The Mel Gibson movie that almost caused an international incident: “We had death threats”
To call Mel Gibson controversial would be to call the sun hot or the Atlantic Ocean wet. The inaugural winner of People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ award flushed his reputation down the toilet with a string of scandals. From homophobic comments to expressing antisemitic views to his infamous 2006 arrest, Gibson became a Hollywood pariah for several years. He’s only just managed to return to a position of prominence within the industry.
Even in his early pomp, the Aussie wasn’t averse to rubbing people up the wrong way. In 1982, one year after the release of Mad Max 2, he starred in The Year of Living Dangerously. A classic of the Australian New Wave movement – it was directed by Peter Weir of Picnic at Hanging Rock fame – the movie follows Guy Hamilton (Gibson), a journalist working in Indonesia. He meets and falls in love with Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), but their romance is tested by the country’s ongoing political turmoil.
Filming took place in the Philippines, a nation that was experiencing its own upheaval at the time. According to an interview with Weir in The Telegraph, this created an ‘interesting’ environment on set. “We had death threats when we were filming The Year of Living Dangerously in Manila,” he recounted. “The then-president’s wife, Imelda Marcos, loaned us the presidential guard, she was so anxious to have the film stay. Armed guards arrived at my hotel room door every morning to escort me to work. It was so tense.”
There was a fear amongst the country’s Islamic population that the movie would shine a negative light on the actions of the Indonesian military, who were mostly Muslim. Imelda’s husband, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was extremely unpopular within the Philippines, so the movie’s association with his regime did it no favours. Eventually, the crew were forced to pull out and finish production in their native Australia.
These days, The Year of Living Dangerously is notorious for an entirely different reason. Alongside Gibson and Weaver, the movie also stars Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan. A male journalist with Chinese heritage, Kwan serves as Gibson’s character’s main contact in the region. Hunt’s performance was heralded at the time, even nabbing her the Oscar for ‘Best Supporting Actress’. However, with the power of hindsight, the decision to cast a White American performer as an Asian character has been met with fierce criticism.
When asked about working with Gibson, as well as other lightning rod actors like Johnny Depp and Gerard Depardieu, Weir – who also helmed non-Australian projects like The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – gave a very muted response. “Talent and trouble often seem to share the same space,” he said. “Of course, I don’t see these famous names as you do. Observing the fusion of their own personal traits with those of the characters they were playing, plus the intensity of the experience – this is what I know and remember of them.”
It might get people riled up these days and almost caused a diplomatic crisis at the time, but The Year of Living Dangerously is still considered a great movie. If you can separate the art from the artist, it’s well worth a watch; a reminder of why Gibson was in such high demand before he revealed his true colours.
