A scene from the new film by Mel Gibson, Apocalypto. Photograph: Cortesia/EPA.
Mel Gibson has done it again. With a flick of his casual wrist, he's turned the movie world upside down. You can see his insolent stare, raking the cameras that so recently came out like an army to witness his "disgrace".
Somewhat under the weather, he had been heard to mouth-off quite violently about Jews, Jewishness and their influence in Hollywood. Of course, he went all contrite-and-having-treatment as soon as he found a lawyer. But there was no doubt about it: he had blundered heavily over the line.
The blogs and the gossip columns that worry over such things asked, "Can he come back from this?" One newspaper writer called me and asked, "Are we going to hear any more about Gibson after this?"
It all goes to show that continued interest in Hollywood these days depends upon memory loss. If you have any kind of recollection, you can't muster the interest in whether these people are going to stay married or stay awake. And if you had any credentials as a Hollywood observer, you only had to recall that, a few years ago, we were being told that Mel's picture, The Passion of the Christ, would probably never be seen because nobody was going to be foolish enough to take on its distribution. That was just before it became one of the big hits of 2004.
So when the newspaper man asked me about which desert island Mel might be thinking of taking his anti-Semitism to, I said, "A cunning fox is this Mel. Sooner than you know, you may be hearing from him again." I have found that words of wisdom hardly register in Hollywood without these Yoda-like cadences and I could see the grin on Mel's wicked face just as I clearly as I could see the Scots' bums in Braveheart.
That was another of Mel's films, done before his "outrages", but still a picture in which he went a great deal further in showing you how to hang, draw and quarter a man than most viewers really wanted at the time. But, if you recall, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Braveheart Best Picture in 1995.
Of course, he has another new film now, with the catchy title, Apocalypto. It is another everyday story of Mayan blood sacrifice and the kind of material where a sensationalist, let alone an artist, has good reason to slam a few pumping hearts, just ripped from the body, down in front of the audience as an appetizer.
Now the first reviews of Apocalypto are coming in, people are blushing and the Academy is wondering whether they can reward the work of such a former scoundrel. (Actually someone should remind the Academy that it was brought into existence, in large part, to whitewash the reputation of former scoundrels.) In Variety, Todd McCarthy, a careful critic, said that Apocalypto is "remarkable". It has other enthusiasts. And in a year when the notable films may be as few as the Stars of David on Mel's bum, he could have a contender. In which case, get ready for that fat grin and that butter-wouldn't-melt look. Mel Gibson has always had one sterling Australian attitude and he knows that most of what goes down in Hollywood is humbug or an act. Plus, in a rather blood-thirsty way, he's a pretty good film-maker and a cunning bastard.
