1492: Conquest of Paradise ** (1992, Gérard Depardieu, Armand Assante, Sigourney Weaver) – Classic Movie Review 8355

Director Ridley Scott’s celebratory 1992 historical adventure film biopic 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a stodgily told account of Christopher Columbus’s voyages to America, with a dull central performance by a miscast Gérard Depardieu, struggling with his accent, and an uncomfortable appearance by token American star Sigourney Weaver, who is all at sea as Queen Isabella of Castille.

Their scenes together illustrate one of the film’s problems – that of casting international actors with different styles and accents, speaking unconvincing dialogue in meticulously re-created settings filmed in an Eighties style and drowned in thumping, soupy music by Vangelis.

Scott uses banal slow motion and ugly zoom shots, and gets cinematographer Adrian Biddle to photograph self-importantly in chocolate-box style in Eastman colour and widescreen.

Roselyne [Rose] Bosch’s screenplay does not have enough derring-do to be an old-fashioned swashbuckler, nor does it work as it a serious re-interpretation of history, though perhaps it just about works as a reverential big budget celebration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the Americas.

The garrottings and mutilations make it unsuitable for a family audience, with a 15 rating in the UK, though it is rated PG-13 for historical violence and brutality in the US. It runs 154 minutes, but evidence of pre-release cutting leaves the narrative shaky. The Laserdisc version runs about six minutes longer.

Also in the cast are Armand Assante, Frank Langella, Loren Dean, Angela Molina, Fernando Rey, Michael Wincott, Tchéky Karyo, Kevin Dunn, Mark Margolis, Kario Salem, Billy L Sullivan, John Heffernan and Arnold Vosloo.

It was a box office flop. Costing $47,000,000, it grossed only $7,191,399 in the US.

1492: Conquest of Paradise was made by Gaumont, Légende Films, France 3 Cinéma, Cyrkfilms, Due West, Ministère de la Culture and Spanish Ministry of Culture, and released by Paramount Pictures (1992) (US) and Guild Film Distribution (1992) (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8355

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