Posted on 03/19/2004 7:44:28 AM PST by Pikamax
Ridley Scott's new Crusades film 'panders to Osama bin Laden' By Charlotte Edwardes (Filed: 18/01/2004)
Sir Ridley Scott, the Oscar-nominated director, was savaged by senior British academics last night over his forthcoming film which they say "distorts" the history of the Crusades to portray Arabs in a favourable light.
The £75 million film, which stars Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson, is described by the makers as being "historically accurate" and designed to be "a fascinating history lesson".
Sir Ridley Scott Academics, however - including Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, Britain's leading authority on the Crusades - attacked the plot of Kingdom of Heaven, describing it as "rubbish", "ridiculous", "complete fiction" and "dangerous to Arab relations".
The film, which began shooting last week in Spain, is set in the time of King Baldwin IV (1161-1185), leading up to the Battle of Hattin in 1187 when Saladin conquered Jerusalem for the Muslims.
The script depicts Baldwin's brother-in-law, Guy de Lusignan, who succeeds him as King of Jerusalem, as "the arch-villain". A further group, "the Brotherhood of Muslims, Jews and Christians", is introduced, promoting an image of cross-faith kinship.
"They were working together," the film's spokesman said. "It was a strong bond until the Knights Templar cause friction between them."
The Knights Templar, the warrior monks, are portrayed as "the baddies" while Saladin, the Muslim leader, is a "a hero of the piece", Sir Ridley's spokesman said. "At the end of our picture, our heroes defend the Muslims, which was historically correct."
Prof Riley-Smith, who is Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, said the plot was "complete and utter nonsense". He said that it relied on the romanticised view of the Crusades propagated by Sir Walter Scott in his book The Talisman, published in 1825 and now discredited by academics.
"It sounds absolute balls. It's rubbish. It's not historically accurate at all. They refer to The Talisman, which depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality."
Prof Riley-Smith added: "Guy of Lusignan lost the Battle of Hattin against Saladin, yes, but he wasn't any badder or better than anyone else. There was never a confraternity of Muslims, Jews and Christians. That is utter nonsense."
Dr Jonathan Philips, a lecturer in history at London University and author of The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, agreed that the film relied on an outdated portrayal of the Crusades and could not be described as "a history lesson".
He said: "The Templars as 'baddies' is only sustainable from the Muslim perspective, and 'baddies' is the wrong way to show it anyway. They are the biggest threat to the Muslims and many end up being killed because their sworn vocation is to defend the Holy Land."
Dr Philips said that by venerating Saladin, who was largely ignored by Arab history until he was reinvented by romantic historians in the 19th century, Sir Ridley was following both Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad, the former Syrian dictator. Both leaders commissioned huge portraits and statues of Saladin, who was actually a Kurd, to bolster Arab Muslim pride.
Prof Riley-Smith added that Sir Ridley's efforts were misguided and pandered to Islamic fundamentalism. "It's Osama bin Laden's version of history. It will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists."
Amin Maalouf, the French historian and author of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, said: "It does not do any good to distort history, even if you believe you are distorting it in a good way. Cruelty was not on one side but on all."
Sir Ridley's spokesman said that the film portrays the Arabs in a positive light. "It's trying to be fair and we hope that the Muslim world sees the rectification of history."
The production team is using Loarre Castle in northern Spain and have built a replica of Jerusalem in Ouarzazate, in the Moroccan desert. Sir Ridley, 65, who was knighted in July last year, grew up in South Shields and rose to fame as director of Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver.
He followed with classics such as Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, which won him an Oscar nomination in 1992, and in 2002 Black Hawk Down, told the story of the US military's disastrous raid on Mogadishu. In 2001 his film Gladiator won five Oscars, but Sir Ridley lost out to Steven Soderbergh for Best Director.
Also, exactly what history are they "rectifying" with this movie?
I do enjoy certain British phrases for rendering disgust.
This stikes me a a particularly egregious example of projecting present-day politics into a historical movie. Today's socialists are quite happy to bed-down with the Islamofascists if it can confer some political advantage. That doesn't mean that there was an equivalent group operating during the late Crusades -- and shame on Ridley Scott for suggesting that there was.
OTOH, I will allow that movie makers regularly create characters, dialog and entire plot lines designed to make a movie 'more accessible' to the viewer. I guess that's OK as long as it doesn't do violence to the basic history that the movie is trying to relate.
?
Disaster? Only for our enemy. It was a victory for our forces. They didn't get the target they wanted, but did inflict about 50 deaths for every 1 we lost.
Three or four more 'disasters' like that, and we would have won. And if we had brought in heavy armor after that battle, we could have done it even more easily.
I believe there was an old ceremony where a lord can 'de-knight' a vassal. I think it involves throwing his spurs onto the ground and trampling them, afterwards the prayers for the dead were said over the dishonored man, and every one was to treat him as a corpse.
The Queen (who, as monarch of England, is still obligated to war against the infidel) out to amend "Mr." Scott's title.
At best a poorly worded statement. The Battle of Hattin took place in Galilee, far from Jerusalem. It resulted in the loss of Jerusalem only because the Muslims destroyed the Christian army at Hattin.
There was viciousness on both sides that is quite revolting. Torture, mutilation, killing of unarmed civilians, by everybody.
A movie that portrays the muslims as the innocents is historically inacurate. But I would say the same thing if there was a movie that portrayed the crusaders as pure as the driven snow. There was alot of ugliness by all sides on the individual level.
Great. Of course, non-Catholics have done nothing to discredit this mythology either, promulgating misconceptions regarding the Inquisition and the Crusades.
The bottom line is, the Crusades were an answer to hundreds of years of Mohammedan aggression against Christians. And the Spanish Inquisition was an 800 year-long effort to drive Mohammedans out of Spain.
Since 9/11, more of us seem to understand why.
No, because Christians, especially the Catholic Church, are the media's enemy.
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