Perhaps not Mel Gibson himself, but definitely his company, are to be involved in making a non-fiction mini-series on the Holocaust, and there are some interesting comments being made.
From the New York Times through Dark Horizons:
Mr. Gibson’s television production company is developing a four-hour miniseries for ABC based on the self-published memoir of Flory A. Van Beek, a Dutch Jew whose gentile neighbors hid her from the Nazis but who lost several relatives in concentration camps.
It is not expected that Mr. Gibson will act in the miniseries, nor is it certain yet that his name, rather than his company’s, will be publicly attached to the final product, according to several people involved in developing it. Nor is it guaranteed yet that the project will be completed and broadcast.
But Quinn Taylor, ABC’s senior vice president in charge of movies for television, acknowledged that the attention-getting value of having Mr. Gibson attached to a Holocaust project was a factor.
“Controversy’s publicity, and vice versa,” Mr. Taylor said.
Woo, that’s a fair bit of honesty we’re not used to.
Ms. Van Beek…said she had not seen Mr. Gibson’s last movie because it seemed “too traumatic.”
“I don’t know him, all I know is he’s a staunch Catholic, and the people who saved our lives are Catholic,” she said. “I respect everybody’s beliefs.”
“I know his father doesn’t believe in the Holocaust – but maybe when there’s money involved, maybe they don’t care,” she added. “His father will probably say this is not real, this is a novel.”
More honesty. It appears that Gibson’s father is on record as a denier of the Holocaust, and this seems to have struck a chord with a few people. Still. I think Ms. Van Beek’s comments are very accepting, and who’s to say who will have a hand in the series creation, after all it’s the company that’s attached, not Gibson himself.
