Following his debut as an Aramaic devotee, Mel Gibson's next pet project will be in a Mayan dialect. The plot details of Apocalypto are secret (a Delphi-like spokesperson said only that Gibson "lets his work speak for itself.") But hmmmm... it's set 500 years ago, the dialogue is in Mayan, and it's called Apocalypto. An homage to de las Casas, perhaps? Offering the natives humanity, "civilization," and La Virgen de Guadalupe?
Significantly, the dialogue is not set in Nahuatl, so at least (fingers crossed!), the film won't be a tale of Cortes vs Quetzalcoatl --I'd shudder to imagine how a Catholic traditionalist would portay that!
Then again, Gibson's anti-Vatican II stance makes him rabidly attached to Latin. There is some redeeming quality in these pseudo-scholarly endeavors. The Passion of the Christ (which I have no interest in seeing) demonstrated his fascination and obsession with linguistics (Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew). And now Mayan!
Waiting for the films in Coptic, Sumerian, and Mohegan. . .
4 comments:
Um... I don't want to see it either, but isn't a bit snobby to critize a future work on a past work you haven't seen?
KT
Um, hello, it's called speculating, not criticizing. I once spent a semester researching 16th-century Mexico, so I'm naturally curious about any recent trends on the topic. And as someone with a family interest in linguistics, modern depictions of ancient vernacular languages also fascinate me.
I'm sorry B! Just poking a little fun. You're still going to have coffee with me next week, right? Wouldn't want to tell The Girls we never see each other...:)
K.A.S.
aka "KT"
K -- my sister and I are weirdly fascinated by Mel's new project!
And yup, still doing coffee/dessert after my mtg. See ya then!
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