October 12 - 1492: Conquest of Paradise

Today’s film is a drama with a scene that happens on October 12. Watch and enjoy this film tonight.

1492:THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE    

Christopher Columbus visits the University of Salamanca to try and convince the scholars there that his idea of reaching the Indies by sailing West is a sound one. The pilot Pinzon and his brother arrange a meeting with Queen Isabella, who agrees to back Columbus. After disputes about his contract are ironed out he sets sail with three ships, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.   Columbus has to make fake entries in his log about how far west they’ve sailed to calm his increasingly mutinous crew. They reach land on October 12, 1492 and meet the natives. [49:06 to 1:01:53] They sail on to Hispaniola. When the Santa Maria is wrecked, a fort is built and some of the crew left behind. He returns to Spain with the other two ships. The Queen sends him on a second trip and he finds the fort has been destroyed by the natives. The other Spaniards want to wipe out the natives, but Columbus says no. They start to build the city of Santo Domingo. Mining for gold leads to a war with the natives, which in turn sparks a civil war among the Spanish. A hurricane devastates the town. Spaniards who oppose him remove Coilumbus from his post as governor, imprison him, and ship him back to Spain, where the Queen releases him.   

                     

A big budget Holywood biopic of Columbus. It just doesn’t feel real. Everything just seems two dimensional and clichéd. Political correctness has snuck into this film also trying to make a point instead of telling the story.

Columbus and the World Around Him by Milton Moltzer (Franklin Watts, New York, 1990) p. 81

Producers - Mimi Polk Gitlin and Alain Goldman

Director - Ridley Scott

Screenplay - Roselyne Bosch

Runtime – 2 hours 22 minutes

Released - October 9, 1992

Starring -

Gérard Depardieu as Christopher Columbus

Armand Assante as  Gabriel Sanchez

Sigourney Weaver as Queen Isabella I

Loren Dean as  Older Fernando Columbus

Ángela Molina as Beatriz Enriquez de Arana

Fernando Rey as Antonio de Marchena

Michael Wincott as Adrián de Moxica

Tchéky Karyo as Martín Alonso Pinzón

Kevin Dunn as  Captain Méndez

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.