1992, Dir Ridley Scott, Paramount etc, UK15, DVD, 154 min
Visiting Seville in 1992 and seeing and then going aboard the replicas of the Nina, Pinto and Santa Maria was an experience to be remembered. Faithfully re-interpreted and built for this film, the boats smelt of tar, and yes, life aboard. The film itself was a $47m extravaganza starring Gérard Depardieu as Columbus in one of his most believable roles; seemingly hapless at court and yet trusty in his trade at sea. Columbus’ first achievement was really to persuade the new king and queen of Spain Ferdinand and Isabella (Sigourney Weaver) that China was thousands of miles closer than it was (to get funding), then to discover the new world on a downwind (trade route) leg and to also discover (later) a northern east-going downwind trade route back. This film barely touches those three gigantic achievements, and necessarily, for our age, concentrates on his increasingly disastrous dealings with natives and aristocrats. It is nevertheless a brilliant portrayal of early navigation with many believable scenes aboard essential to the plot. Well aided by a Vangelis soundtrack this is a film of western philosophy reaching beyond known confines as the renaissance both funded and forced the rebirth of Europe’s consciousness of the known world. Columbus was the Armstrong and Aldrin of his day, and far more economically important, though this film also shows the dawn of the devastation to native peoples those early aquanauts brought to the new world. If you like passage-making to new places then this is it! DH