Mel Gibson's Apocalypto Message

Mel Gibson, actor, director, and movie producer has again moved into the broadcast, print and Internet media's focal point with his latest film Apocalypto "A great civilization is not conquered from without...until it has been destroyed from within." Quite a quote for a movie poster and for the script co-written by Farhad Safinia. This Touchstone Picture is rated 'R' for sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images.

Mel Gibson is making his second film in a row that does not have English as the language that is spoken among the actors portraying the protagonists in a clash of civilizations. Is this a contrivance that he uses to lend authenticity to his productions? Would it take anything away from the drama to have the characters speak in a language that would enable the audience to understand fully what is developing between them?

The purpose of a film is to communicate the filmmakers story. Symbolism is appreciated by graduate film students more than by the average moviegoer. Keeping in mind that in recent years they were becoming more "movie-not-goers" than the recent revival in box-office grosses would indicate. Although Mel Gibson's The Passion was a tremendous moneymaker, Americans were familiar with the backstory as it is part of their cultural heritage. It could be said that the audience brought the familiar theme of the greatest story ever told with them to the theater.

How is the story of the Maya people in Apocalypto to be told so that Mel Gibson's message is fully revealed?
Cinematographer Dean Semler(Dances With Wolves) utilizes the new digital camera system, Genesis by Panavision to graphically illustrate the rituals of human sacrifice that the Mayan Rulers used to keep their world motivated.

Jaguar Paw, Rudy Youngblood, 25, a Comanche/Cree from Texas, escape through the rain forest is vividly filmed, is this symbolic for the struggle for survival that Mel Gibson envisions for his own society?

The decline of the Mayan Empire was inevitable, driven by forces within it's culture rather than from the actions of European invaders is the thrust of Mel Gibson's dagger of a film. The seeds for different civilizations' demise always start from within, as a healthy society can repel any foreign invader.

The anthroplogist Clifford Geertz in his 1973 book The Interpretation of Cultures theorized that conceptions expressed by symbolic anthropological vehicles (Mel Gibson's films) people communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life and death. By not using the English language, Mel Gibson can insinuate his vision of the future using his version of the events that caused the Mayans civilization to dissolve.

The Mayans' developed a sophisticated astronomical calendar that was based on a periodicity of cycles and predicted that on October 21, 2012 their cycle of birth, death and rebirth would come to an end by fire, the world would then be reborn in a new form. The Mayans' constructed huge temple complexes that were aligned so that they indicated directions to celestial formations of stars.

The Archeo-Astronomer Edwin C. Krupp has studied the role of astronomy in human belief systems and visited 1,800 archeological sites with indications that they were developed by peoples with an interest in recording their astronomical observations in stone, as were left in Stonehedge England. So it appears that the Mayans were not alone in relating the alignment of the stars to what was happening on the earth below. Mel Gibson's own cultural tradition provides for the appearance of a new star indicating that a significant event has occured to those using it as a guide on a journey in a strange land seeking the location of a long prophesied event.

Mel Gibson's focus on the human sacrifices that became a central part of the Mayan culture follows the formula that he developed early in his career as a film director. Violent acts take place in many "historical action-adventure" films and various directors have developed techniques to suggest that something awful has happened without actually showing it in minute detail as Mel Gibson does. Certain segments of the audience are excited by the depictions of violence and have come to expect it in the movies that they regularly go to theaters to see.

Will this be another money maker for Mel Gibson's Icon Productions company? The subject matter and presentation are so unique that curiosity might draw moviegoers away from the many much-more cheerful films that are being released for the important "Holiday Season."