Hollywood Meets the Dark Ages

The Scene: Friday’s premiere of Paramount’s “Braveheart” on the studio lot. This is Mel Gibson’s $53-million dramatization of the 13th-Century English/Scottish wars. The three-hour epic is painstakingly authentic down to the last pleated kilt--except for one detail: No medieval Scot ever had such radiantly unblemished teeth. “What can I do?” said Gibson. “I’m not going to pull mine out.”

The Locale: To tie in with the film’s wedding scene, Along Came Mary brought in 45 fools, jugglers and other performers from the Renaissance Faire, decorated the lawn with Scottish banners and costumed 70 servers in kilts, leggings and hemp tunics. They offered leg of lamb roasted on outdoor spits. Only drunken agents jousting on horseback for clients could have made the scene more vivid.

Entertainment: The Chieftains were flown in from Ireland (Gibson’s a major fan) for an hourlong set. Regarding playing for a crowd that might not be conversant with traditional Celtic music, harpist Derek Bell said: “I look at it from a churchly point of view. If you can make one conversion, it’s a success.”

Who Was There: Gibson, the film’s star/director/producer; co-stars Catherine McCormack and David O’Hara; co-producers Alan Ladd Jr. and Bruce Davey; editor Steve Rosenblum; plus 800 guests, including Paul Hogan, Christian Slater, Dennis Quaid, Victoria Principal, Mimi Rogers, Gordon Getty, Nigel Sinclair, Mark Johnson and studio execs Sumner Redstone, Jonathan Dolgen and Sherry Lansing.

Quoted: Jodie Foster on Gibson as director/producer/star: “I’m just blown away by him. It’s an extraordinary feat to do something this big and this meaningful and keep it cohesive. It’s hard to keep so many tones going at the same time. I don’t know how he did all that, acted at the same time and gave such a great performance.”

What They Learned From Watching the Film: After three hours of quietly observing vast amounts of gouging, bludgeoning, skewering, slitting, axing and impaling, one guest said cheerfully, “I love the technique where they chop one leg off and the guy falls over.”

What They Learned From Making It: Gibson said his favorite Dark Ages lethal weapon is “the warpick. It’s just a nasty piece of equipment. It’s really sharp and goes in through steel helmets.”

You Know You’re in Hollywood When: A studio exec and a guest are discussing an upcoming feature and the bartender leans over and says, “Yeah, I read the script. It’s great.”