A mother’s grief: Ridley Scott’s regret over ‘Kingdom Of Heaven’
Many of the works of Ridley Scott detail some of the most significant moments in human history. With his 2005 epic Kingdom of Heaven, Scott focused on the events that led up to the Third Crusade, although, as is often the case with his historical movies, he added in several fictionalised facets.
Starring Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis and several other notable stars, Scott explored the story of the crusader Balian of Ibelin, who fought to defend Jerusalem from the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin. Upon release, however, the film received mixed reviews.
In light of that, Scott seems to harbour some regrets about Kingdom of Heaven, or at least about the original theatrical version. In an interview on the ReelBlend podcast, he opened up on the “big bastard” of a film that became Kingdom of Heaven and how he later made a director’s cut version of it, which would become the definitive version.
“The last time a director’s cut would be really relevant for me was Kingdom of Heaven because I was so weary by the time I was finished,” he said. There had been “agony and ecstasy” during the film’s previews, but then Scott had to contend with the fallout of the release, with some criticising its depiction of the “infidels and crusades” in what is admittedly difficult topical ground to traverse.
Still, Scott said that what arrived in Kingdom of Heaven, written by William Monaghan, was “pretty accurate”.
“I always wanted to do a crusade thing, and he said the idea that we bring what we think is the truth to the general audience is great, but there’s an interesting piece of history here,” the director said.
One facet of the film explored the Catholic prince of Jerusalem, who had leprosy. “He has to wear a mask because he does not look honourable from about the age of 18,” Scott noted. Edward Norton played the character while Eva Green featured as his sister, and it was moments with Green’s character that led to Scott’s biggest regret about the movie.
Sibylla of Jerusalem had a child, and Scott explained how he filmed scenes in which the child showed that they felt no pain, holding their hand over a candle without reaction. “That can be the first signs of leprosy, which affects the nervous system,” he said. Sibylla then makes the painful decision to “euthanise” her child “rather than have [them] young child going through what her brother went through.”
According to Scott, the whole ordeal took around 17 minutes, but when the editing process began, Scott had to contend with an already large run time. “To my regret, I removed the 17 minutes because people were saying the film’s long,” he said, “how wrong they were. You have to watch that version.”
Sibylla’s child isn’t actually seen in the theatrical version of Kingdom of Heaven, despite Scott’s excitement when he and Monaghan stumbled upon the “interesting piece of history”. Green’s character’s storyline is, therefore, greatly affected, and though some critics found issues with Scott’s historical liberties, the scenes grounded in the past never actually made it into the version that most people saw.
As such, the director’s cut version of Kingdom of Heaven restores the critical scenes with Sibylla’s son Baldwin V. Rather than portraying the character as somewhat two-dimensional, the director’s cut depicts her as a mother consumed by grief after having to murder her own child.
Watch the interview below.
