Apocalypto Script Pdf
Danielle Just
Apocalypto (/əˌpɒkəˈlɪptoʊ/) is a 2006 epic historical action-adventure film produced and directed by Mel Gibson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Farhad Safinia. The film features a cast of Indigenous and Mexican actors consisting of Rudy Youngblood, Raoul Trujillo, Mayra Srbulo, Dalia Hernndez, Gerardo Taracena, Jonathan Brewer, Rodolfo Palacios, Bernardo Ruiz Juarez, Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, and Israel Contreras. Set in Yucatn around the year 1517, Apocalypto portrays the hero's journey of a young man named Jaguar Paw, a late Mesoamerican hunter and his fellow tribesmen who are captured by an invading force. After the devastation of their village, they are brought on a perilous journey to a Maya city for human sacrifice at a time when the Maya civilization is in decline.
Principal photography took place in Mexico from 21 November 2005 to July 2006. All of the indigenous people depicted in the film were Maya. Additionally, all dialogue is in a modern approximation of the ancient language of the setting, and the Indigenous Yucatec Mayan language is spoken with subtitles, which sometimes refer to the language as Mayan.
Apocalypto was distributed by Buena Vista Pictures in North America and Icon Film Distribution in the United Kingdom and Australia. The film was a box office success, grossing over $120 million worldwide, and received generally positive reviews, with critics praising Gibson's direction, Dean Semler's cinematography, and the performances of the cast, though the portrayal of Maya civilization and historical inaccuracies were criticized.
While hunting in the Mesoamerican rainforest, Jaguar Paw, his father Flint Sky, and their fellow tribesmen encounter a group of refugees fleeing from war and devastation. Returning to their village, Flint Sky notes that the refugees are sick with fear and urges Jaguar Paw to never allow fear to infect him. Later that night, the tribe gathers around an elder who tells a prophetic story about a being who is consumed by an emptiness that cannot be satisfied, despite having all the gifts of the world offered to him. The being will continue blindly taking until there is nothing left in the world for him to take, and the world is no more.
The next morning, the village is attacked by Maya raiders led by Zero Wolf, and many are killed, including Flint Sky, who is killed by the sadistic raider Middle Eye. During the attack, Jaguar Paw hides both his pregnant wife Seven and their young son Turtles Run in an empty well before he is captured. In the aftermath, the raiders round up the surviving villagers who are forced on a long march through the jungle. Meanwhile, Seven and Turtles Run remain trapped in the well and they struggle to escape it.
Along the way, the raiders and their captives encounter razed forests and vast fields of failed maize crops, alongside villages decimated by an unknown disease. They then encounter an infected little girl who prophesies the end of the Maya world. Arriving in the city, the captives are divided; the women are sold into slavery while the men are escorted to the top of a pyramid where they are brutally sacrificed to appease the gods. As Jaguar Paw is laid out on the altar, a solar eclipse occurs and the Maya take the event as an omen that the gods are satisfied, thereby sparing the remaining captives. However, the remaining captives are taken by the raiders to their barracks to be used as target practice; the raiders offer them freedom if they can dodge the missiles thrown at them, while Zero Wolf's son Cut Rock finishes off the wounded. The first pair of runners are easily struck down. Jaguar Paw follows thereafter, and is also wounded, drawing the attention of Cut Rock. However, Cut Rock is then distracted by one of the earlier wounded runners, whose sacrifice allows Jaguar Paw to fatally wound Cut Rock and escape.
An enraged Zero Wolf leads his men to hunt down Jaguar Paw. Reaching the jungle, Jaguar Paw uses its natural resources to kill his pursuers one by one. Among those he kills are Middle Eye, whom he bludgeons with a stone hatchet, and Zero Wolf, whom he lures into a trap made for tapir hunts, where he is impaled by a large wooden spike. The last two raiders continue to pursue Jaguar Paw on the outskirts of his village. Reaching the shores amidst a heavy downpour, all three are shocked and stunned to witness the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. While the two raiders go to meet the foreigners, Jaguar Paw races back to his village and rescues his family who are being drowned by the downpour. Jaguar Paw is also overjoyed to see his infant son who was born underwater.
Later, the reunited family gazes at the Spanish ships. Jaguar Paw chooses not to approach the foreigners, and he and his family depart to start a new life in the forest away from both the decadent Maya and the Spanish.
Screenwriter and co-producer Farhad Safinia first met Mel Gibson while working as an assistant during the post-production of The Passion of the Christ. Eventually, Gibson and Safinia found time to discuss "their mutual love of movies and what excites them about moviemaking".[5]
Gibson said they wanted to "shake up the stale action-adventure genre", which he felt was dominated by CGI, stock stories and shallow characters and to create a footchase that would "feel like a car chase that just keeps turning the screws."[6]
Gibson and Safinia were also interested in portraying and exploring an ancient culture as it existed before the arrival of the Europeans. Considering both the Aztecs and the Maya, they eventually chose the Maya for their high sophistication and their eventual decline.
The two researched ancient Maya history, reading both creation and destruction myths, including sacred texts such as the Popul Vuh.[7] In the audio commentary of the film's first DVD release, Safinia states that the old shaman's story (played by Espiridion Acosta Cache, a modern-day Maya storyteller[8]) was modified from an authentic Mesoamerican tale that was re-translated by Hilario Chi Canul, a professor of Maya, into the Yucatec Maya language for the film. He also served as a dialogue coach during production. As they researched the script, Safinia and Gibson traveled to Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Yucatn Peninsula to scout filming locations and visit Maya ruins.
Striving for a degree of historical accuracy, the filmmakers employed a consultant, Richard D. Hansen, a specialist in the Maya and assistant professor of archaeology at Idaho State University. As director of the Mirador Basin Project, he works to preserve a large swath of the Guatemalan rain forest and its Maya ruins. Gibson has said of Hansen's involvement: "Richard's enthusiasm for what he does is infectious. He was able to reassure us and make us feel secure that what we were writing had some authenticity as well as imagination."[7]
Other scholars of Mesoamerican history criticized the film for what they said were numerous inaccuracies.[9][10] Hansen published an essay on the film and a critical commentary on the criticisms of the film.[11]
I think hearing a different language allows the audience to completely suspend their own reality and get drawn into the world of the film. And more importantly, this also puts the emphasis on the cinematic visuals, which are a kind of universal language of the heart.[7]
The production team consisted of a large group of make-up artists and costume designers who worked to recreate the Maya look for the large cast. Led by Aldo Signoretti, the make-up artists daily applied the required tattoos, scarification, and earlobe extensions to all of the on-screen actors. According to advisor Richard D. Hansen, the choices in body make-up were based on both artistic license and fact:
Simon Atherton, an English armorer and weapon-maker who worked with Gibson on Braveheart, was hired to research and provide reconstructions of Maya weapons. Atherton also has a cameo as the cross-bearing Franciscan friar who appears on a Spanish ship at the end of the film.
Mel Gibson wanted Apocalypto to feature sets with buildings rather than relying on computer-generated images. Most of the step pyramids seen at the Maya city were models designed by Thomas E. Sanders. Sanders explained his approach:
We wanted to set up the Mayan world, but we were not trying to do a documentary. Visually, we wanted to go for what would have the most impact. Just as on Braveheart, you are treading the line of history and cinematography. Our job is to do a beautiful movie.[14]
However, while many of the architectural details of the Mayan cities are correct,[10] they are blended from different locations and eras,[10] a decision Farhad Safinia said was made for aesthetic reasons.[15] While Apocalypto is set during the terminal Postclassic period of Mayan civilization, the film's central pyramid is a structure built in the classic period, six hundred years earlier.[15] It is a later Mayan city built around a pyramid that had been erected centuries before, examples of which are found in places such as the Postclassic sites of Muyil, Coba, and others in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The temples are in the shape of those of Tikal in the central lowlands classic style but decorated with the Puuc style elements of the northwest Yucatn centuries later. Richard D. Hansen comments, "There was nothing in the post-classic period that would match the size and majesty of that pyramid in the film. But Gibson ... was trying to depict opulence, wealth, consumption of resources."[15] The mural in the arched walkway combined elements from the Maya codices, the Bonampak murals (over 700 years earlier than the film's setting), and the San Bartolo murals (some 1500 years earlier than the film's setting).[citation needed]
Gibson filmed Apocalypto mainly in Catemaco, San Andrs Tuxtla and Paso de Ovejas in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The waterfall scene was filmed at Eyipantla Falls, located in San Andrs Tuxtla. Other filming by second-unit crews took place in El Petn, Guatemala. The film was originally slated for an August 4, 2006, release, but Touchstone Pictures delayed the release date to December 8, 2006, due to heavy rains and two hurricanes interfering with filming in Mexico. Principal photography ended in July 2006.
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