Lost in America
I am leery of watching the film “1492: Conquest of Paradise,” having read Gritten’s interview with Depardieu.
If the man who plays Columbus has false information about historical events after making the movie, I wonder what other falsehoods the movie contains.
Depardieu states that “Columbus . . . proved the Earth was round. . . . After him came the Renaissance.” Columbus did not prove that the Earth is round; this has been known since the time of Ptolemy. Columbus had a difficult time with backing because of the cost of the adventure and because the learned men he talked to disagreed with his calculations of the distance to China. (They were right!)
Also, Columbus’ voyage took place near the end of the Renaissance, just half a century before the Reformation.
I think people are only going to get entertainment (maybe), not history, from this movie.
MARY ANN SHAPIRO
Pasadena
Only good movies
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