PROFILE: MEL GIBSON:Anti-Semitism, racist language, domestic violence: Mel Gibson has all but destroyed his once-glittering career. And it'll take more than his new film, 'The Beaver', to revive it, writes DONALD CLARKE
THE NOVELIST F Scott Fitzgerald didn't say much that was unwise, but, had alcohol spared him for a few more decades, he might have regretted that quip about there being no second acts in American lives. Mel Gibson (born in New York, so he just about qualifies) has not quite gone away yet. Over the past decade the Australian actor and director has made every attempt to immolate one of the most fecund careers in the movie business. Back in 2004 the hints of anti-Semitism in The Passion of the Christ, his astonishing ecclesiastical horror film, threatened to alienate an industry largely founded by Jewish emigres.
That supposed outrage was, however, rapidly eclipsed by a series of deranged tirades, mostly fuelled by strong liquor, that would have annihilated many less robust personalities. In 2006, after being pulled over for driving under the influence, Gibson addressed the arresting officer, himself Jewish, in the following charming manner: “Fucking Jews . . . the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”
Winona Ryder later revealed his unsavoury outbursts were far from uncommon. “Somehow it came up that I was Jewish,” Ryder said, recalling a party in the 1990s. “He said something about ‘oven dodgers’, but I didn’t get it.”
Last summer the Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva, then Gibson’s romantic partner, unveiled a secretly recorded tape that shed light on his attitudes to race and gender. “You’re an embarrassment to me,” Gibson told her. “You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n*****s it will be your fault.”
Earlier this year Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge of battering Grigorieva. A subsequent statement did not overflow with remorse: “I could have continued to fight this for years and it probably would have come out fine. But I ended it for my children and my family. This was going to be such a circus.”
That surely was that. No bargepole would, you’d imagine, be long enough to allow any further contact between the liberal Hollywood establishment and such an apparently unhinged personality.
Last month Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, in which Gibson plays a man suffering a debilitating midlife crisis, played out of competition at Cannes film festival. At first it looked as if Foster, as liberal as movie stars get, was putting a great distance between herself and Gibson. On the day of the screening she appeared at the press conference without him. She did a few television appearances unaccompanied. True, Foster made an effort to defend Gibson. He was, she claimed, “probably the most loved actor in Hollywood”. But his non-appearance at press events suggested that he was being steered clear of the spotlight.
Then, suddenly, he was there on the red carpet. One day before the Danish director Lars von Trier was expelled for making unwise jokes about Hitler, the festival allowed Gibson to parade before cameras at the premiere of The Beaver. Still, nobody could claim the appearance was a triumph. Looking uncharacteristically subdued and a decade older than his 55 years, Gibson came across like a recovering lobotomy patient being allowed his first tentative stroll in the hospital grounds.
The film has not been a success. Gibson plays a depressed husband and father who discovers an unconventional way of reconnecting with his family. When talking through a fluffy glove puppet, the titular beaver, in a shoddy cockney accent, he finds he is able to deal with the terrors of suburban life. Most critics found that the central conceit quickly wore thin. Released in the US a month ago, the film died at the box office. It will be over here in two weeks’ time.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that both the public and his peers may have finally given up on Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson. Consider his recent expulsion from the hit comedy The Hangover Part II. The actor had been due to take a cameo in the film, but, following objections from cast members, the offer was withdrawn. For all that, it is probably too early to consign Gibson to the cultural scrapheap. He remains a stubborn man with the will to overcome imposing obstacles.
Raised in Sydney, Gibson is the son of an Irish-born mother and a conservative Christian father, Hutton Gibson, whose own views on the Jewish question make his son seem like Simon Wiesenthal. During his rise through the ranks – roles in Australian hits such as Mad Maxled to international success with the Lethal Weaponfilms – Gibson jnr espoused old-school religious values. His marriage to Robyn Moore yielded eight children and, until its dissolution in 2009, seemed among the most secure in Hollywood.
It could be argued that he relishes resistance. His last two films as director seemed, on the surface, like wildly unfeasible follies. Yet The Passion of the Christ, a biblical epic in Aramaic, was a huge financial success. Apocalypto, a chase thriller in Mayan, won rave reviews.
So we know that Gibson will not lie down and roll over. It is difficult, however, to see who is going to finance his next challenging extravagance. Fitzgerald may have been wrong about second acts, but Gibson is, at this stage, approaching the fourth or fifth act of an increasingly unpredictable tragicomedy. The next reinvention may require something like a miracle.
The Beaveris released on June 17th
Curriculum vitae
Who is he?A middle-aged Australian actor and director with an extraordinary compulsion to say the wrong thing.
Why is he in the news?After issuing unacceptable racial epithets and pleading no contest to charges of domestic abuse, he has attempted a comeback in Jodie Foster's upcoming film The Beaver.
Most likely to saySomething that, even with asterisks, this paper cannot print.
Least likely to say"What we need is a great big melting pot."
