1492 - Conquest of Paradise (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]
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VHS Movie Reviews of 1492 - Conquest of Paradise (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]
Movie Review: What was this movie about again?
Summary: 2 Stars
Okay, kids, let's forget all about the "Columbus was a bad dead white male" business and get to the real reason why this film had "lackluster" performance at the box office."1492" is loaded with gratuitous and gruesome violence. It was clear from the first reviewers a decade ago that the images of burning at the stake, garotting, the beheaded sailor with the harelip, and the guy leaping to his death and having his bones poke through the skin (what's up with that?) were not easy to forget. What was easy to forget was the rest of the movie, because much of it is boring (oh, almost neglected to mention the Spaniard with the bloody urine...sorry). Forget about the use of Spanish in the film, most of it is in "furry English", courtesy of Depardieu and his Euro cinema pals.
Cool, 15th century adventure stories are not well served by hangups with "a more brutal time", or politically correct references to the Carib indians or "the Moors". If you want to have them in furry English, you may as well have them speak Spanish and Italian (and Carib?) and just use subtitles.
Better luck with the movie version on the 600th anniversary of the Columbus voyage? Don't hold your breath.
Movie Review: Great film, quite a spectacle to behold!
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is a great movie. It has to be experienced in it's original widescreen aspect ratio. Pan and Scan, just ruins it to a degree, because 1492 is a highly artistic film that needs the big picture for you to truly get it. I own an import dvd from France of this film, and it looks the way it should, perfect. One of those rare movies where Pan and Scan ruins the film, it says more about the quality of the film than anything. What we have here is a movie that takes us on a journey through time, it educates us as to what it all took for Christopher Columbus to accomplish what he did, and how he never was truly appreciated for having the courage, an idea about the planet, that the world wasn't flat, and you could sail the sea and not run into monsters guarding the edge of the world. You really have to credit Columbus for believing that the world was different, yet mysterious. The film provides us with plenty of drama, action, and character depth. Only thing that takes away a little bit is that the movie at times can be slow paced. And at the start of the movie, where Columbus says, "I will not give up", the editing is awful. Other than that, no flaws to speak of. It really doesn't have any. Gerard Depardieu gives one of his finest performances making Columbus human, and adding an emotional element to the role no other actor could give. Since Depardieu is completely a unique actor. He is brilliant here as Columbus. I'd say this film deserves more of a cult following. Vangelis score is superbly rich and sublime, and 1492 is a rare breed of film where the music and the scenes work with eachother to create more of an impact on the scences.
Better yet, Ridley Scott does one heck of a job in the directors chair, bringing the story of Columbus life to the screen, in just under three hours.
Shame on Paramount for not releasing this on DVD yet. They rerelease movies as special editions, but they can't release an educational, very well made movie to the movie viewing public on DVD. What is that all about anyway.
1492, is best experienced in the widescreen format.
Movie Review: A dvd version would be nice
Summary: 5 Stars
1492: Conquest Of Paradise, is a beautiful, and wonderful looking movie. Not only that, but it's perfect from my standpoint. People would be able to see this film again if a DVD is released. And alot of people would grow to love this movie. Yes, it's about Christopher Columbus, but the movie is about a little more than just him. History wise, I don't know that much about Christopher Columbus, other than just some of the historical facts about him, and the film presents them all reasonably well. History facts aside, the movie does it's job to entertain the viewer, and presents to us a fair interpretation of Columbus and what he accomplished through his life. Ridley Scott, uses the world Columbus inhabits and achieves glorious results, along with working with Vangelis, what we have here is a rare breed of film where the soundtrack and the images, in some scenes in the film work together to make the viewer think about the subject matter. Like in 2001: A Space Oddessy, this is about equal to it, the soundtrack is amazing. Gerard Depardieu provides us with a solid, enjoyable performance, he is so fun to watch on screen in 1492. For a French actor, he is believable as an Italian, because his nose helps, and his accent is abstract and different from the people he associates with to accomplish what he did in Spain at the time. The movie is incredible, it makes you think about life. I think a DVD release by, I think, Paramount, is not just a good idea, rather a necessity, since this film covers such important subject matter for because of Christopher Columbus, we call our home America. I think it's crazy that the studio hasn't released this on DVD yet.Movie Review: the glamorization of a brutal opportunist
Summary: 1 Stars
"At least Columbus had the wit, in his madness, to mistake Venezuela for the outskirts of Paradise. But he remarked on the availability of cheap slave labor in Paradise." -- Ursula K. LeGuinTrue to our colonial tradition of valorizing conquerors, this film ignores the inconvenient facts of New World History: the genocide of the Tainos (Columbus himself led an attack against them), their decimation and starvation, the repartimiento and encomiendo slave systems set up by the Columbus brothers on Hispanola, and all the rest of the sordid story. A ruthless opportunist who loved wealth and titles, Columbus went to the New World for two reasons: he saw himself as a "Christ-bearer" (his own term) to primitives, and he wanted something he mentions dozens of times in his diary: gold.
Were all the whites evil and all the Indians good? Of course not. But it is not an exercise in black-and-white thinking to remember those who perished in the gold mines, who starved to death on the roads, and who fell down in fear before the cannons brought to intimidate them into obedience. It is their stories that the victors have silenced, glamorizing instead their persecutors and colonizers.
Until someone makes a more honest film about the man responsible for so much death that his actions with the Indians shocked even the Spanish crown, here are a few quotations taken directly from his own journals:
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...Having banished all the Jews from all your Kingdoms and realms, during this same month of January Your Highnesses ordered me to go with a sufficient fleet to the said regions of India. For that purpose I was granted great favors and ennobled; from then henceforward I might entitle myself Don and be High Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy and perpetual Governor of all the islands and continental land that I might discover and acquire...
They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language.
All that these people have they will give for a very ridiculous price; they gave one great basket of cotton for the end of a leather strap. These people are very free from evil and war...I have to say, Most Serene Princes, that if devout religious persons knew the Indian language well, all these people would soon become Christians. Thus I pray to Our Lord that Your Highnesses will appoint persons of great diligence in order to bring to the Church such great numbers of peoples, and that they will convert these peoples, just as they have destroyed those who would not confess the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I see and know that these people have no religion whatever, nor are they idolaters, but rather, they are very meek and know no evil. They do not kill or capture others and are without weapons.
Today there came to the side of the ship a canoe with six youths in it, and five came aboard. These I ordered held and am bringing them with me. Afterwards I sent some of my men to a house west of the river, and they brought seven women, small and large, and three children. I did this so that the men I had taken would conduct themselves better in Spain than they might have otherwise, because of having women from their own country there with them.
"It is said, by Las Casas among others, that what perplexed the Tainos of Española most about the strange white people from the large ships was not their violence, not even their greed, nor in fact their peculiar attitudes toward property, but rather their coldness, their hardness, their lack of love." -- Kirkpatrick Sale
Movie Review: Good but take it as fiction
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie was well-directed, with good actors and an excellent soundtrack (Vangelis is brilliant with soundtracks). The story does well morally, as we see a paradise and peacful people being wrecked by greedy and violent Europeans.Having said that, the film falls flat as historical fiction.
First, Columbus' role in the enslavement and exploitation as been played down. Others have spoke of this, so I'll take it no further.
Second, the Caribbean was no paradise in 1492. Each tribe had a warrior caste (guess what they were used for) and practiced slavery. And I was never aware of any slaves (other than Ottoman Jannisaries) enjoying their status.
Third, Spain, and by extension European civilisation, is portrayed in a totally negative light. While the scenes regarding the Inquisition are correct, the film refers to Muslim Spain (conquered that same year) as being a 'great culture'. Anyone who views Islamic history (anywhere) objectively would realise that Christian sectors, for all their faults, are vastly preferable if one aint Muslim.
These may seem minor points but the impression one gets from both this film and and other media these days is that white Europeans are evil, and anybody else is good. It's not nearly that simple. And the movie makes it out to be like that.
Just for anyone who's interested, here's an article arguing the European's case. http://users.metro2000.net/~stabbott/columbus.htm