Tolerance triumph in Kingdom of Heaven.

Ridley Scott’s new blockbuster, Kingdom of Heaven, could hardly be more topical. It shows Muslims resisting Christian invaders, battles raging in wind-whipped deserts, ancient cities under siege and civilians cowering.

Ok, so all this screen mayhem is meant to be happening more than eight centuries ago, but doesn’t it sound like recent news from Iraq?

Well, the movie is not meant to show that Christians and Muslims have been at one another’s throats for centuries. Rather, by dwelling on the extended, turbulent holy war known as the Crusades, Ridley said he hoped to demonstrate that Christians, Muslims and Jews could live together in harmony — if only fanaticism were kept at bay.

To that end, for all the furious battle scenes in Kingdom of Heaven, Scott and screenwriter, William Monahan, have tried to be balanced. Muslims are portrayed as bent on coexistence until Christian extremists ruin everything. And even when the Christians are defeated, the Muslims give them safe passage to Europe.

“It’s actually about doing the right thing,” said Scott, 67, whose screen combat experience includes directing 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Black Hawk Down and Gladiator. “I know that sounds incredibly simplistic. It’s about temptation and avoiding temptation. It’s about ethics. It’s about going to war over passion and idealism. Idealism is great if it’s balanced and humanitarian.”

If so, the Crusaders got a few things wrong. From 638 AD, when Muslims first occupied Jerusalem, both Christians and Jews were permitted to visit their holy sites. Then, in 1095, responding to an appeal from the Byzantine Christian Church in Constantinople, Pope Urban II organised the First Crusade to liberate Jerusalem. Four years later, those crusaders seized the city, massacring almost all its inhabitants in a bloodbath invoked to this day.

Seven more crusades were waged, bringing European monarchs, lords, knights and their armies of devout followers to fight — and settle — in an area stretching between what is today Syria and Egypt. The Muslims responded with their own sporadic jihads until finally, by 1291, the Christians had been driven out.

It’s hard not to wonder, is this really a good time to show warring Christians and Muslims as entertainment?

“I think it’s the perfect time for the movie, because it doesn’t paint one side or other as being the goodies or the baddies,” insisted Jeremy Irons, one of several actors who appear as crusaders. “It just shows human nature getting in the way of possible peaceful coexistence. I don’t think it will anger either side. I think it will make both sides think.”

Of course, the backers of Kingdom of Heaven, 20th Century Fox, are hardly in the business of offering $140-million lessons in history and morality. The film focuses on a particularly dramatic moment between the Second and Third Crusades, when the Muslims retook Jerusalem. This real history is wrapped in a fictional love story and presented as a rich spectacle of costumes, horses, swords and endless desert.

The facts are that during a period of relative peace, Baldwin IV, the young king of Jerusalem, again opened the city to all faiths. But after his death in 1185, militant Knights Templar began attacking Muslim desert convoys. In response, the legendary Muslim warrior Saladin, leading an army of 200,000, laid siege to Jerusalem. Balian of Ibelin, the Christian knight who surrendered the city on October 2, 1187, is the movie’s hero.

Little is known about the real Balian. Played by British actor Orlando Bloom, Balian is handsome, loyal, brave and the perfect match for King Baldwin’s stunning sister, Sybilla, played by French actor Eva Green (The Dreamers). Their clandestine love blossoms, but everything else soon falls apart. In the final confrontation with Saladin, played by veteran Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud, Balian gives up, as huge boulders and balls of fire batter the walls of Jerusalem.

“He ultimately surrenders Jerusalem to Saladin to save the lives of the people,” said Bloom, 28. “The conduct of the knight is: be brave that God may help thee; speak the truth even if it leads to your death; and safeguard the helpless. That is the oath, and he follows it to the bitter end.”

Still, there is a political message, one that Green, 24, interpreted with characteristic French directness. “It’s a movie with substance. It’s very clever and brave, and I hope it will wake up people in America.” To what? “To be more tolerant, more open towards the Arab people,” she said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/18/wcrus18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/18/ixworld.html

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.

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