing the same thing! Ha ha ha. I actually enjoy conjecturing, in the absnece of proof, that my 'Jewish' grandmother, an early widow, came from a 'Transported' convict family.

In his movies Gibson likes to depict the underdog.  Scottish underdogs, Braveheart , American colonist underdogs resisting the cruel British troops, and a young Jewish cleric who had the temerity to infuriate the entire Roman empire causing Rome to wish him dead as fast as possible. They killed him but they didn't kill him dead. He rose again. Immitation of Christ is not only the title of a famous prayer book, it also somewhat describes Mel Gibson's death wish.  Let  me opine that most likely there are no educated, & / or religious Jews in Hollywood who hate Mel Gibson. Nah!  He's a figure of fun, and, best of all, a success!

Gibson played Hamlet in a damn good production directed by Franco Zeffirelli (1990).  Because of his youthful appearance and belligerant personality Gibson was almost better than Olivier in that most difficult role. Zeffirelli was so famous and so admired by that time you can bet Mel Gibson studied the production as well as his lines. Traditionally Hamlet is played as indecisive to the point of foppery. Gibson didn't make that mistake. Therefore, for example, the dueling scene is as good as it will ever be done. Mel likes to duel, ha ha ha....

It hurts to point them out but Mel the 'thinker' made two thinking mistakes in Passion of the Christ Perhaps befuddled by the growing charges of antiSemitism leveled at his production even before shooting was complete, he left out one of the most dramatic passages in The New Testament: he left out Christ driving the money changers from the temple grounds. Even worse than that he had the Chief Rabbi mock Jesus on the cross! It was bad enough that the actor he chose for the role was repulsive, but worse, he had the actor almost lisp his lines.

With that background it will be instructive to see what happens to Mel's most recent production APOCALYPTO when the Oscar voting comes in. Personally I can't wait. I'll be on pins and needles until I know the vote tallies. I figure makeup and cinematography are in the bag. Beyond that I simply pray for justice undiluted with spite.

Thank you for your indulgence.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/