Robb Oler’s Hum210 Blog

Mel Gibson – Actor to Director
 
Though introduced to American audiences as Australian, Mel Gibson was born on January 3, 1956, in Peekskill, New York, as the sixth of eleven children to parents Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Ann Gibson, who was born in Australia and died in December of 1990. (The family had emigrated Down Under in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War.) Gibson appeared in high school plays and loved acting, but went to work at an orange juice bottling company after graduating. Until his sister Sheila, going behind his back, filled out an application for him, and he was accepted at the University of New South Wales. After a season onstage with Sydney’s South Australian Theatre Company where he portrayed both Oedipus and Henry IV, he made his name as the leather-clad, post-apocalyptic action hero of George Miller’s Mad Max and in the radically different Tim (both 1979), for which he picked up his first of two Australian Film Institute Awards as Best Actor,  playing a retarded handyman in love with Piper Laurie. Peter Weir’s World War I drama Gallipoli and Mad Max 2 (both 1981), Miller’s transcendent follow-up to Mad Max (released in the USA as The Road Warrior since American audiences knew nothing of the barely-released earlier movie), established Gibson as an international star. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Weir’s film about the political upheavals of 1960s Indonesia, gave him his first romantic lead opposite Sigourney Weaver and launched him as a sex symbol and the beginning of an astonishing career.
 
Gibson got his start directing the sentimental drama The Man Without a Face (1993) in which he also stared as a lead role. It’s a story of trust, friendship and tolerance with exceptional performances by all but especially by the two leads, Nick Stahl and Mel Gibson.

 
In the movie Man Without a Face twelve-year-old Chuck (Nick Stahl) is an emotionally troubled, lonely boy who longs to know the truth about a father who his mother (Margaret Whitton) and older sister (Fay Masterson) never talk about. Because he is so unhappy at home, he decides to take the entrance exam to a military boarding school. The problem is that Chuck is academically deficient and in need of a tutor. He finds one in the most unlikely of people: Justin McLeod (Mel Gibson), who once was a gifted teacher. With half of his face badly scarred as the result of a hideously disfiguring accident, in which a close friend and pupil of his, burned to death. An accident, which also cost him three years imprisonment and his license to teach. McLeod is regarded as the local outcast, and is feared and mocked by all. Chuck keeps his tutoring a secret from his mother for fear she will stop it. McLeod has lived in the community for seven years and is always the subject of gossip at cocktail parties where there is much speculation about his past and wild and vicious rumors are concocted. As their trust and friendship develops, McLeod slowly reveals the truth of his past to Chuck who sees in him the father figure he craves. All is shattered when their tutoring arrangement is discovered and misunderstood.
 
In only Gibson’s second directorial start he also produced and starred as historical hero William Wallace in the swords-and-Scotsmen epic Braveheart (1995), for which Gibson took home Oscars for best director and best picture.
 
The story of Braveheart begin with William Wallace as a young Scottish lad growing up in the late 13th century when his father is killed during an armed rebellion against the British oppressor ruling their country. Adopted by his uncle he is taught to use his brain before using his fists, exposed to the cultures of the world, and grows to be a very educated man. Upon returning to his native land Wallace (Mel Gibson) meets up with his childhood sweetheart and expresses the desire to farm, start a family, and live in peace. Longshanks (Patrick Mcgoohan) believes that there is a problem with Scotland… it is full of Scots. Therefore, he devises a plan to get more English lords to reside there and at the same time breed out the Scots. The plan is to grant Prima Nocta to the English lords. That is, the lords can sleep with any girl in their district on her wedding night. In order to avoid this, Wallace and the love of his life, Murron (Catherine McCormack), are married in secret. Shortly after some English guards treat her like a bride. Her husband Wallace rescues her and once he thinks that she has made a safe escape, he goes to meet her. Unfortunately she did not escape after all and, in an attempt to lure Wallace out of hiding, is executed by the magistrate. In revenge Wallace kills the magistrate, and with the help of some neighbors, and neighboring clans, burns down the garrison where the lord of the district resides. This small spark starts the flames of rebellion that one day leads to the freedom of Scotland.

 
             Not much is known about Wallace, known as Braveheart, except that according to an old epic poem, he unified the clans of Scotland and won famous battles against the English before being captured, tortured and executed as a traitor.

 
             It can’t be stressed enough how magnificent this film is, especially in light of the fact that it was only the second film directed by Mel Gibson. Gibson shows an incredible feeling for the battle scenes. The movie is exceptionally well balanced between the romance and the violence. The sheer logistics of the film’s gigantic battle sequences alone would drive a veteran director insane, and yet under Gibson’s care, the film feels stable even when nothing seems so onscreen.

 
             In his third directorial undertaking Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ is a film about the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life. The movie deals with Christ’s sacrifice and love for mankind as well as his suffering and death.

 
             Sometime around the year A.D. 30, in the Roman province of Palestine, an obscure Jewish carpenter named Jesus of Nazareth began to teach publicly and to proclaim the coming of a ‘Kingdom of God.’ For centuries, the Jewish people had expected the appearance of a promised deliverer known as the Messiah –a figure who would restore their ancient dignity and free their sacred homeland from all evil and despair. In the minds of many, Jesus appeared to be this Messiah. Surrounded by a core group of twelve disciples, Jesus began to attract a massive following from among the common people of Galilee and Judea, who eventually praised him as their Messiah and King. However, Jesus also had many enemies in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin, a governing senate composed of the leading Jewish priests and Pharisees, conspired to put Jesus to death. With the aid of Judas Iscariot, a member of Jesus’ own inner circle, the Sanhedrin succeeded in arresting Jesus, handing him over to the Roman secular authorities on unsubstantiated charges of treason against Rome. Although Jesus consistently maintained that his Kingdom was a heavenly and spiritual one, the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, faced with the possibility of a riot, ordered that Jesus be taken outside the city and crucified as a common criminal.
 
Mel Gibson’s goal was to create the “most realistic” film about Jesus ever made. And his desire was to channel his personal views as an ultraconservative Catholic regarding humanity’s greatest example of fear and arrogance. The debate of whether he achieved this goal is better left to theologians and perhaps to those that share his evangelical Christian faith. The Passion was Gibson’s longtime pet project, and when the major studios expressed no interest, Gibson produced the film with $25-30-million of his own money. Nonetheless, this film is a wonderful testament to Gibson’s skill as a gifted director.

 
Married to Robyn Moore since 1980 and father of 7 children: daughter, Hannah (born 1980); twin sons, Edward and Christian (born 1982); son, (born 1985); daughter, Louis (born 1988); son, Milo (born 1990); son, Tommy (born 1999). Mel Gibson is described by colleagues as a consummate actor, practical joker, highly disciplined and a man of serious personal convictions with a deep Christian faith. Gibson has proved himself as a top actor and with the job his done on only three films his future as a director is just as certain.

 
 
                       Mel Gibson – Bibliography

 
Maltin, Leonard. “Biography for Mel Gibson”. 1994. IMDb. 14 April 2006

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000154/bio

 
Willis, D. “Mel Gibson Biography”. tiscali.film & tv. 14 April 2006

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/mel_gibson_biog/8

 
Nix. “Braveheart”. (1995). Beyondhollywood.com. 14 April 2006

http://www.beyondhollywood.com/reviews/braveheart.htm

 
“Sir William Wallace”. 1996. Highlanderweb.co.uk. 14 April 2006

http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/wallace/

 
“Mel Gibson’s Face”. Truthorfiction.com. 14 April 2006

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/manwithnoface.htm

 
Gerrs, Nat 1994. M. Gibson & M. MacRury: “The Man Without a Face”. Ellopos. 14

April 2006

http://www.ellopos.net/education/writersword_face.htm

Galloway, Stephen 15 November 2004. “Innovator of the Year: Mel Gibson.”       

Hollywoodreporter.com. 14 April 2006

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/film/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000719418

 
“Passion of Christ”. 2004. IMDb. 14 April 2006

            http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/