New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | May 19, 2005

While politically correct westerners go around apologizing for the Crusades, Michael Young apologizes for Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

Comments

|5.19.05 @ 12:59PM|#

I didn't see the review as an apology (in the negative sense) for Scott's movie, in fact it a positive review and a welcome change from M. Young's more pronounced sectarian/class biases about Lebanon.

Further, he adds a character critics overlook - Frederick II -- who really was a religious skeptic humanist who ruled Jerusalem for a period, something many critics of the film would say (wrongly) to be anachronistic.

Well done.

Steve M|5.19.05 @ 1:10PM|#

I enjoyed the film, and while it certainly painted Saladin as rather pure, it should be remembered that at least some Christians of that era viewed him positively. I believe Dante in fact had him in the first circle of Hell where virtuous non-Christians dwelt.

|5.19.05 @ 1:12PM|#

To make an evenhanded film about the Crusades, or to try to, in the era of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is daring, if nothing else, and one must salute Scott's audacity.

Kind of like making a film showing that Alexander was gay in the era of Rick Santorum and Tom Delay. I salute Oliver Stone's audacity, but I heard the movie sucked so I didn't go.
This article gave some great historical and political insight to the movie but side-stepped whether it was good or not. Come one M. Young, How many stars do you give it?

|5.19.05 @ 1:20PM|#

Yet another excellent piece by Mr. Young.

Historical/ahistorical interpretations and their implications aside, I was unimpressed with the depiction of how Bloom's character came to be so high minded.

...Maybe it was the dialogue and maybe it was the actors, whatever it was, all that fatherly advice from strangers subtracted more than it added.

|5.19.05 @ 1:35PM|#

I am sorry for people who feel guilty for sins they didn't commit.

Movie was okay.

gaius marius|5.19.05 @ 2:18PM|#

admit it, mr young -- you simply don't want your descendents to have to apologize for the jacobin warmongering you do today. :)

but seriously -- are we so blinded by individualism that we refuse to acknowledge guilt by historical association? should ubs and credit suisse tell jewish descendents to take a flying leap? should maria altmann just forget it?

i'm afraid that, regardless of what individualists in the irresponsible west may want, human beings do put each other into groups that have historical context. these groups -- which westerners deny as a means of attaining the nth degree of personal emancipation -- can have real meaning and real duration and important function. being part of such a group forces one to consider one's responsibility to others in the future. this is far from trite, and would do us good service in an age of trillion-dollar debts.

westerners apologizing for the crusades of several centuries past doesn't seem silly only to individualists who disavow any bond to any group as a means of attaining perfect irresponsibility, i know. but it does show that at least some people still understand that others make these associations of responsibility by group through time not because they're idiots or radicals but because they are intensely social and traditional -- not at all the self-identifying future-obsessed individualists that populate the west but something else.

|5.19.05 @ 2:20PM|#

on the other hand, blood libel is gross.

R C Dean|5.19.05 @ 2:59PM|#

are we so blinded by individualism that we refuse to acknowledge guilt by historical association?

Yes, we should. Guilt by association is pretty much always questionable. Guilt regarding acts committed centuries ago is even more ridiculous.

should ubs and credit suisse tell jewish descendents to take a flying leap?

This isn't guilt by association. The charges against the Swiss banks are that these exact organizations (or organizations that they acquired) conspired in crimes against humanity.

The question is one of standing - should survivors be able to press claims? Generally speaking, your heirs inherit your assets, and a claim, including a tort claim, can be pressed by them.

R C Dean|5.19.05 @ 3:00PM|#

Oh, and Orlando Bloom was a terrible piece of casting. Way too metrosexual and pretty-boy-modern to be a convincing blacksmith or a knight.

|5.19.05 @ 3:04PM|#

RC Dean says, "The charges against the Swiss banks are that these exact organizations (or organizations that they acquired) conspired in crimes against humanity."

Are we not members of the organization known as the United States of America? (Not strictly relevant to the Crusades, I know, but I recall Bill Clinton getting crap from the same quarters for apologizing for our nation's role in the slave trade). How are the citizens of a democratic republic different from the board of a corporation?

|5.19.05 @ 3:22PM|#

Before I apologize for the Crusades, I want the Muslims to apologize for their conquest of the Holy Land, Spain, and parts of Easter Europe.

gaius marius|5.19.05 @ 3:27PM|#

The charges against the Swiss banks are that these exact organizations (or organizations that they acquired) conspired in crimes against humanity.

there's no one working at either firm that was there in 1943. and, to the extent that their current condition is a product of some ill-gotten gains, isn't every american citizen's? and why shouyld we treat corporations in perpetuity differently than we treat nationalities in perpetuity -- or families, or religions?

drawing lines arbitrarily to include an enterprise but exclude a state or a faith is specious, it seems to me. claims of mere tort legality are irrelevant over national lines -- unless you subscribe to the applicability of international law.

gaius marius|5.19.05 @ 3:29PM|#

and i want the french, germans, belgians, spanish, british and americans to apologize for crisscrossing my family's ancestral home in luxembourg over the years. :)

|5.19.05 @ 3:31PM|#

So when is joe, a citizen of Boston, going to apologize for the actions of Albert DeSalvo?

gaius marius|5.19.05 @ 3:34PM|#

yeah, joe -- fess up. :)

|5.19.05 @ 3:36PM|#

gaius marius,

Sorry 'bout that. Us americans should have stayed out of your affairs, and let you Europeans work them out as you saw fit.

gaius marius|5.19.05 @ 3:40PM|#

indeed. my lot fell in here with you all in the 1850s, so for us it was more a case of going home. i don't know why you tagged along.

isn't nihilistic self-identification fun?

|5.19.05 @ 3:45PM|#

Bad analogy, Doug. DeSalvo was not acting in the name of, on behalf of, or for the benefit of the City of Boston. When the Crusaders, um, crusaded, they were explicity crusading in the name of, on bahalf of, and for the benefit of Christendom.

Also, I'm not a Bostonian.

Don, re: your 3:36 post - zing! pow!

|5.19.05 @ 3:51PM|#

Gaius,

By that logic, of what value is the word "innocence"? Are we not all guilty, then?

Wait a minute, are you a Christian in Roman clothing? ;)

|5.19.05 @ 3:52PM|#

Joe, are you Cambridgian or Somervillian?

|5.19.05 @ 4:17PM|#

Alright, if we must do the apology thang...

Catholics (Roman and Greek Orthodox), European nobility, and government employees of any nation that dates back to that time should apologize for the Crusades.

Muslims, Arabic nobility, and government employees of any nation dating back that long should apologize for the mistreatment of Christian pilgrims during some periods, as well as the conquests of portions of Christian Europe.

Nobility of the UK, as well as UK and French government employees, as well as US federal government employees and state government employees of the states that existed during the slave trade should apologize for that. So should any citizen whose ancestors were here for that.

American federal employees and employees of any state or territory that ever permitted slaves should also apologize, as well as any citizen who had ancestors who were there at the time.

I'm clear, so who's going first?

|5.19.05 @ 4:25PM|#

"To make an evenhanded film about the Crusades, or to try to, in the era of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is daring, if nothing else, and one must salute Scott's audacity."

I'd appreciate it if Mr. Young didn't go around telling me which film directors I must salute. Furthermore, to make a film, any film, about the Crusades today is not only not daring but makes perfect box-office sense, since there's not one person in the world who doesn't know that it's Christendom vs. the Muslims all over again in 2005.

The motivations for Ridley Scott's movie seem cyncial, not daring, to me. This is usual for him -- he's the ultimate British director in Hollywood who wants to have it both ways -- he's always "daring" and utterly commercial at the same time.

I'm surprised Hollywood didn't get a Crusades movie out sooner. That it took them this long is a testament to how molasses-slow the film industry works.

I miss the days when movies like "El Cid" didn't face this level of scrutiny from the history-minded. This kind of non-film criticism always buries whatever point it has to make under too much detail. I'm reminded of the piece on "Troy" I read in the New York Review of Books that took that non-epic pile of nada to task for it lack of fidelity to Homer.

The film was supposed to have been more Homer-ific than previous Greeks vs. Trojan epics but the ever-vigilant NYRB was having none of it. Probably someone, somewhere, thanked them for this service.

Tim Cavanaugh|5.19.05 @ 4:35PM|#

Catholics (Roman and Greek Orthodox)

Greek Orthodox Catholics? That's a new one.

|5.19.05 @ 4:39PM|#

wellfellow, The word is "Cantabridgian," and I'm not that, either.

Hint: I live in a city that was conceived, designed, built, and populated for the express purpose of advancing industrial capitalism.

|5.19.05 @ 4:44PM|#

ASH,

The NYRB just wanted you to know that they had gone to college. Having spent a few hours studying ancient Greek culture myself, I can attest to how infrequently one gets to show off this kind of knowledge.

TROY would have been so much better had it been a little bit more like the Iliad. The original was much more weird, sexy and violent. Plus it didn't have that dumb horse thing (A big wooden horse, I mean really. That's straight out of Monty Python).

|5.19.05 @ 4:49PM|#

Greek Orthodox Catholics? That's a new one.

Sorry, I thought people would stumble over "Orthodox Catholic", but hey.

gaius marius|5.19.05 @ 6:36PM|#

Are we not all guilty, then?

true to my catholic upbringing, the answer to that is obviously yes. :)

my point isn't necessarily to take sides -- only to point out that the issue is much more complex than simply saying "i'm not responsible" and pretending total exculpation. no matter how much you might want, you aren't just "you" -- you are a part of many things which, ultimately, matter -- including things that you never chose to be a part of and don't have the ability to opt out of, for the simple reason that you cannot self-identify validly except by social allowance.

|5.19.05 @ 7:18PM|#

Bad analogy, Doug.

Aw, I was just funning you, you know. Then again I don't see why I would need to apologize for actions of behalf of Christendom when I'm not a Christian.

A citizen of the Great Boston area, let's say. Don't recall you ever referring to exactly which burb you lived in before.

|5.19.05 @ 7:28PM|#

Let me be the first to apologize to homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Sorry about that, y'all. I would also like the apologize to the anaerobic bacteria that once ruled the earth. Sorry about that poisoning your atmosphere thing.

Incidentally, I think I read something here about the Crusaders operating on the behalf of Christians. That's vaguely true, though I wonder what the Christians who were slaughtered by the Crusaders thought about that idea? Or the people of Constantinople when it was sacked? Not to mention that I don't think there was any great master plan for the Crusades or any centralized control of what they were doing (certainly not in Europe).

|5.19.05 @ 9:48PM|#

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|5.20.05 @ 3:27PM|#

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