November Pick: Hacksaw Ridge

As Movie Club members know, I rarely choose action films for our monthly outings. But I think Hacksaw Ridge is a worthy exception. It's not so much about the brutalities of war as it is a true-life story about the conscience of one man during World War II and what he faced because of his convictions.

Reviewers are saying it's also about redemption - not just for the man who made his extraordinary contribution while refusing to bear arms, but also for the film's director, Mel Gibson. We probably all remember how he became a Hollywood pariah about a decade ago after disgracing himself in various ugly ways. Since then, he has tried several comebacks, all unsuccessful. But now the words "critics are raving" are being widely heard. Those of us who choose to see Gibson's new movie can judge for ourselves whether the values he celebrates in Hacksaw Ridge, as well as his directorial prowess, are likely to pave his way back to respectability.

BTW, I interviewed Mel Gibson in 1984 and - as I mention in a memoir I wrote about the experience (appended to the bottom of this blog post) - the sensitive and articulate young man I chatted with was unrecognizable in the disgusting version of himself that was to come.


CINEMA AND TIME: Tuesday, November 8, Yonge-Dundas Cineplex. Screen time is 1:30, so let's try to meet near the upstairs box office about 20 minutes earlier.


SYNOPSIS: Hacksaw Ridge is the extraordinary true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) who, in Okinawa during the bloodiest battle of WWII, saved 75 men without firing or carrying a gun. He was the only American soldier in WWII to fight on the front lines without a weapon, as he believed that while the war was justified, killing was nevertheless wrong. As an army medic, he single-handedly evacuated the wounded from behind enemy lines, braved fire while tending to soldiers and was wounded by a grenade and hit by snipers. Doss was the first conscientious objector awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.TRAILER:  http://www.cinemaclock.com/ont/toronto/movies/hacksaw-ridge-2016/videos/205807
Terry's memoir about interviewing Mel Gibson

“You’ll never write for Maclean-Hunter again as long as you live,” thundered an editor from whom I’d just taken away a cover story I’d written for Maclean’s magazine.

It was about Mel Gibson – not, I hasten to say, the detestable crank who emerged decades later. As I described him in my article, the then 28-year-old actor was, quote, “a study in contrasts. His body language shrieked that he was ready to jump out of his sought-after skin, but his comments were patient and thoughtful and his manner almost unnervingly gentlemanly.”

“Mel the heartthrob was absent,” I continued, “except for brief flashes, and in his place there was an anachronistically innocent young man who somehow managed to hypnotize me into perceiving him as just another bloke from down the street.”

He did so while sitting on my couch, drinking coffee in my cottage in the Beaches in 1984. The Bounty, in which he starred as mutineer Fletcher Christian, was about to be released, and he was filming Mrs. Soffel with Diane Keaton near Toronto. When I saw that film a year or so later, and watched him struggle through waist-high snow drifts, playing an escaping convict in the early 1900s, I understood why he’d seemed so exhausted when I met him.

That he’d chosen to be interviewed in a reporter’s home was beyond unusual. It happened because of the most ingenuity I ever mustered back when I was writing about celebrities. Every reporter in Toronto was trying to land an interview with Mel and failing, so I knew it would take something big to pull it off.

I figured out what to do when I learned that an actor pal had a small role in Mrs. Soffel. I asked him to take a gift to Mel on set along with an interview request. He agreed and I set about assembling a package that would appeal to someone who hadn’t been back to his Australian home in four years. I was working late at the Toronto Star, but I dashed out to a newsstand and got the Sunday newspapers from Sydney and Melbourne, rushed to the LCBO to buy some Australian beer and wine, and found some macadamia nuts somewhere.

Other stores were closed, so I returned to the Star to figure out how to package my gifts. Running out of time before I was to hand them to my actor friend, I stole a basket from under the office ficus tree, took off a sparkly scarf I happened to be wearing and tied it around the basket. I got someone to take a Polaroid of me holding the gift and placed it at the top of the basket along with a request for an interview, which I wrote on behalf of K. (as in Koala) Bear, who said I “wasn’t a bad Sheila.”

Corny? Sure, but it worked. A couple weeks later, I was called to the phone in the newsroom and heard an unmistakable voice drawling, “Is this K. Bear?” When Mel agreed to do an interview, I asked if he’d been to the Beaches and when he said no, I invited him to my house. He came, he talked into my tape recorder, charmed me, posed for a picture with his arm around me, and left. After which I called an editor at Maclean’s and asked if they’d like a story. “Oh, you’ll never get Mel Gibson,” she responded. “I got him,” I said and agreed to write the piece.

But something had happened before that conversation with my editor. Mel had been in a fender-bender while driving on Yonge Street and blown positive on a police breathalyzer. He’d gone to court, which he wasn’t legally obliged to do, pleaded guilty, paid a fine and apologized to the city. To say he was trashed in the media the next day is an understatement, as reporters got even with him for being so elusive.

My editor and I agreed that everything that could be said about the incident had been said, and that my story wouldn’t mention it, but focus instead on Mel’s burgeoning career as the most exciting Aussie actor since Errol Flynn and the emotional toll it was taking. I wrote it exactly that way. But the editorial poohbahs at Maclean’s demanded a rewrite. Now they not only wanted the drunk-driving incident in the story, they wanted it as the lede. When I objected, my editor said that if I wouldn’t change my story, she would.

This struck me as all wrong, unnecessary and a betrayal of the man who’d been so candid and generous with his time – who, like every other person who agrees to be interviewed, trusted the reporter to treat him fairly. My conscience wouldn’t let that happen, and I decided to withdraw the story. Many journalists have since told me I was a complete fool to throw away the opportunity of having a prestigious cover story in Maclean’s, but that’s how I saw it, and that’s what I did.

Which is why the editor was so furious with me, but I was unfazed and did, in fact, write for Maclean-Hunter publications afterwards despite her threat. I told my tale to a friend, who told it to columnist Gary Dunford, who wrote about it in the Toronto Sun, and my little adventure was the talk of the town for a while.

I wasn’t sure what to do with my unused manuscript until I got a call from a young woman who’d read Gary’s column. She and some female friends had recently founded a magazine called Close-Up and she wondered if there was any chance I’d let them publish my story on Mel. “How much can you pay?” I asked. “Nothing,” she replied, “we haven’t made any money yet.”

Spying my chance to climb to what I saw as even higher ethical ground, I said, “Perfect. You can publish it.”

Did I regret my quixotic action when Mel Gibson hit the headlines later with violence and anti-Semitic rants? Not really. I don’t believe he deceived me about who he was back then. I think I was right in spotting the hideous toll super-stardom would eventually exact.

Written by Terry Poulton and read in Recording Recollections class on March 20, 2013