1492: Conquest of Paradise
(1992)
Ridley Scott’s first historical epic (The Duellists was his first historical, and his first feature, but
hardly an epic) is also one of his least remembered films. It bombed at the box
office (as did the year’s other attempted cash-ins on the discovery of America,
including Superman: The Movie
producers the Salkinds’ Christopher
Columbus: The Discovery) and met with a less than rapturous response from
critics. Such shunning is undeserved, as 1492:
Conquest of Paradise is a richer and more thought-provoking experience than
both the avowedly lowbrow Gladiator
and the re-evaluated-but-still-so-so director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven. It may stand guilty of presenting an overly sympathetic
portrait of Columbus, but it isn’t shy about pressing a critical stance on his
legacy.
Sanchez: The truth is, that he now presides over a
state of chaos, of degradation, and of madness. From the beginning, Columbus
proved himself completely incapable of ruling these islands. He appointed his
brothers to very important positions, and in so doing he injured the pride and
dignity of the nobles. He then promised to build the city of Isabel, named after
your majesty. It was a collection of huts, all of them in the wrong place, all
of them easily swept away by the rains and the mud. He then promised gold.
Evidently, not finding easy quantities he promised, Columbus has since commanded
each Indian there to pay a tax. A monthly tribute of gold. Most, being unable
to, we find, have been punished, have been massacred. Columbus forced nobility
to hard labour. He treated them equally to Indians. He reduced them into his
slaves. When the nobleman Moxica protested against this treatment, he was
executed.
It certainly sounds like a fairly damning indictment of the
great explorer, doesn’t it? Except maybe the bits about the nobility, which suggest
Columbus was running some sort of proto-communist enclave. This litany of
offences is announced towards the end of
1492, by which point we have seen all said charges take place. Yet Columbus
is not shown to be at their centre. Rather, he is more a hapless observer. He
carries the corruption, but he does not instigate it. Elements outside his
control rally against him, and in response he is found inadequate, unable to
martial sufficient resources to overcome them. The Columbus of 1492 might be labelled inept, but he
isn’t cruel or tyrannical.
Which is precisely the opposite of the current position on
the man. Scott and screenwriter Roselyne Bosch have transferred Columbus’ most
transgressive qualities onto nobleman Moxica (Michael Wincott), along for the voyage
and treating the natives with every abusive instinct at his disposal. Wincott delivers
a typically great performance. Moxica is a snarling, leering devil, an
antagonist so despicable that Columbus is granted gracefulness and actual
nobility by contrast.
But this leads to the question of why. If Scott and co are
willing to go far enough that Columbus’ actions are shown to be disastrous (albeit
with the de rigueur retrospective knowledge that one day his name would be a
legend), why not go the whole hog and also depict his brutality? In 1492, Columbus is the peacemaker. He is
slowly roused, even when provoked. Moxica is personified as the peace-breaker,
cutting off the hand a tribesman without a tribute and so inflaming the Indian
revolt.
In reality, Columbus ordered tributes in retaliation for the
initial attack on the party he left behind after his first voyage. Those who
did not deliver had their hands chopped off and were left to bleed to death. He
took Indians as slaves from the first, bringing some back to Spain (those who
survived the trip). This is only obliquely referenced, as is his presiding over
(and therefore implicitly condoning) the rape of tribeswomen (we see this with
Moxica, and there is a suggestive dinner conversation with Columbus’ brother).
Columbus was removed as governor in 1500. Bartolome de las Casas commented that,
when he arrived on Hispanola in 1508, millions had died from war, slavery, and
the mines.
So it is with good reason that Columbus is tainted by
brutality, atrocities, and a stark failure of leadership. The rush to release
competing Christopher Columbus anniversary movies went hand-in-hand with obliviousness
to the possibility that no one was very interested in seeing them, no matter
how accurate or estimable they might be. It’s evident that Bosch was conscious
of the controversies surrounding her protagonist, but attempting to ameliorate
matters by evidencing the spoiling of Eden and rebuking the rulers, the church,
and the politicians, while sort-of letting Columbus off as a well-meaning
dreamer, mostly serves to muddy matters.
Columbus: All we can do, is go forward. The land is
there. The land is close.
That said, movies are not beholden to telling the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth. It’s quite possible to make a great but
historically inaccurate film; more likely than not that a great period movie will take significant liberties, in fact.
But diverge too far from the facts, and show ignorance of themes and issues
surrounding them, and you run the risk of making your film look ridiculous. 1492, for a picture commemorating a key
passage in the transition to the modern world (irrespective of the Vikings
getting there first, or Amerigo actually touching the continent before
Columbus), is quite unabashed in showing culpability for the ruination and
despoiling of paradise (the clue is in the title). Even if viewers were tempted
by the prospect of a movie about the explorer, the invitation to share in the
guilt over what soon transpired would probably put them off. They might have
opted for the Carry On… version
instead (but doubtless not for the
Marlon Brando one).
Arojaz: What a waste of life.
Sanchez: A waste? Well, if you name or mine is
remembered, Arojaz, it will only be because of his.
The trouble here is that, in shifting the blame, there isn’t
a very clear vision of who this
Columbus is. The opening scroll announces him as the one man who challenged the
grip of the Inquisition, but the portrait that follows isn’t as convinced he
holds such heroic stature. He becomes the reluctant governor, but we only learn
this when his title is removed. Then, all he is concerned about is that he be
allowed to voyage again. His paramount desire is for discovery, not the
pecuniary ones that defined his worst acts (the enslavement, the tithes of
gold).
As is set out in the film, Columbus was motivated to find a
trade route to Asia; it isn’t covered that he was turned down several times by
the Portuguese (and Henry VII) before he found funding from Spain.
One of the many means used to douse the historic veneration
of Columbus is that he was clueless even as an explorer. He grossly
underestimated the circumference of the globe. The Portuguese rejected his
proposal for this reason, and the film cites those who rightly disputed the
viability of his plans; Columbus is made out to know full well his claims were
inaccurate, lying to his crew about how long it will take. There are
conflicting statements that he remained insistent that he had, in fact landed
in Asia, rather than recognising it as what came to be known as the Bahamas,
until his dying day (there are also those that indicate he was indeed aware
this was a new continent).
Yet, despite his avaricious intentions (“This man is a mercenary!”), this
Columbus is untouched by debasing thoughts. The key to this is the light in
which the explorer is painted. His critics are shown to be a rotten bunch, and
even a wrongheaded Columbus is better than they. He does not find the spices
and gold hoped for, but he has something better; “the land intoxicates the senses” and represents a “chance for a new beginning”. The quote
that ends the film, “Life has more
imagination than we carry in our dreams”, suggests a hopeless romantic, and
so the preferred image to take away of the man.
There are smatterings of arrogance on screen, but they tend
to translate as reported rather than shown (his demands to be made a knight, his
governorship, and a tenth of all profits; “And
I thought he was an idealist”). Much of reason this ends up as a sympathetic
portrait comes down to Depardieu’s performance. It’s difficult not to like him
here, and this is certainly the most dashing the lumpy fellow has looked on
film. His casting as an Italian might
have provoked questioning looks from those who considered Sean Connery playing
an Spaniard in Highlander was the pinnacle
of peculiar Hollywood choices (to say nothing of Scott using Sigourney Weaver
as a Spanish queen here and most recently as an Egyptian one in Exodus: Gods and Kings), but he holds
the screen (where actors often disappear into Scott’s landscapes) and lends a
soulfulness and lyricism to sometimes perfunctory passages.
Columbus serves as a facilitator of the rupturing of dreams.
He speaks of an untouched Eden, but, as soon as they arrive in the New World,
he is incontrovertibly positioned as the serpent in the garden. The actually
sighting of land (the real Columbus craftily laid claim that he saw it first, not his lookout, so taking
the reward) is a glorious moment as the mists part and the lush coastline is
revealed.
It might as well be an alien planet, and Columbus’ setting
foot on the shore is treated with similar import. It bears saying that this is
an entirely gorgeous looking film (courtesy of Thelma and Louise cinematographer Adrian Biddle). The shots of the
trio of ships at sea, to the stirring accompaniment of Vangelis, are among the
most dazzling a director celebrated for his vistas has delivered (as with his
scripts, Scott has since been far more mechanical with his visuals, and uninspired
with his scores; there is little room for flourish or poetry from post-Gladiator Ridley, he just wants to get
on with it).
Vangelis’ score couldn’t be accused of subtlety, switching from
choral to tribal at the drop of a horn, but it’s never less than powerful and
evocative. It’s easy to appreciate why the soundtrack’s afterlife has been far
greater than that of the film itself.
This Columbus also refrains from overt indulgence in
religiosity, while in later life the actual Columbus increasingly dressed
himself in such paraphernalia. 1492’s
protagonist invokes spreading “the word
of God” as one of his mission goals. But Columbus is depicted as a
moderate, one who recognises that, if they are to convert the natives, “then it will be by persuasion and not by
force”. He also instructs that “They
are not savages, and neither will we be”. Moxica later counters, “If these animals wish to learn savagery, we
will teach them”. To underline the point, he repeatedly disdains the
tribespeople as “monkeys”. When Columbus
announces to a tribal leader that many will come to these islands “To bring the word of God” he does so not
from devotion or passion, but merely as one rehearsing the party line.
Scott and Bosch rather make a meal of much of the religious
commentary and imagery, but here’s the occasional pointed exchange. When
Columbus announces the intention to bring God’s message, the reply comes back,
“He says he has a god”. When he
follows it up with, “And also to bring
medicine” the response is “he has
medicine”. Columbus is remarkably accepting and understanding, noting these
people have no such word as sin. He explains, “Nature is their god. It is if god and nature are as one”.
Indeed, there are times when, if Scott had a little more
philosophical gumption, once could see the picture extending itself into a
Malick-esque rumination on existential themes. Perhaps the most succinct charge
levelled against his Columbus comes when interpreter Utapan (Bercilio Moya) returns
to tribal ways, heading off into the jungle with the damning parting shot, “You never learned how to speak my language”.
Columbus announces, “We
came here to stay, not to start a crusade”, and in the picture’s terms he
is lead reluctantly down the path of war. It’s here that 1492 trips into some particularly on-the-nose statements. When
Columbus finds men crucified at a mine working, he is told “You did the same to your god”.
Later, a storm rips through Columbus’ city built on sand.
It’s a (literally) thunderous metaphor for his world falling apart, and
climaxes with the triumph of untamed nature gods bursting a makeshift crucifix
into flame. Scott really isn’t one for delicacy and nuance of thought. Pointedly,
it is Brother Buyl (John Heffernan) who does the worst finger pointing at
Columbus for his crimes (“It is all true.
All of it. I saw it with my own eyes”), but the accusations are thus seen
only as half-truths (when Buyl earlier confronts Columbus, his complaints are
of a godless place where Christians are treated equally with heathen savages;
there is no mention of Columbus’ ruthlessness).
Almost from the first, the New World rejects its intruders.
As they explore the lush jungles, Pinzon (Tcheky Karyo) succumbs to infection,
pissing blood. If this neatly encapsulates that the corruption they bring lies
within them, Scott then goes and spoils it when an actual serpent bites one of
their number, and he dies.
Moxica: You’re nothing. Your bastards will never inherit their titles. No, we are everything. We are immortal.
Scott’s film also gets behind Columbus as something of a
rebel, a man of low birth who kicked against society’s norms. Not only does he
have a nuanced understanding of religion, but he also has no time for
hierarchies of power (this despite demanding his own titles). At a late point
in the proceedings, the queen grants him a fourth voyage and Sanchez (Armande
Assante) asks why. “Because he’s not
afraid of me,” she replies.
The scene in which Columbus commandeers Moxica’s horse, to
aid in the raising of a bell (a magnificent spectacle of the sort at which
Scott excels, albeit undercut by Gerard sweating away as if he’s raising the
damn thing singlehanded) makes its point about Columbus having no time for the
airs of gentry. However, the point then crumbles rather crudely a scene later, as
we cut to a shot with a group of horses standing idly by. Where were they when Columbus
needed all hands (and hooves) on deck?
Columbus: Then I am free to search for the mainland?
Bobadilla: The mainland was discovered weeks ago by
another Italian.
Subordinate: Yes, Americo Vespucci, your Excellency.
Columbus: How far?
Bobadilla: I am not a seaman, but I heard it is no more
than a week at sea.
Bobadilla (Mark Margolis, familiar from Breaking Bad amongst others) is introduced initially as the man whose
appointment will give Columbus political currency. But Columbus wants none of
this. Pointedly, and again somewhat crudely, it is Bobadilla who then replaces him as
viceroy. Columbus is stubborn, has his own set of values, and won’t play the
game. This emphasis is on a conspiracy to bring about his downfall rather than
legitimately resulting from his own misrule. So this makes him decent, in a
way.
Sanchez: Only that, if he is right, we have
everything to gain. And if he is wrong, we have so, so little to lose.
Generally, 1492 makes
a better fist of dealing with money as the carrot that leads the horse than it
does with the religious side. Central to this is Sanchez, and one wonders, had
Assante instead been cast in the lead role, if Columbus would have been less
audience friendly and thus more accurate, even given the redressed script.
Sanchez is a pragmatist, juggling Columbus’ potential for success with the limited downsides. He even sets out his reasons for helping him; “Faith, hope, charity. But the greatest of these is banking”. He warns Columbus explicitly of his capacity for making enemies; “Don’t you think to rise so high in so short a time is a dangerous step?” But again, this sets up Columbus’ downfall as a matter of cruel forces, rather through his own making.
Sanchez is a pragmatist, juggling Columbus’ potential for success with the limited downsides. He even sets out his reasons for helping him; “Faith, hope, charity. But the greatest of these is banking”. He warns Columbus explicitly of his capacity for making enemies; “Don’t you think to rise so high in so short a time is a dangerous step?” But again, this sets up Columbus’ downfall as a matter of cruel forces, rather through his own making.
Scott is as roused by the scenes of action as he is with the
chief temptation to step back in time. This is a movie of longueurs, not to be
hurried (it might well be Scott’s longest film, and I am doubtful that the
mooted 4 hour cut would add much to our appreciation since it wouldn’t
convincingly adjust the overall depiction of the explorer). When Columbus must
go on the offensive, to quell the native rebellion, the director makes a number
of not wholly successful choices. Columbus, who is shown buckling some swash in
a fencing match with Sanchez, to show he can handle himself, is paralysed by the
sight of a fearsome oncoming local.
Depardieu looks unintentionally comical, suffering
from an attack of slow motion gas. Then, when he stabs his opponent, the
tribesman screams like an animal and foams at the mouth (this may be to suggest
he has ingested hallucinogens, but the effect is unfortunate, suggesting a
cliché of the feral and ferocious primitive).
A rebellion against Columbus follows, led by the hissable
Moxica, and his culpability is questioned here too. We can see that Moxica is
right, in as much as Columbus has found “neither
gold nor your earthly paradise”. The ensuing battle in a shallow river,
followed by Columbus’ confrontation with Moxica, is one of the film’s most
dynamic episodes. Scott is unstinting with the violence in 1492. There are dismemberments, bloody squibs, frenzied stabbings
and horrible strangulations.
The Inquisition is wreaking its horrors during
early scenes, with burnings at the stake as a backdrop fact of life
(particularly memorable is a strangulation victim whose tongue lunges out).
This sets up the escape to untouched paradise, but in one of Scott’s better
inverted parallels, also leads to Columbus looking on as insurrectionists are
strangled at his instruction.
Columbus: I remember, I…
1492 tries to cram
a lot in, and elements fall by the wayside. Columbus’ relationship with his
mistress Beatrix (Ángela Molina,) is skirted over, and his sons and brothers (including
Steven Waddington) remain peripheral. Familiar faces include Kevin Dunn,
Fernando Ray and Frank Langella (even Arnold Vosloo) but they make little
impression.
Watching, one might gain the impression that the grey-haired Columbus died an old man, rather than the 54 year old he was (even given limited life expectancy then); the intention is to show an old man looking wistfully back upon his life, and Scott cannot be blamed for reusing Columbus’ peak memory of the mist breaking and the island revealed. Where the director absolutely succeeds with 1492 is in presenting the wonder of an idyllic discovery, and the disintegration of a dream.
Watching, one might gain the impression that the grey-haired Columbus died an old man, rather than the 54 year old he was (even given limited life expectancy then); the intention is to show an old man looking wistfully back upon his life, and Scott cannot be blamed for reusing Columbus’ peak memory of the mist breaking and the island revealed. Where the director absolutely succeeds with 1492 is in presenting the wonder of an idyllic discovery, and the disintegration of a dream.
The attacks on 1492
over accuracy are entirely understandable, then. If one demands a historically
precise presentation of Columbus, this won’t find favour. There is even
uncertainty in the final scrolling text, announcing his descendant’s then role
in the Spanish Royal Navy; is that supposed to be cause for applause?
Columbus: And the old one, an achievement?
But, as a reflection upon a corrupted Eden, and the malign
influence of supposed civilisation, it has some considerable merit. There is no
glory here, except in the brief passage that is the voyage itself, and the
landing. Either side lies avarice, barbarity and subjugation. Yes, the picture
lets Columbus off the hook, but it couldn’t be said to foist upon him elevated
stature. Even as a visionary the explorer comes across as half-cocked. In the
end, all Bosch and Scott can muster is the old standby of a name that will live
on through the ages.
Part of 1492: Conquest
of Paradise’s appeal is that this isn’t so controlled and instructive as
Scott’s post-Gladiator work. Thereafter,
Scott sticks to the script for fair or foul results. Here, makes heavy weather
at times, but more often his loose hand at the tiller actually propels 1492 into more interesting waters than
much of his later output. Perhaps the key is in the title. That colon speaks of
the indecision and uncertainty of marketers who don’t quite know how to sell a
troublesome property. A colon also suggested hesitancy in another Scott historical
epic, one that also provoked controversy in its presentation of reported
history, Scott’s beleaguered Exodus: Gods
and Kings. 1492’s standing will
likely be forever marred by its unwillingness to come to grips with a character
now marked as cruel and unjust, but this remains one of Scott’s most beautiful
and ambitious pictures. And, if you’re unconvinced by the film itself, there’s always that score.
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