APOCALYPTO

THE DAY AFTER III


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SOURCE: Interview published by DarkHorizon.com ( 8 Dec.2006 )
It would be something of an understatement to say that Mel Gibson, Oscar winner and Hollywood star of over two decades, has not had the best of years. Yet as the director chats en route to his Santa Monica office, he is talkative and clearly anxious to put behind him, what he calls "all that other bullshit" that took place several months ago. Gibson, now 50, is trying to look forward, concentrating on promoting his latest directorial feature, Apocalypto, referring to recent events as "just peripheral stuff that happens to people."
Gibson remains genuinely contrite over it all, but matter-of-fact in how he reflects on what happened. "I got a skinful and mouthed off which is not coming from a good place, but I'm moving on from that," says Gibson, who acknowledges that mistakes were made. However, at the same time, he looks at that experience "as a gift to me, because it's made me really sort of scratch my head and focus on a couple of things that I needed to." He adds that "it's working out real positive, and hopefully in other lives that I'll touch."




Gibson feels that the media does tend to hone in on the flaws and mistakes of the rich and famous. "Unfortunately I think it's become more of a trend. After all, it sells more newspapers to actually focus on and identify someone and sometimes it gets out of hand. I think the balance is way off, but that's the way it is and you can't change that. So what you have to do is just try and balance it for yourself and everyone around you, which is an ongoing process. Everybody goofs, everybody screws up and I tell ya, if you ask everybody in the world to raise their hand if they never said something vicious, something that they regretted or something stupid, there wouldn't be many people that wouldn't be able to raise their hands."


Fast forward 16 years, and he has learned to confront some of those dark holes that surfaced as his fame increased. But the philosophical actor says that one's demons are never completely exorcised. "I think that's an ongoing process for your entire life, because everyone's got 'em," says Gibson, thoughtfully, further arguing that his artistry is what often deflects from those constantly resurfacing demons. "I think in any art form, expression really is a coping mechanism. It's like something has to come out, and if it comes out in art , that's great because you're somehow using what the human condition has made you, to put out some kind of evidence that other people can sort of relate to, and I think that's the sharing experience that we need."





Gibson is no stranger to controversy, of course, if one remembers all of the hoopla surrounding his Passion of the Christ. It was Gibson's reinforcement of his Catholicism that prompted his need to cinematically re-interpret the death of Christ, not to mention coming to terms with his own inner demons, as he previously disclosed when we last chatted two years ago. Back then, commenting on his return to Catholicism, he recalled, at age 34, "that I was completely and utterly spiritually bankrupt and there's a lot of misery in that."
Yet Gibson made Passion for his own religious, cathartic needs, laughingly recalling that he thought the film "would just get out there and preach to a few Christians, and maybe make our investment back." Mel says he was astounded by the media response and widespread criticisms. "I honestly did NOT see the furore of this whole thing which was like a firestorm. Every time you open the newspaper it was a new thing, so the awareness was through the roof." Not even Gibson could have predicted how successful Passion would inevitably become, allowing the filmmaker and his Icon Productions to self-fund whatever he chose to do next.



Gibson says that the success of Passion "told me pretty clearly that there's an appetite for something kind of different out there. So I said, okay, I'll give them something different again. When I watch it I say well that's the same filmmaker making those two films, but they're different in tone, the speed, quality and the style. But that kind of success encourages me that there is the hunger and appetite for people who really want to be taken somewhere else, so that's what I'm trying to do," the director explains. "I'm trying to provide them with a visceral and sense experience, so that by the time they walk into the temple they are hopefully going out of their minds."
So as Gibson battles demons and regrettable tirades, he has also been able to focus on his latest project, and it seems that critics are ignoring his personal problems, giving many early thumbs up to his latest film. The subtitled Apocalypto is set in the Mayan civilization, at a time when the Maya kingdom faces its decline, and as crops are hard to come by, the rulers insist the key to prosperity is to build more temples and offer human sacrifices. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a young man chosen for sacrifice, but through circumstance, flees the kingdom to avoid his fate.










Despite Gibson's affluence and power in Hollywood, he has chosen to turn his back on mainstream cinema, preferring to make films that continue to challenge him as an artist. For Gibson, who won an Oscar for his more mainstream epic Braveheart, it has become increasingly important to take new risks as a filmmaker. "I think I'm just getting to a place where I look at cinema today the future of which is independent film, where there's a hunger for a different kind of fare that simply isn't being catered to by anyone but independent filmmakers."
Deciding to turn his cameras on another ancient civilization, Gibson had his actors speak in the relatively little known Yucatan Maya, which is still spoken today. "Yucatac still has this wonderful, ancient poetry to it that worked fine, it was readily available and had people who could speak it and many of the K'iche' and Itza' people speak Yucatec." Gibson says he had always wanted to make a chase movie, and that became the springboard for this. But it was Gibson's passion for history that further fuelled his imagination.


"There's always this conceit amongst historians, particularly European historians, that history only began when they arrived, which of course is not the case. If you look at the Mayan civilization, clearly it was there 3,000 years ago and it's like there was a lot going on with a lot of sophistication in their civilization as well. I thought that it would be interesting to tell a story from the perspective that wasn't told from the New World point of view, when Europe finally arrived and then history began. There's so much mystery surrounding the temples and the archaeological findings, that it just really fires your imagination. There's enough research and source material around to sort of do a reasonable reconstruction of what might have been."
As all of Gibson's three historical films explore characters or societies facing social and moral dilemmas, Gibson sees thematic parallels in his work as a director. "Those crisis times are when the best stories are, because people are asked to do things in times of crisis that go beyond the usual realm of our experience. To me, those are the really interesting focal points, so I think you're looking for a story that's compelling and therefore you have to set it in a time and place where you see it happening, where you can inspect or investigate the nature of the human spirit in those particular circumstances."







While all of these films are defined by their unique degrees of complexity, Gibson concedes that nothing quite compares to what he went through shooting Apocalypto, beyond dealing with the logistics of shooting in the jungle and coping with an endless stream of bugs. All of that paled with the film's technical facets, from an image perspective. "I think if you notice, the film practically doesn't stop moving, and so the entire style in which I wanted to have it happen was completely and utterly kinetic. I don't think we ever put a camera on a stick, so either it was handheld, flying along on a cable, driving along or somebody was holding it and running. It's difficult to get all those moves, to keep it moving and to have all the other movements connect with the movement before it as you saw it in your head."
Gibson talks with utter enthusiasm for new technology which he embraced in order to bring this story to the screen, the way he had envisaged from the outset. "We're using new technology in the Genesis camera, which I have nothing but praise for. I think it enabled us to do things that we wouldn't otherwise have been able to do, because what you've got there is a camera with the ability to open the shutters to 360 degrees that gives everything a different sort of look and feel. I mean you're really in motion, seeing things that you haven't seen before and with just lighting a scene with only firelight and stuff like that. It's pretty amazing stuff."






Equally amazing, is that given Gibson's ascension into the realms of Hollywood superstardom, as a director, he has chosen to step more into its periphery. Yet in searching for his next challenge, Gibson says he is not intentionally shunning the mainstream studio system. "I really don't think in those terms. I've just been financing the stuff myself because only a lunatic would do that," he says, laughingly. "There's a gamble aspect to it, in that you could fall flat on your face, which is always a possibility, but at some point you've got to try and put your money where your mouth is and say I can do this."
Perhaps in his desire to test himself as a filmmaker, he has less enthusiasm to return in front of the cameras, despite internet rumours to the contrary. "I just haven't felt the pressing desire to hop in front of the camera and tap dance," confesses Gibson. "It's not that I don't want to do it, I love doing it, but it's just that it hasn't been on the menu for me for a while. I used to think: boy, what happens if I don't work again and when I was younger I used to think gee whiz that'd be terrible, but it's not terrible, it's great."


Gibson pauses, laughs and then concedes that he currently enjoys "exploring the backside of the industry from a production and directorial point of view. I think the best thing I will have gleaned from all this, is that whenever I do get in front of the camera again I'll be able to empathize with any director, no matter who he is, in order to help him with his vision."
Now that he is trying to put behind him a rocky year, personally and an intense one, creatively, "I'm now looking forward to doing just a little fishing and contemplating my own navel." He won't disclose the location of the watering hole, but he does hope to return to Australia at some point, to work. After all, the last time Gibson tap danced in front of an Australian camera, was in 1985's Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. "I think you have to find a worthy project to do there, and I think to actually work there you can't just take any great story and take it there. Rather you need a story that's somehow connected to the place because I think there's such a soul in the ground."
Beyond fishing and contemplating life and the universe, Gibson says he has no idea what is in store for him professionally, but he suggests it will be typical Gibson. "I think I'll probably cook up some other weird idea, but I'm hoping that it'll be not too weird and maybe something in the English language."




THE MAKING OF APOCALYPTO
Interview published by AskMen.com

Q-1:Congratulations on your success over the weekend.
Yeah. Number one's not bad.

Q-2:Do you have a feeling of vindication? I'm sure it must have been nerve-wracking waiting for the movie to come out.
No, not really. I mean, you just keep chipping away on what you think is a compelling story and you put it out there. If it sails, it sails, and if it sinks, it sinks, but you knew that going in. So win or lose, you'd rather it won, but win or lose, you're prepared for it, so nerves wasn't a problem. It's your child and you want it to do well out there.


Q-3:One of the things that really appealed to me was its simplicity -- the fact that it's essentially a chase movie or action film. Did you intentionally make it function at a sort of archetypal level because of the language and character boundaries you knew you would be facing?
Oh absolutely. You hit it on the head, even right down to the casting. I mean types, very specific types of people who brought the qualities that I thought the characters needed to the screen. You had to be very clear in those things if you're going to use other devices; mythic storytelling is often quite simple and it's about a man or a group of people, about circumstances, about his reaction -- not so much about what he does, what he has to do or he's forced to do, but how he does it. Those are the little things; it's the little things that make it.

Q-4:What do you think this movie has to say about modern culture or about what's going on in our world now?
Well, only that history more or less repeats itself and that everything rises and everything falls. I don't think we're crumbling as a civilization, but this is not our finest hour, and it's good to be mindful that we're all susceptible to fall and to look at what are the earmarks of a civilization on the wane. What are they -- destruction of the environment? Conspicuous consumption? Heard of those? Use of fear as a manipulation tool, corruption of power -- these things are alive and well and I think it's unfortunate. But I'm not saying gloom and doom either; I think there's a lot of hope. But it's just an observation that civilizations are the same, and we've seen the same pressures that are exerted on people in all eras and on civilizations for that matter.

Q-5:So seldom do we get to talk to filmmakers after the movie is released and publicized. Was it your decision to participate in the advertising or did Disney ask you to appear in the ads to sort of put a star's face on the movie?
Well, I think that was their idea. It hadn't occurred to me, but when I heard them talk about [it] they said, "Well, you have to sell it." OK, that was fine; I don't mind. I'm proud of it, so I don't mind speaking about it. So it was a pleasure to be able to do so, because one doesn't make films for an elite; you want as many people to share in your story as possible.

Q-6:So much was written about the movie and about you in the months prior to its release. Did you feel good about the feedback you've received upon the movie's release?
Yeah, well, mostly it was good. I didn't read them all because you would be forever reading, but somebody keeps track of that stuff and I gather that review-wise we came out about 80% positive, which is a pretty good result -- usually it's about 50-50. It was interesting that the big number really loved it, and the small number really hated it and there was no in between, so it was interesting.

Q-7:Did you read any feedback or reviews that pointed out things about the movie that you hadn't thought about?
Well, I didn't get into any sort of extensive reading, to tell you the truth. I might have read like two reviews and I was like, well, that's enough. And I read a bum one and a good one, and I thought, well, OK. One, I can tell if someone's being honest or not. I mean, I've been around this game for a long time, and you know when they are grinding an axe and you know when they are being honest even if they are negative. One can take something from that because their perceptions are valid, provided they are honest. So yeah, I'm always willing to learn.
There used to be a critic in Sydney -- he used to review theater -- and his name was Harry Kippax. Old Harry, kind of a curmudgeon, he could be pretty tough, and early in my career I was getting big parts on stage and boy I remember Harry landing on me a few times. But I started looking at it, and I bumped into Harry in New York in the Algonquin club; he was having a scotch and soda and I sat down and talked to him and it was a really valuable experience. Because I was a very young man then and Harry was old and knew theater, and he was more experienced and more traveled, and knew more about theater than I did. It was interesting to sit down and sort of talk to him, and he was real honest. I never begrudged him any of the stuff that was negative because I used to look at that and think, that man's being honest. He has no personal axe to grind, there's no agenda; it's really what he believes and he saw. I wanted to know more about that, and I learned a great deal from him.



Q-8:What if anything would you like to impart to other aspiring actors or directors that you have learned in your career?
I was engaged in that on this film. We had young, fledgling performers who had never seen the back or the front end of a camera, and I felt that I was giving them all of my experience to help them put a performance on film. And I was so proud of them; they trusted me and they rose to the occasion and they did such a wonderful job. I think it's pretty hard to tell somebody sometimes, "What's the lessons you've learned? Here they are." Well, if they're not going through the experience, you can't really apply it to anything you're doing. You just have to take it as a concept and maybe the penny will drop later. But if they're right in the middle of something and you're able to impart something immediate that they understand because it's applicable to them, I think that's the best way to sort of pass things on. I just felt like a proud father sending a kid of on a bicycle with some of these guys. It was so nice.

Q-9:Having directed two unconventional films in a row, do you feel like your greatest challenges lie ahead of you as a filmmaker or actor?
Oh there are definitely some acting challenges, believe me. The caliber of script I get, some of them are great and I would have done them but I was busy. But many are not, and I've done it for 30 years [and] I don't really feel like going over the same ground again, but the thing is I'm so in love with the storytelling process that I'm passionate to see my vision of it, and that kind of is taking my attention. I didn't plan it that way; it's just kind of gradually evolved into that, and I get such a kick out of calling the shots and putting what I see in my mind's eye on film. And getting a wonderfully talented group of people together to help me do it and even getting more than what I imagined. I mean, the great Dean Semler, a true artist and a great cinematographer and I worked with him five years ago when I was his actor and he was filming me upside down on the front of a truck. He's a grunt, man; he understands the expression "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration"; man, he's a worker. I knew he was the right guy for this film because his sensibilities are so kinetic; I knew that we'd get something cookin' and crackin' and movin'.

Q-10:Is that process something you're planning on documenting on the DVD?
Oh gosh, there's so much footage and behind the scenes footage, and us being all jazzed when we realized that no one had ever shot on the genesis camera at night using only fire. We were blown away that we were shooting at 2800 or 3000 ASA and you can't do that on film, and we're going "Oh my God! It looks great!" And it was like we'd gone through this barrier because we were the first guys to do that. We were blown away -- it was like kids in a candy store. And Dean, he said, "I'm 62 years old and I've been doing this for 40 years, and hell, I'm more excited now than I've ever been," and it was so great that whole process of discovery, using new technology with the Genesis cameras; digital, wow, it's amazing.

Q-11: What else do you have planned for the DVD?
Oh gosh, there's all kind of looks at history and art and talking about the production, the production design as it relates to history and murals and art and archaeological discoveries. Dr. Richard Hansen, the archaeologist who's been in a Mirador for 25 years sweating it out, unearthing the oldest of sites -- you know, the largest pyramid in the world is down there, and most people don't even know about it.




Q-12: When you say you aren't especially interested in doing some of these franchise films, is it more a product of feeling they won't challenge you any more?
Boy, we did four of them, dude [laughs]. I mean, it's kind of like we've done it.

Q-13:Well, is there a film or film series you would like to revisit for a sequel or follow up?
Well, I always felt those Road Warrior movies were pretty cool, like they were in-the-gutter comic book stuff. It was like really pretty exciting stuff. I don't know. We began to mount one; it was a terrific idea that George Miller had and, boy, it was prohibitively expensive. But maybe there will be a time and place where that won't be the case. I don't know.

Q-14:Ultimately, what do you want audiences to take away from this movie?
OK, I think there are some good lessons. I think the whole fear aspect of life, you know. There are a lot of things happening in our civilization now where the environment is being destroyed, there's conspicuous consumption, using just for its own sake. There's the use of fear, I think in the media as a manipulation tool, and fear itself; fear drives people to do things that they wouldn't do if they thought about it a bit longer. Those are valuable lessons, I think, and we're all susceptible to these things as human beings. And there's no such thing as a hopeless situation, and I don't know -- I just think the film is uplifting and spiritual on that level, and also visceral and kinetic on an action, kind-of thriller level, and also educational in that it does look at a culture that hasn't really been addressed on film before. It takes place at a certain time in that culture when things are starting to get a little rough, but what are you gonna do? Talk for two hours about the guy who invented the calendar? But above all, I want people to be entertained and moved by it, you know?





CONTENTS

Interview Mel Gibson
Shooting 1
Shooting 2
Shooting 3
The Cast
On the set
I Worked in Apocalypto
The Day After
The Day After 2
Collage
Poster 1
Photos
Questionnaire
Game: The Mayas
Game: Choose Ten
Oscars 2006

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