Apocalypto

Mel Gibson directed Apocalypto after he made The Passion of the Christ.

Screenwriter and co-producer Farhad Safinia first met Mel Gibson while working as an assistant during the post-production of The Passion of the Christ. Eventually, Gibson and Safinia found time to discuss "their mutual love of movies and what excites them about moviemaking".[5]

We started to talk about what to do next, but we specifically spent a lot of time on the action-chase genre of filmmaking. Those conversations essentially grew into the skeleton of (Apocalypto). We wanted to update the chase genre by, in fact, not updating it with technology or machinery but stripping it down to its most intense form, which is a man running for his life, and at the same time getting back to something that matters to him.
—Farhad Safinia[5]

Gibson said they wanted to "shake up the stale action-adventure genre", which he felt was dominated by CGI, stock stories and shallow characters and to create a footchase that would "feel like a car chase that just keeps turning the screws."[6]

Gibson and Safinia were also interested in portraying and exploring an ancient culture as it existed before the arrival of the Europeans. Considering both the Aztecs and the Maya, they eventually chose the Maya for their high sophistication and their eventual decline.

The Mayas were far more interesting to us. You can choose a civilization that is bloodthirsty, or you can show the Maya civilization that was so sophisticated with an immense knowledge of medicine, science, archaeology and engineering ... but also be able to illuminate the brutal undercurrent and ritual savagery that they practiced. It was a far more interesting world to explore why and what happened to them.
—Farhad Safinia[5]

The two researched ancient Maya history, reading both creation and destruction myths, including sacred texts such as the Popul Vuh.[7] In the audio commentary of the film's first DVD release, Safinia states that the old shaman's story (played by Espiridion Acosta Cache, a modern-day Maya storyteller[8]) was modified from an authentic Mesoamerican tale that was re-translated by Hilario Chi Canul, a professor of Maya, into the Yucatec Maya language for the film. He also served as a dialogue coach during production. As they researched the script, Safinia and Gibson traveled to Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Yucatán Peninsula to scout filming locations and visit Maya ruins.

Striving for a degree of historical accuracy, the filmmakers employed a consultant, Richard D. Hansen, a specialist in the Maya and assistant professor of archaeology at Idaho State University. As director of the Mirador Basin Project, he works to preserve a large swath of the Guatemalan rain forest and its Maya ruins. Gibson has said of Hansen's involvement: "Richard's enthusiasm for what he does is infectious. He was able to reassure us and make us feel secure that what we were writing had some authenticity as well as imagination."[7]

Other scholars of Mesoamerican history criticized the film for what they said were numerous inaccuracies.[9][10] Hansen published an essay on the film and a critical commentary on the criticisms of the film.[11]

Gibson decided that all the dialogue would be in the Yucatec Maya language.[12] Gibson explained: "I think hearing a different language allows the audience to completely suspend their own reality and get drawn into the world of the film. And more importantly, this also puts the emphasis on the cinematic visuals, which are a kind of universal language of the heart."[7]

The production team consisted of a large group of make-up artists and costume designers who worked to recreate the Maya look for the large cast. Led by Aldo Signoretti, the make-up artists daily applied the required tattoos, scarification, and earlobe extensions to all of the on-screen actors. According to advisor Richard D. Hansen, the choices in body make-up were based on both artistic license and fact: "I spent hours and hours going through the pottery and the images looking for tattoos. The scarification and tattooing was all researched, the inlaid jade teeth are in there, the ear spools are in there. There is a little doohickey that comes down from the ear through the nose into the septum – that was entirely their artistic innovation."[13] An example of attention to detail is the left arm tattoo of Seven, Jaguar Paw's wife, which is a horizontal band with two dots above – the Mayan symbol for the number seven.

Simon Atherton, an English armorer and weapon-maker who worked with Gibson on Braveheart, was hired to research and provide reconstructions of Maya weapons. Atherton also has a cameo as the cross-bearing Franciscan friar who appears on a Spanish ship at the end of the film.

Pyramids like this at Tikal were reproduced for the film

Mel Gibson wanted Apocalypto to feature sets with buildings rather than relying on computer-generated images. Most of the step pyramids seen at the Maya city were models designed by Thomas E. Sanders. Sanders explained his approach: "We wanted to set up the Mayan world, but we were not trying to do a documentary. Visually, we wanted to go for what would have the most impact. Just as on Braveheart, you are treading the line of history and cinematography. Our job is to do a beautiful movie."[14]

However, while many of the architectural details of Maya cities are correct,[10] they are blended from different locations and eras,[10] a decision Farhad Safinia said was made for aesthetic reasons.[15] While Apocalypto is set during the terminal post-classic period of Maya civilization, the central pyramid of the film comes from the classic period, which ended in AD 900,[15] such as those found in the Postclassic sites of Muyil, Coba, and others in Quintana Roo, Mexico, where later cities are built around earlier pyramids. The temples are in the shape of those of Tikal in the central lowlands classic style but decorated with the Puuc style elements of the northwest Yucatán centuries later. Richard D. Hansen comments, "There was nothing in the post-classic period that would match the size and majesty of that pyramid in the film. But Gibson ... was trying to depict opulence, wealth, consumption of resources."[15] The mural in the arched walkway combined elements from the Maya codices, the Bonampak murals (over 700 years earlier than the film's setting), and the San Bartolo murals (some 1500 years earlier than the film's setting).

Gibson filmed Apocalypto mainly in Catemaco, San Andrés Tuxtla and Paso de Ovejas in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The waterfall scene was filmed at Eyipantla Falls, located in San Andrés Tuxtla. Other filming by second-unit crews took place in El Petén, Guatemala. The film was originally slated for an August 4, 2006, release, but Touchstone Pictures delayed the release date to December 8, 2006, due to heavy rains and two hurricanes interfering with filming in Mexico. Principal photography ended in July 2006.

Apocalypto was shot on high-definition digital video, using the Panavision Genesis camera.[16] During filming, Gibson and cinematographer Dean Semler employed Spydercam,[17] a suspended camera system allowing shooting from above. This equipment was used in a scene in which Jaguar Paw leaps off a waterfall.

We had a Spydercam shot from the top of [the] 150-foot [46 m] waterfall, looking over an actor's shoulder and then plunging over the edge—literally in the waterfall. I thought we'd be doing it on film, but we put the Genesis [camera] up there in a light-weight water housing. The temperatures were beyond 100 degrees [38 °C] at [the] top, and about 60 degrees [15 °C] at the bottom, with the water and the mist. We shot two fifty-minute tapes without any problems—though we [did get] water in there once and fogged up.[16]

A number of animals are featured in Apocalypto, including a Baird's tapir and a black jaguar. Animatronics or puppets were employed for the scenes injurious to animals.[18]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 65% based on 200 reviews, with an average rating of 6.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Apocalypto is a brilliantly filmed, if mercilessly bloody, examination of a once great civilization."[27] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[28] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[29]

Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler on the television show Ebert & Roeper gave it "two thumbs up" rating.[30] Michael Medved gave Apocalypto four out of four stars calling the film "an adrenaline-drenched chase movie" and "a visceral visual experience."[31]

The film was released less than six months after Gibson's 2006 DUI incident, which garnered Gibson much negative publicity and magnified concerns some had over alleged antisemitism in his previous film, The Passion of the Christ.[32] Several key film critics alluded to the incident in their reviews of Apocalypto. In his positive review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott commented: "say what you will about him – about his problem with booze or his problem with Jews – he is a serious filmmaker."[33] The Boston Globe's review came to a similar conclusion, noting: "Gibson may be a lunatic, but he's our lunatic, and while I wouldn't wish him behind the wheel of a car after happy hour or at a B'nai Brith function anytime, behind a camera is another matter."[34]

In a negative review, Salon noted: "People are curious about this movie because of what might be called extra-textual reasons, because its director is an erratic and charismatic Hollywood figure who would have totally marginalized himself by now if he didn't possess a crude gift for crafting violent pop entertainment."[35]

Apocalypto gained some passionate champions in the Hollywood community. Actor Robert Duvall called it "maybe the best movie I've seen in 25 years".[36][37] Director Quentin Tarantino said: "I think it's a masterpiece. It was perhaps the best film of that year. I think it was the best artistic film of that year."[38]

Martin Scorsese, writing about the film, called it "a vision," adding, "Many pictures today don't go into troubling areas like this, the importance of violence in the perpetuation of what's known as civilization. I admire Apocalypto for its frankness, but also for the power and artistry of the filmmaking."[39] Actor Edward James Olmos said: "I was totally caught off guard. It's arguably the best movie I've seen in years. I was blown away."[22]

In 2013, director Spike Lee placed the film on his list of all-time essential films.[40]

In 2016, British director Edgar Wright named it as one of his 1,000 favorite films.[41]

In Mexico, the film registered a wider number of viewers than Perfume and Rocky Balboa. It even displaced memorable Mexican premieres such as Titanic and Poseidon.[42] According to polls performed by the newspaper Reforma, 80% of polled Mexicans labeled the film as "very good" or "good".[42]

Aspects of Mayan culture and civilization depicted in Apocalypto are considered by some scholars to be historically inaccurate. According to Allan Wall of Banderas News, "The art, architecture and setting of the movie mixes aspects of different epochs and regions within the Mayan civilization."[43] Some scholars have pointed out that the depiction of mass human sacrifices and widespread slavery was more typical of the Aztecs.[44] In contrast, Mayanist David Stuart stated that human sacrifice was not rare and based on carvings and mural paintings, there are "more and greater similarities between the Aztecs and Mayas."[45]

Aside from the controversy surrounding the alleged historical inaccuracies, scholars and indigenous activists were concerned over the film's highlighting the human sacrifices that occurred during the later years before the Spanish conquest.[46] Anthropologist Traci Ardren felt that Apocalypto was biased because "no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities".[47] The film has also been criticized by Guatemalan activist Ignacio Ochoa as "an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue."[46]

Richard D. Hansen, a historical consultant on the film, stated in an interview with The Washington Post that the film does "give the feeling [that the Maya were] a sadistic lot", and expressed being "a little apprehensive about how the contemporary Maya will take it."[48] The film's focus on "gratuitous violence"[49] led Julia Guernsey, a professor of Mesoamerican art and culture, to condemn the film, stating in an interview, "there's a lot of really offensive racial stereotyping. They're shown as these extremely barbaric people, when in fact, the Maya were a very sophisticated culture."[49] Guernsey points out that the film is seen through the lens of Western morality and states that it is important to examine "alternative world views that might not match our own 21st century Western ones but are nonetheless valid."[50]

Critics claim that human sacrifices depicted in the film are more similar to Aztec practices (as seen here) than to Mayan.

Apocalypto has been criticized for its depictions of mass sacrifices that were more typical for Aztecs than Mayas. Human sacrifice was "arguably less common in ancient Maya society."[51] According to Hansen, the film depicts the post-classic period when the Maya were influenced by the Toltecs and Aztecs. Hansen states, "We know warfare was going on. The Postclassic center of Tulum is a walled city; these sites had to be in defensive positions. There was tremendous Aztec influence by this time. The Aztecs were clearly ruthless in their conquest and pursuit of sacrificial victims, a practice that spilled over into some of the Maya areas."[13]

Other disputed depictions of the Mayas include the sacrifice of commoners and mass graves. The Mayas sacrificed nobility and societal elites instead of commoners according to Anthropology professor Stephen Houston.[44] Archaeological sites indicate that the Mayans used several methods for sacrifice such as "decapitation, heart excision, dismemberment, hanging, disembowelment, skin flaying, skull splitting and burning."[52] Anthropologists have also pointed out that there is no evidence of mass graves in Maya as depicted in the film.[53] Hansen states that this is "conjecture", saying that "all [Gibson was] trying to do there is express the horror of it".[15] Another disputed scene, when Jaguar Paw and the rest of the captives are used as target practice, was acknowledged by the filmmakers to be invented as a plot device for igniting the chase sequence.[15]

According to the DVD commentary track by Mel Gibson and Farhad Safinia, the ending of the film was meant to depict the first contact between the Spaniards and Mayas that took place in 1511 when Pedro de Alvarado arrived on the coast of the Yucatán and Guatemala, and also during the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1502.[54] The arrival of the Europeans in Apocalypto and its thematic meaning is a subject of disagreement. Traci Ardren, anthropologist, wrote that the arrival of the Spanish as Christian missionaries had a "blatantly colonial message that the Mayas needed saving because they were 'rotten at the core.'"[47] According to Ardren, Apocalypto "replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people."[47] David van Biema, in an article written for Time, questions whether the Spaniards are portrayed as saviors of the Mayas, since they are depicted ominously with Jaguar Paw acknowledging their arrival as a threat and deciding to return to the woods.[55]