If the slammies want a Crusade, let's give it to them
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.
You are correct except for one thing, there wasn't any “Jewish” land at the time. Jerusalem was populated mostly with Christians and was part of the Empire.
The Byzantine Empire, which once provided a barrier between Arab Islam and European Christianity, was eventually left open to plunder by the Muslims...
It should be noted that the respect for the Byzantine Emperors was almost none existent in western Europe, precisely because they hadn't done a good job as a barrier. The Emperors had complicated things for the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem with their ever changing political ambitions. On occasion the Emperors even signed separate treaty's with the Muslims, and even allied against the crusaders, as with case of the HRE Frederik I and his crusade (The Byzantine Emperors didn't respect the western Emperors at all). This was long before the sack of Constantinople, and during this time there was also sporadic persecution of the Latin “barbarians” in the empire (Doge Dandolo of Venice who diverted the 4th Crusade to Constantinople, had been blinded early in his life while at Constantinople, as part of a venetian embassy, during one of the Empires frequent persecutions of the latins.
So it could be said that the Empire had it coming. Lets put it this way, for most of the period of the Crusades, the Byzantine Emperors behaved “WORSE” then the French do to us.
Not exactly true. "La Reconquista" was the 800 year-long war to expel the Muslims from Spain. The inquisition was formed to clean the Church of heresy, and more specifically in Spain to expose those converts from Islam and Judaism who had converted only for political or economic reasons but did not really believe in Christ (including some in the Spanish clergy which was a serious problem as you might imagine). Accusations of being a false converso were common in Spanish feuds and political fighting (Some were even made by Jews against conversos who were former Jews, probably as part of some old blood feuds). The Inquisition helped to clear more people than it ever condemned. And, being put on trial by Inquisition was often the best way to clear ones name.
Then you will be disappointed, this movie will be Arabs kicking Christan behinds.
Naw, didn't you get the memo? Hollywood script writers and fanatical liberal directors / actors / producers / etc. are the REAL leading experts of any period of history.
Just ask 'em - they'll tell ya...
The Inquisition was formed long before the expulsion. It is unrealistic to assume that all the Jews who converted were just trying to live in a Christian society, but who were "really" secretly Jews. Certainly the open Jews of Spain didn't consider them Jews any more, one of the more common questions to rabbies at the time was how one should treat Jews who converted to Christianity, generally that answer was "the same way you would treat any other apostate." Take for instance the example the events after the great anti-Jewish riots of the 1350s the crown of Aragon gave the Jews who had been forced to convert the chance to revoke their assumed Christianity and go back to the the Jewish community, many did, but a lot remained Christian, some joining the Church, and the government, which before they would not have had access to. Indeed it was not even uncommon for the crown to ennoble conversos who had been "lords in their former community." Can you imagine how that would have made the lower class feel? Do you realize what kind of resentment that would cause? Many of the most important Church leaders at the time were conversos or descendants of conversos (Torquemada for one). By the 1490s virtually all the noble families of Spain had some converso blood, or were related to conversos by marriage. Taken in that light, the accusation that someone was a crypto Jew was a serious claim. Before the Inquisition it was an excuse to strip someone of their power or worse, for the mob to kill you. Once the Inquisition took over these cases, you needed evidence against someone to make the claim, and it was more believable if it came from an open Jew. This was one of the reasons why some of the conversos themselves pushed for the expulsion.
The idea that all, or even most of the conversos were crypto Jews is not born out by the facts. If they were, shouldn't the Inquisition have found them guilty? We've got the records, the Spanish Inquisition kept very good records. There are some good books out about the Spanish Inquisition that actually refer to the Inquisitions own records (Henry Kamen's "The Spanish Inqusition" is probably the best example) instead of the anachronistic reports and propaganda of dutch rebels, who were never actually witnesses to Inquisitorial proceeding, we usually hear.
Take for instance the example the events after the great anti-Jewish riots of the 1350s the crown of Aragon gave the Jews who had been forced to convert the chance to revoke their assumed Christianity and go back to the the Jewish community, many did, but a lot remained Christian, some joining the Church, and the government, which before they would not have had access to. Indeed it was not even uncommon for the crown to ennoble conversos who had been "lords in their former community." Can you imagine how that would have made the lower class feel? Do you realize what kind of resentment that would cause?
So persecution is warrented to because some of the poor fealt betrayed by an extentions of rights?
Many of the most important Church leaders at the time were conversos or descendants of conversos (Torquemada for one).
And this is where I had no problem with inquisititions.
By the 1490s virtually all the noble families of Spain had some converso blood, or were related to conversos by marriage. Taken in that light, the accusation that someone was a crypto Jew was a serious claim. Before the Inquisition it was an excuse to strip someone of their power or worse, for the mob to kill you. Once the Inquisition took over these cases, you needed evidence against someone to make the claim, and it was more believable if it came from an open Jew. This was one of the reasons why some of the conversos themselves pushed for the expulsion.
So, Jews should not have been deemed Spaniards?
The idea that all, or even most of the conversos were crypto Jews is not born out by the facts. If they were, shouldn't the Inquisition have found them guilty?
I never said that most Conversos were Crypto-Jews (or Crypto Muslims for that matter).
Of course the Crusades were misused as propoganda by Protestant states (many of who have much anti-Catholic violence to atone for). However, I find it hard to seperate the Inquisition from the anti-Jewish violence of the period.
I never said there was a nefarious goal. Just that because of the nature of their background it was easy for certain people to make up stories about them. I'm not saying that those stories were true, just that they created a problem.
So persecution is warrented to because some of the poor fealt betrayed by an extentions of rights?
I also never said persecution was warranted in any circumstance. My point was that the persecution pre-dated the Inquisition, and that to a large measure, the formation of the Spanish Inquisition was a response to the violence committed against conversos by greedy competitors and the mob. It's not just that rights were extended to Jews who converted, it's that before they had less power, in theory, than the Christian peasantry, and afterwards they had a lot more. This was a horrible problem socially long before the Inquisition. The Inquisition salved some of the problems, not all of them. That it did so with a method that we now today find repugnant I'm not contesting. I'm not making a moral judgment on the Inquisition one way or another, I'm simply saying that most of the information out about it's motives, power, and methods is either exaggerated, or completely false.
So, Jews should not have been deemed Spaniards?
Regardless of what Jews should have been deemed, the fact is they were not considered equal subjects next to Christians, converso or otherwise. It is true that St. Bernard of Clairvaux had said it is not the duty of the Christian princes to make the plight of the Jews more difficult to bare, for their punishment is that they have no princes of their own, but must pity them and protect them; and this was in many cases the attitude adopted by the princes of western Europe with some notable exceptions. But if the question comes up "who do you choose?" things become morally difficult. As Christian princes they have a greater responsibility to their Christian subjects. Expulsion was an overly harsh choice but at the time it was viewed as the best solution to a serious problem. Ferdinand himself admitted that he stood to lose a lot of money doing it, but he and his wife felt they had a greater duty to the conversos.
If the slammies want a Crusade, let's give it to them
History flicks rarely make money (the Titanic was surely a bold exception). When you add in a untruthful history flick (which most historians won't even give you credit)...then you lose another significant part of your audience. Whoever financed this...probably thought they had a great movie for European audiences (pro-European thinking and anti-US thinking). But without alot of truth...this is a make-believe movie. My guess is that they will clear $9 million on the first weekend, and maybe $25 million by the end of the first month. For DVD sales, they will add in another $20 million (mostly in Turkey is my guess). They lost money big-time on this investment.
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