1492: Conquest Of Paradise (2024)

1492: Conquest Of Paradise

Christopher Columbus in Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise is depicted as a more complex and humane individual than in the other films on him. The character of Columbus taken by the director is an enlightened variation of the traditional one where he treats Indians same as Spanish nobles and appears to be happy with this fact that their God is not Catholic but nature.

Columbus, too, feels much more real here. As portrayed by Gerard Depardieu, he comes across as enormous, shaggy, and relentless bouts of doggedness are all part of his make-up; these are people who will have a concept stuck in their minds forevermore. We know some bits of his story like defending his voyage before skeptical scholars, wooing Queen Isabella to be his patron carefully among others making them anew for us according to Depardieu.

This includes even the famous scene where Columbus uses a fruit to show how the earth was round. This time it is an orange. In Christopher Columbus: The Discovery which was shown last August just before it went into oblivion, it was an apple. I’m looking forward to seeing it made with potatoes since prior to discovery of America Europe had no potatoes something I’ve been concealing from public knowledge in readiness for ‘Jeopardy’ just in case I get invited there one day ahead!

What slightly disappoints me about Scott’s version is that he seems to skim through Columbus’ actual journey without giving it much detail. The Old World has its intrigues while adventures and violence mark the New World but somewhat the significant connecting link between them becomes simplified: “The three ships sail, crew grows restless, mutiny starts brewing; Columbus settles it down then land appears” (in this previous film version Columbus generously offered himself up for execution if no land was seen within three days a historical fiction that both Scott and scriptwriter Roselyne Bosch thankfully exclude). Several centuries before Columbus was born, people who were quite intelligent believed that the world was round.

There have been ships capable of crossing the Atlantic for a long time (Europeans were already rounding Africa on their way to Asia, and the Vikings preceded Columbus to North America by centuries). Europe’s failure to exploit this new continent came out of nothing but old fashionedness and blind faith; an extremely strong desire to maintain status quo. It is obvious that Columbus had some psychological makeup that couldn’t let him make peace with this.

Ridley Scott is a visually oriented director whose interpretation of the New World is characterized by marvelous shots such as one in which ocean mists rise up disclosing a lush beach line. He made it in Costa Rica where Native Americans are shown as noble and gentle minded people making Columbus wonder whether they could not be better than the Spanish courtiers with all their intrigues. I’m not entirely satisfied by this film on Columbus as he may appear here but I know figures from history get reinterpreted now and then for our purposes today.

In her notes, Bosch stated that during the reign of queen Isabella in Spain, those guilty of eating meat on a Good Friday could be burnt alive. Bosch spent a decade after Columbus’ discovery telling his story as he reports to Spain his success, becomes a viceroy again in America and then deals with land problems, violent nobles, opponents in the old country and even a hurricane before finally returning to jail disgraced. The ending is optimistic; Isabella allows him to go to North America but he dies soon thereafter while dictating his memoirs to his son.

Here the film draws its tears out of Depardieu by showing him in close-up as someone calls Amerigo Vespucci an Italian (who discovered the continental part), though the movie distorts history since Columbus who had already landed in South America sometime before Vespucci was given this pathetic line where he asks how much further it is and ‘America’ did not become known by this name until next year after Chris died.

I dream about worshipping a movie so brutally honest than this one; it would have shown all these scenes with much more reality so that we feel their harshness.

However Scott’s version is considerably undermined by Vangelis’s score which alternates between soaring angelic choirs and brooding jungle music. The voice over tells us what to think about some of these shots; for example, the quasi-ecclesiastical strains suggest that many American souls are going to be saved through religion but on other hand Indian music points out that New Age melodies were invented by simple woodland tribes long ago.

Though “1492” has certain redeeming features taken together with its own originality. Depardieu makes it serious; there are realistic supporting characters, well chosen settings and you cannot help concluding that anyone willing to set off into nowhere just because oranges were found round must have had some guts.

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