With a project with as much baggage as this one, I hardly know where to begin. Columbus began in Spain, crossed the Atlantic, landed at the Dominican Republic and opened up a can of worms still squirming 500 years later. Scott’s version of the story starts in Spain as well, where Weaver makes a few guest appearances as an inexplicably flirtatious Queen Isabella and Assante, as her money manager and advisor, spends a lot of time looking good on a horse. We’re all eager to be off by the time we hit the high seas but the voyage and discovery are dispensed with in fairly short order. What comes next is the colonization of the New World and bewildering internecine battles between the indigenous people and the newcomers, with much switching of sides and bloodshed all around. In other words, the filmmakers spend a lot of time poking around in the worms. Unfortunately, 1492 tries, but fails, to reconcile the admiration instilled in most of us since childhood for one man’s vision and daring with the horrible consequences to whole races of peoples brought about by his ignorance and that of the people who followed him. It’s probably an impossible task. Depardieu seems to have given up the attempt and plays Columbus as a good-hearted, but very confused Renaissance man who just loves to explore. It’s everyone around him who exploits and kills the people they find on the islands. Sure, and Sigourney Weaver is Isabella, Queen of Spain. Luckily, it’s only my job to tell you how successful 1492 is as a movie not as a political statement. In short, 1492 is long. There are just hints of what Scott might have done and maybe even thought of doing. For instance, as the trailer emphasizes, Columbus’ first steps on theNew World can be compared to the astronauts first steps on the moon and thus, Scott could get back to familiar territory — alien geography — via the past. His shots of the explorers’ first views of the New World beautifully hold that promise, but the politics drag him back to the struggles of the New, and the real, World. As a result, Scott seems way out of his element and he, too, seems to give up, opting finally to make a confused, but lush, period piece.
This article appears in January 24 • 2003.