Kingdom of Heaven

Synopsis

At the end of the xii ^th century France, a band of crusaders just find a blacksmith named Balian whose wife, inconsolable since the death of their child at birth, recently committed suicide. Balian coldly welcomes the visit of the crossed chief, Baron Godefroy d ‘ Ibelin , who reveals to him his father and proposes to accompany him to Jerusalem, where he owns land. Balian refuses this offer. However, he must answer for the murder of a priest whom he killed because he had stolen the silver cross that his wife wore around his neck and ordered his beheading before his burial (motivated by the infamy of suicide in the eyes from the church). Fleeing, Balian joins his father, who is then wounded by the men of the bishop and the lord of the village launched in pursuit of Balian. Godefroy died some time later in Messina , the Italian port from which the ships depart for the Holy Land , not without having dubbed him knight and convinced to continue on his way.

Arrived in the Holy Land despite the sinking of his ship, Balian befriends Imad, a Saracen he thinks is a simple servant, and takes possession of the estates of his father. He has to face the intrigues of the court of the King of Jerusalem and especially the animosity of Guy de Lusignan and Renaud de Chatillon , who want the war against Saladin . He swears to protect leprous king Baudouin IV and the people and becomes very close to Sibylle , sister of the king and wife of Guy, with whom he has an idyll.

Balian is then captured in Kerak when Saladin, tired of the provocations of Renaud de Châtillon, attacks this castle . But he is released thanks to Imad, who turns out to be a close adviser to Saladin. Baldwin and Saladin negotiate peace, but this journey completes the ruin of Baudouin’s already failing health. When the dying king proposes the hand of Sibylle, already married to Guy de Lusignan, Balian, in spite of his feelings, refuses to go against his principles by making himself an accomplice in the execution of Guy. Guy de Lusignan becomes king and Sibyl queen, Guy enters shortly after war against Saladin and tries to assassinate Balian.

After the defeat of the troops of Guy de Lusignan and Renaud de Chatillon against the army of Saladin, Balian assures the defense of Jerusalem . Despite a heroic defense, he must capitulate to the power of the army of Saladin, but his bravery ensures life and a safe retreat for the entire Christian population of the city. Balian retires to his homeland with Sibylle, once again a simple woman of the people, and refuses the offer of Richard Lionheart to go on a crusade.

Technical sheet

• Title: Kingdom of Heaven
• Québec title: The Kingdom of Heaven
• Director: Ridley Scott
• Scenario: William Monahan
• Music: Harry Gregson-Williams
• Photography: John Mathieson
• Editing: Dody Dorn
• Sets: Arthur Max
• Costumes: Janty Yates
• Production: Ridley Scott
• Production Companies: Scott Free Productions and 20th Century Fox
• Distribution Company: 20th Century Fox
• Budget: 130 million $ ¹
• Country of Origin: United States , United Kingdom , Germany
• Language: English , Italian , Arabic , Latin
• Formats: colors – 2.35: 1 – Dolby Digital – 35 mm
• Genre: Adventure , Historic
• Duration: 145 minutes / 187 minutes ( Director’s Cut )
• Release dates:
  • Preview World: May 2 , 2005(in London )
  •  France , Belgium :  May 4 , 2005
  •  United States , United Kingdom :  May 6 , 2005

Distribution

• Orlando Bloom (VF: Anatole of Bodinat ) : Balian of Ibelin
• Eva Green (VF: herself) : Sibylle
• Liam Neeson (VF: Frederic van den Driessche ) : Godefroy of Ibelin
• Jeremy Irons (VF: Feodor Atkine ) : Tiberias
• David Thewlis (VF: Bernard Alane ) : the hospitable knight
• Marton Csokas (VF: Alain Courivaud) : Guy de Lusignan
• Brendan Gleeson : ( Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu ) : Renaud de Châtillon
• Edward Norton (VF: Damien Boisseau ) : Baudouin IV, the leper king
• Ghassan Massoud (VF: Georges Claisse ) : Saladin
• Alexander Siddig (VF: Vincent Schmitt) : Imad
• Jon Finch : The Patriarch of Jerusalem
• Velibor Topic (VF: Eric Herson-Macarel ) : Almaric
• Michael Sheen (VF: Laurent Lederer) : the priest of the village
• Kevin McKidd : The English Sergeant Godefroy d’Ibelin
• Khaled El Nabawy : the mullah
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (VF: Jean-Michel Fête ) : the bailiff of the village
• Eriq Ebouaney : Firuz
• Jouko Ahola : Odo
• Karim Saleh : the emissary of Saladin
• Iain Glen : Richard Lionheart

Sources and legend : French version (VF) on Voxofilm ²

Production

William Monahan meets Ridley Scott to propose the scenario of Tripoli , a film project that would take place in 1805 with the historical context of the Tripoli war . Scott agrees and starts developing the project while he runs The Associates . The two men also speak about the Crusades , a subject that Monahan knows well and on which Scott has wanted to make a film for a long time. The project of Tripoli , after being close to materialize, is finally abandoned by the studios and Monahan, who wrote in the meantime the scenario of Kingdom of Heaven, offers it to Scott. He chose the time at which the film takes place because of the character of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and the fragile truce that exists then between Christians and Muslims in his time more interesting than open warfare ³ . Orlando Bloom is proposed to play the main role of the film when he has just finished filming Troy and is not initially very enthusiastic about following up with another film in costumes but he changes his mind. notice when reading the script. The other actors are chosen later and Edward Norton suggests that his name does not.

Filming begins in January 2004 and lasts six months. It first takes place in Spain before moving to Morocco . The scenes taking place in Balian’s home village are shot in Loarre , in the Pyrenees , those of the Messina hospital and the Balian residence in Jerusalem in Palma del Río , those of King Baudouin’s palace in Seville (at the Alcazar and Casa de Pilatos ), the outsides of Messina on the ramparts of Essaouira , and the wide shots of Jerusalem in Ait-Ben-Haddou, with the architecture of the city in the background added with the process of matte painting ⁴ . The shooting of the siege of Jerusalem, near Ouarzazate and the studios of the Atlas where the interiors are filmed, takes almost two months and requires about 1,800 extras (including many soldiers of the Moroccan army made available by King Mohammed VI ) ⁵ . The only model made for the film is that used for the collapse of the wall of the Saint Christopher postern. The MASSIVE softwareis widely used for mass combat scenes or moving armies. The scene of the sinking of the ship is a combination of shots of Orlando Bloom filmed at other times and retouched to change his outfit, images from Scott’s background Blade , another film, and a digitally created ship ⁶ . The design of the film is inspired by the works of Orientalist painters , including Jean-Léon Gérôme , of Gustave Doré , and rooms of the Crusades of Versailles ⁷. It takes five months to build the sets as a framework the siege of Jerusalem, with walls five meters high and three siege towers somewhat larger still ⁴ .

Music

The soundtrack was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and performed by the London Philharmonic with few exceptions. At the death of King Baudouin, the music is that of the opera specially designed for the film Hannibal , by Ridley Scott , Vide Cor Meum (literally: “See my heart”) composed by Patrick Cassidy . In the same way, the music we hear before the battle, during the General Doodle and Balian’s speech is from the movie The 13th Warrior , and composed by Jerry Goldsmith . The music of the scene where Balian is attacked by the knights sent by Guy de Lusignanis from The Crow , The Crow Descends, composed by Graeme Revell . When Renaud de Chatillon is beheaded by Saladin , the music is that of the St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach .

Long version

Very heated discussions take place during the editing process between Ridley Scott and the production studios who fear that the film’s length is excessive and the story too complex if we add the secondary plot of the child of Sibylle. Scott finally bowed, but soon began to plan a director’s cut version , especially for the DVD market (which is on show at a Los Angeles movie theater for two weeks in December 2005) ⁸. This long version, which lasts about forty minutes more, insists especially on the story of Balian and his father (it shows that Balian is more than a simple blacksmith, it is also an engineer who already has the experience of war because he built siege machines in a feudal feudal conflict, and one also learns that the priest killed by Balian is actually his own brother). Sibylle’s role is also greatly accentuated because we unveil the whole story with her child that she must resolve to euthanize because he is, like his uncle, suffering from leprosy, a part that Scott sacrificed only ‘reluctantly because he found that it brought an extra dimension to the film ⁴ . Several critics,Which had not been convinced by the film version believe that the version director’s cut it is much higher than ⁹ .

Home

Box office

The film had a fairly limited commercial success, earning $ 211,652,051 (less than twice its budget) at the global box office , of which only $ 47,398,413 in the United States and Canada ¹ . He realized 1.27 million admissions in France , 346 521 in Belgium , 205 797 in Switzerland and 165,381 in Quebec ¹⁰ . It has been much more successful in Europe and the rest of the world than in the United States, bringing in more than three times more, which is quite rare for a big production.

Box office worldwide by country of the movie Kingdom of Heaven ( in descending order ) ¹¹

Country	Box Office	Country	Box Office	Country	Box Office
United States	$ 47,398,413	Russia	$ 6,453,424	Poland	$ 1,943,951
Germany	$ 16,415,805	Australia	$ 6,262,849	Sweden	1,902,239 $
Spain	$ 15,038,725	Taiwan	$ 3,160,826	Norway	$ 1,870,407
UK	$ 14,535,907	Turkey	$ 3,038,896	United Arab Emirates	1,644,362 $
Japan	$ 11,685,285	Netherlands	$ 2,980,011	Argentina	1,591,109 $
la France	$ 9,533,590	Belgium	$ 2,910,505	Portugal	$ 1,308,343
Italy	$ 9,522,276	Swiss	$ 2,575,570	Thailand	$ 1,241,335
South Korea	$ 8,720,877	Austria	$ 2,220,222	New Zealand	$ 1,190,959
Mexico	$ 8,426,138	Greece	$ 2,039,459	philippines	$ 1,147,831
Brazil	$ 6,984,391	Denmark	1,972,247 $	Colombia	$ 1,137,362

Home Review

The film was met with criticism by critics, receiving 39% of favorable reviews, with an average score of ^5.5 / ₁₀ and based on 185 reviews collected, on the site Rotten Tomatoes ¹² . On the website Metacritic , it gets a score of ⁶³ / ₁₀₀ , based on 40 reviews collected ¹³ . Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times , giving it 3.5 stars out of 4 , the judging better than Gladiator , with less action but more thought and a deeper message ¹⁴ . Mick LaSalle, fromSan Francisco Chronicle , evokes a flamboyant film whereRidley Scotthas made all the right decisions ¹⁵ . Manohla Dargis of the New York Times , welcomes the achievement of Scott but considers that the film is served by some of its key players (Orlando BloomandEva Greenin the lead) despite the performance ofGhassan MassoudandJeremy Irons ¹⁶ . Ty Burr, of the Boston Globe , considers the film”heavy”and the message”naive”with a main actor who is not bad but does not have the stature for this role ¹⁷ . And for Peter Bradshaw, fromGuardian ,Marton Csokastoo much cabotine in the role of the villain and the film is well intentioned but seems both”casual and naive” ¹⁸ .

Several conservative Christian organizations deplored the way the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church were portrayed in the film while Muslims were presented in a positive light ¹⁹ . Conversely, the film received a favorable reception in Muslim countries, and the journalist Robert Fisk reports that, in the cinema of Beirut where he saw the film, the audience stood up to applaud and shout their approval at the scene where Saladin , after Jerusalem , straightens a Christian cross fell to the ground ²⁰ .

In France , the critics were more positive, the film getting an average of 3.2 stars out of 5 for the critics of the press on the site Allociné ²¹ . Richard Gianorio, of France-Soir , evokes “an impeccable know-how” ; for Jean-Luc Douin, du Monde , the “staging confirms the mastery of one of the most skilful filmmakers in terms of great show” ; Christian Jauberty, of Première , believes that”While there was some doubt about a movie about the exploits of Western warriors in the Middle East, Scott and screenwriter William Monahan turned the problem to their advantage, adopting the party of those who suffer the wars. against those who trigger them ” ; for Gérard Lenne, of Télé 7 Jours , it is an “imposing, well-kept and well-conducted show, with edifying morality, historically correct” ²¹ ; and for Éric Libiot, of L’Express , after a first classic part, “the scenario is set on an unusual dramatic line for a feature film of this scale” ²² .

Among the more moderate criticisms, Jean-Pierre Rehm , Cahiers du cinéma , evokes a “story that escapes the vicissitudes of initiation and finds its source in a surprising sophistication” but is rather confusing; Patrice Blouin, of the Inrockuptibles , recognizes “to this spectacular mastodon a complexity greater than what could be feared and even some touches of delicacy” ; Mad Movies’ David Doukhan judges the “intelligent but somewhat dogmatic scenario in his religious questioning” and the “somewhat disembodied initiatory journey” ; for Christian Viviani, from Positifit is “a semi-failure or, if you prefer, a semi-success” despite the “excellent overall interpretation, with a special mention to Edward Norton” . The negative reviews come from Vincent Ostria, from L’Humanité , which evokes “a dusty jumble” where “Scott abuses the bluish and vaporous counter-days that are his hallmark” , and Bruno Bayon, of Liberation , for whom the film is a “pastime peplum over” ²¹ .