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
