Profile - Mel Gibson: Mel Gibson is well known for his rigid Catholicism and strong views, but this week's outburst could signal the end of his career, writes Donald Clarke
Last autumn, representatives of the world's film community made their way to the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood for the annual Walt Disney Showcase. The event, the purpose of which was to spread the word about the company's upcoming releases, was impeccably stage-managed, consistently on-message and more than a little bland. Then Mel Gibson thundered on stage.
The Australian actor and director, his face largely obscured by a disordered grey beard, had about him the aspect of a deranged hermit re-entering society after a year spent contemplating perdition and eating dried roots. Wandering about the stage with a hand-held microphone, Gibson, whose Mayan epic Apocalypto is scheduled for release early next year by Disney's distribution wing, told daft jokes, improvised surprising anecdotes and otherwise injected much-needed spontaneity into proceedings. Many of us in the audience, despite our concerns about Gibson's unconventional religious and political views, were forced to admit that, unusually for somebody in his profession, he appeared admirably unconcerned about revealing his inner eccentricities.
The police officers who arrested Gibson for drink-driving last weekend were, perhaps, somewhat less impressed by his lack of inhibition. Some days after the event, a report detailing the star's belligerent behaviour was unearthed by an entertainment website. This document - ineffectively hidden away, some suggested, by a celebrity-friendly police department - revealed that Mel seemed inordinately interested in whether one of the officers was Jewish. "F**king Jews," he babbled. "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Few observers outside neo-Nazi circles failed to be stunned by the story. Gibson's remark, aside from revealing an unsubtle analysis of the current conflict in Lebanon, seemed to imply that, by selfishly allowing themselves to be exterminated, the Jewish people had purposefully triggered the second World War.
THE SITUATION WOULD be serious enough for any film star. But Gibson has strayed into this territory before. Accusations of anti-Semitism dogged his 2004 production of The Passion of the Christ and his efforts, while promoting that film, to defuse controversial remarks made by his father, Hutton Gibson, concerning the Holocaust were deemed worryingly half-hearted. Gibson Sr, one of that band of fundamentalist Catholics who believe heretical anti-popes have occupied the Holy See since Vatican II, had argued that it would have been logistically impossible for the Nazis to kill six million Jews and that, accordingly, the accepted version of the Holocaust was "fiction". While talking to the Reader's Digest, Mel, pressed on this point, remarked: "My father never told me a lie." Some generous commentators, observing conciliatory remarks Mel made elsewhere, were prepared to give the film-maker the benefit of the doubt. A loyal family man, he, perhaps understandably, did not want to embarrass his father in public. And maybe people were reading too much into the Passion's depiction of the Jewish elders as drooling psychopaths. Such pundits have, now, every right to feel betrayed.
Last week's crisis was exasperated by the suspicion that Gibson's handlers did not quite comprehend the gravity of his remarks. Their initial strategy appeared coolly cynical: focus on the boozing and don't mention the J-word. Gibson's first apology, noting the drink problem he has had throughout his career, began as follows: "I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable." The first part of this statement is undeniably true. Gibson, whose views on sexual politics might have struck the Ayatollah Khomeini as reactionary, apparently charmed one of the female arresting officers by remarking: "What are you looking at, Sugar Tits?" He boasted that he owned Malibu - the area north of Los Angeles where the arrest took place - and, when reluctantly dragged to the police station, reportedly made as if to urinate on the floor.
The public might have been prepared to accept that even a perfect gentleman may, after a few too many beverages, behave in such loutish fashion. Indeed, without implying any amelioration of the offence, it could be argued that otherwise peaceable men can commit fearsome acts of violence when boozed up. But does anybody believe that a third or fourth tequila - Mel's tipple on the night in question - can alter the drinker's mind in such a way that, previously a friend to all men, he suddenly develops an antagonism towards some racial or religious group? Certainly the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent Jewish lobby, was unconvinced and, following that organisation's rubbishing of the first apology, Gibson was forced to proffer another statement of contrition specifically referencing his anti-Semitic comments. The ADL issued a grudging acceptance and Mel has since appealed for assistance from the Jewish community. But Hollywood, a town created by Jews, may never fully pardon Gibson.
MEL GIBSON, THE sixth of 10 children, was born 50 years ago in New York State. In 1968, demonstrating the unusual combination of social conservatism and anti-establishmentarianism that would characterise his son's career, Hutton Gibson moved the family to Australia in protest at the Vietnam War and the immorality he felt was overtaking America.
Some years later, Hutton, whose influence on Mel's story is inescapable, expressed himself disappointed when the younger Gibson set off for a decadent quarter of Sydney to become an actor. He was, however, surprisingly accepting of Mel's decision to marry an Anglican, Robin Moore, in 1980. Mind you, comments that Mel made a few years ago about his wife, with whom he has had seven children, probably helped assure his father that she had in no way tempered his hard-line Catholicism.
"There is no salvation for those outside the Church," Gibson said, before going on to clarify that he felt his wife might, indeed, go to hell. "It's just not fair if she doesn't make it. She's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it." In the years since their marriage, Robin has seen her husband's career prosper. In 1981 he starred in two very different Australian hits: Mad Max II, a now-classic post-apocalyptic adventure, and Peter Weir's fine Gallipoli. He soon found himself drawn to Hollywood and, following a few modest successes - Mrs Soffel, The Year of Living Dangerously - hit the big time in 1987 with Richard Donner's loud action flick Lethal Weapon. Gibson's combination of larkish irreverence and coarse good looks has helped keep him in work ever since.
Controversy began to gather only when he took to directing. His first film in that role, The Man Without a Face, was greeted politely. But Braveheart (1995), whose robust anti-Englishness was inspired by his Irish grandparents' mistreatment by the Black and Tans, won him two Oscars and some derision from historians.
As Gibson became a player, journalists began to pay heed to his endlessly bizarre pronouncements on social and religious matters. On evolution: "No, I think it's bulls**t. If it isn't, why are [ apes] still around?" On the women's movement: "Feminists don't like me, and I don't like them. I don't get their point."
Until last week it seemed (just) possible to dismiss ch pronouncements - and, maybe, his insistence on supporting the Tridentine mass - as harmless exercises in cheeky provocation. He was, perhaps, just Jeremy Clarkson with Latin responses. Such illusions have now been brutally disabused. Gibson appears to mean what he says.
Apocalypto, which features no stars and whose dialogue is entirely in an ancient Mayan dialect, already looked like a serious gamble for Disney. If the punters, influenced by the inevitable boycotts or their own personal revulsion at the director, fail to turn up in the cinemas, Gibson's career may well be finished. The US television network ABC has already cancelled an agreement with his production company to develop a mini-series on the Holocaust.
AND YET. IT would be naive to underestimate the force of Mel Gibson's will. Against all the odds, he somehow made The Passion of the Christ, which featured no stars and whose dialogue was in Aramaic and Latin, into one of the most successful films of all time. Should Apocalypto succeed, the studio bosses, on whom money has a strangely amnesiac effect, may well find themselves inclined towards absolution. After all, Mel Gibson knows a thing or two about resurrection.
The Gibson File
Who is he? Actor, director and religious zealot with no known inclinations towards diplomacy. Director of The Passion of the Christ (gruesome deicide) and the upcoming Apocalypto (warring Mayans)
Why is he in the news? Last weekend, after being pulled over in California for driving under the influence of alcohol, he launched into an eye-wateringly distasteful stream of anti-Semitic bile.
Most appealing characteristic Reluctance to obey any of the fashionable tenets of political correctness
Least appealing characteristic Propensity towards sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic outbursts that remind us why the fashionable tenets of political correctness may, after all, be worth observing
Most likely to say "Everybody is going to hell except me and my dad."
Least likely to say "Greetings, Reverend Butterworth. Well met, Rabbi Goldberg. Join me in song for we all worship the same God in different ways." (Brandishes tambourine) "What we need is a great big melting pot . . . La la la!"