Apocalypto

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To God be the Gory : The Social and Cultural Messages in Apocalypto

Introduction

When one decides to put history on film , one must be prepared for substantial tradeoffs (Rosenstone 16 . Films cannot convey historical events with pinpoint accuracy or with exact detail because films like this do not sell or are not financially practical . As a result historical films are usually laden with historical inaccuracies that are

br on one hand emotionally and visually compelling and on the other hand , a distortion of a sense of history for many others . As historical films surrender accuracy for dramatic effect and brevity , historical truths become laced with political or cultural messages advertently or inadvertently placed by the producers of the movie (Christen and Haas viii . So what we have are exciting films backdropped against a real past but projecting a largely imagined one on the screen

Films such as Mel Gibson 's Apocalyto have captured significant attention for being both a cultural success and failure at the same time (Grandia . A modern depiction of the great Mayan civilization , Gibson assimilated cinematographic elements to create a chase film that is not a historical document ' as he said , but a social critique of government tyranny and abuse . The cultural preoccupations reflected in the film was heightened with the Iraq War , which divided American public opinion into camps which supported the war in...