Mel Gibson To Produce 'Boudicca' Film Epic

NewsScotsman ^ | 28 April 2004 | Mark Sage

[Hal1950]

Flush from the success of The Passion Of The Christ, Mel Gibson is looking back in time once again – to produce an epic about Boudicca, who led Britain against Roman conquerors.

Dubbed “Braveheart with a bra”, the film will chronicle Boudicca’s rise from peasant girl to a military leader who united the Celtic tribes of Britain.

Gibson’s production company, Icon, appears keen to cash in on further historical tales, after The Passion netted hundreds of millions of pounds at the box office.

The film will be directed by Gavin O’Connor who told the Hollywood trade paper Variety: “What drew me is that she was driven by personal revenge.

“Her goals were never political and never went beyond avenging her slain husband and child.

“She managed to bring together all of these warring tribes to stand against the Roman Empire.

“It is a masculine story with a female point of view.”

Brian Klugman, who co-wrote the script with Lee Sternthal, said: “We spent over a year researching Queen Boudicca, Celtic Britain and the Roman Empire, and another year writing the script.”

[IamConservative]

I'd love to see him do the Punic Wars and the destruction of Carthage.

I would love to see him chronicle the era immediately following the death of Christ to educate the liberals on what this is really all about.

[RinaseaofDs]

"I'd love to see him do the Punic Wars and the destruction of Carthage."

Now you're talking.

[ZULU]

Thanks.

I really don't understand all the ins and outs of how this system operates even though I have been posting here for a few years now.

[ZULU]

"The Romans did not take kindly to dissent."

That's why they would have handled the Iraqi situation more effectively.

I don't know how much of this story Gibson covers.

The guy who was responsible for outrages against Boudicca apparently got away with it.

The general sent to suppress the revolt did so with typical Roman ruthlessness, but I believe he was eventually recalled and replaced with somebody else who took a more conciliatory approach to a problem which never should have errupted in the first place.

The Romans tried to run an empire with a political mechanism geared to a small city state and an effective, but surprisingly small military establishment, considering the size and population of the Empire.

All in all, Roman treatment of subject peoples who cooperated was fairly benign. One of the reasons the Empire lasted so long was because of its non-ethnocentric, non-racially exclusive nature. When the Romans took over a territory, the goal was to Romanize the inhabitants and they generally did this by trying to educate the young nobility of that territory as Romans and send them back home to Romanize their countrymen. The Roman Army was also an instrument of inclusion as it recruited from subject peoples throughout the Empire. Emperors themselves came from various parts of the EMpire including Syria and Africa.

Contrast this with the relatively ephemeral existence of other early empires like the Assyrians, where only Assyrians comprised the ruling class and members of the Military establishment.

The treatment of Boudicca was unfortunate, inexcusable, but hardly typical.

Some politically connected jerks who were sent to rule the provinces, from the guy who ran things during the Boudiccan incident, to that idiot Varus, gave the Empire a bad press that it hardly really deserved on the whole.

[SunkenCiv]

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