The Passion Of The Christ

[MacGuffin]

Time Magazine article about Mel Gibson's next directing job:


Director Mel Gibson on the set of "Passion" with actor Jim Caviezel as Jesus

The Passion of Mel Gibson
His Jesus film is bloody, bold — and in Aramaic.

You may expect a certain tense solemnity when an Academy Award — winning director is shooting a film on the life and death of Jesus Christ. On the sound stage of The Passion in Rome's Cinecitta studio, the famed auteur prepares a scene for Maia Morgenstern, the Romanian actress playing the Virgin Mary. She is to enter the abandoned temple where her son has just been removed in chains on his way to Calvary. The director needs an enshrouding silence, so he shouts down some workmen's chatter. Then he coaxes the actress into a long, slow walk that hits the perfect notes of apprehension and anguish.

But since this director is Mel Gibson (who got his Oscar for Braveheart), the tone isn't always pious. Gibson loves to goof. Playing practical jokes is a way of keeping the crew loose, asserting the primal jester inside the armor of a star's machismo. So to wrap up the temple take, he has a quiet word with Morgenstern and steps back to leave the actress alone — staring dolefully into the camera with a bright-red clown nose he has stuck on her face. Cut. Print. Amen.

Don't look for levity in The Passion, an account of the day Jesus was crucified starring James Caviezel (The Count of Monte Cristo) as Christ and Italian sex diva Monica Bellucci (soon to be seen in Matrix 2 and 3) as Mary Magdalene. Gibson is life-after-deathly serious about the project, which his production company is financing on an estimated budget of $25 million. (He doesn't yet have a distributor.) "This has been germinating inside me for 10 years," he says. "I have a deep need to tell this story. It's part of your upbringing, but it can seem so distant. The Gospels tell you what basically happened; I want to know what really went down."

In the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, in Ransom and in Signs, Gibson was the loner battling impossible odds. He seems to feel that way about The Passion, which should be ready for Easter 2004. A conservative in reflexively liberal Hollywood, and a devout Catholic in an industry whose products often mock religion, Gibson senses opposition to his film. The star, who had kept the set closed to the press before allowing TIME to visit this month, was angry that friends and relatives, including his 85-year-old father, had been pestered by an unidentified reporter preparing a story on The Passion. He suspects this is part of a media attack on a Christian testament.

"When you do touch this subject, it does have a lot of enemies," he told Fox News channel host Bill O'Reilly last week. Asked whether The Passion will upset Jews, Gibson replied, "It may. It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth." Gibson's company recently signed a lucrative deal with Fox TV's film-studio sibling and has optioned O'Reilly's novel Those Who Trespass. So his TV anger may simply be the latest form of media synergy. Besides, Hollywood likes Gibson; moguls wish him well. "If anyone can pull it off, it's Mel Gibson," says Richard Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, for which Gibson made the megahit Signs. "The project is fraught with all sorts of issues, but I would never bet against him."

The Passion will be told — boldly, perhaps perversely — in two dead tongues: Latin, used by the Roman occupiers of Palestine, and Aramaic, the language of most Semites at the time of Christ. If it's hard for the actors to speak their lines, it will be a challenge for the audience too: Gibson wants to show the film without subtitles. "The audience will have to focus on the visuals," he says. "But they had silent films before talkies arrived, and people went to see them."

Jesus has been the subject of a hundred or so films, from Edison's The Passion Play at Oberammergau in 1898 to a quartet of Stan Brakhage experimental shorts in 2001. The story has been filmed by Cecil B. DeMille, Nicholas Ray, George Stevens. The Messiah has been portrayed with stolid reverence (in Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth) and Surrealist blasphemy (Luis Bunuel's L'Age d'Or). Often he sings: in Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, in a born-again Bollywood musical and in the Canadian kung-fu horror comedy Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

Gibson has few kind words for previous Passion films. Mention Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew (which, like Gibson's location shots, was filmed in the Italian town of Matera), and he fakes a big yawn. On Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ: "You've got Harvey Keitel as Judas saying"--and here Gibson shifts into a Brooklyn accent--"'Hey, you ovah dere.'"

Gibson's film will be Scorsesean in one aspect: its meticulous attention to violence. "It's gonna be hard to take," he says. "When the Romans scourged you, it wasn't a nice thing. Think about the Crucifixion — there's no way to sugarcoat that." Not if you're playing Jesus. Caviezel, a practicing Catholic who met and was blessed by Pope John Paul II, logged 15 shooting days on the Calvary cross — which may have been easier than wearing shackles and getting beaten and whipped. During one trouncing, he separated his left shoulder. "There's an immense amount of suffering on this," the actor says. "Fortunately, God is helping me."

Gibson is a more truculent Catholic. He scorns the Second Vatican Council, which in the 1960s replaced the Latin Mass with the liturgy in the language of the people and lots of perky folk songs. To Gibson, Vatican II "corrupted the institution of the church. Look at the main fruits: dwindling numbers and pedophilia." He might also have noted that Catholicism flourished in those countries where it became a church of liberation — where priests welded traditional doctrine to radical social reform.

It's dodgy to argue theology with an actor-director who seemingly sees a fusion of the movie characters he has played and Christ: feisty, persecuted, able to take whatever punishment the bad guys can dish out. Gibson is determined to walk his own lonely path. But it hardly seems unreasonable that there can be a contemporary film about a Christian hero when there are so many about, say, serial killers. So Gibson pursues his passion to make The Passion.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with your new spiritual counselor: Mad Max.

[Gold Trumpet]

I've heard of other people being excited about this movie but could care less. I didn't know much of it, but with that article, I am excited because this movie will seem to be a daring one. Thanks Mac!

~rougerum

[RegularKarate]

This will hopefully mean the loss of Gibson's credability in Hollywood.  An attempt at an "artistic" movie with a conservative christian message.

I see only a very small handfull of people appreciating this movie too much.  How many conservative christians do you know that thirst for a movie in a dead language with no subtitles.

I'm actually a little surprise that egomaniac didn't cast himself as Jesus.

Prediction:  Worse than Braveheart

[Victor]

if gibson's so intent on 'the truth', that he's gone to such extremes as filming the whole thing in aramaic and saying he wont include subtitles (which is cool, but i dont think its gonna happen), then how come jesus is being played by some white-boy? JC was down, yo (and i dont mean Jim Cazeviel).

[RegularKarate]

Good point.

[Duck Sauce]

Wonder how Gibson will go about including as many inaccuracies as Braveheart did with such an unknown topic.

[Pwaybloe]

I see only a very small handfull of people appreciating this movie too much.  How many conservative christians do you know that thirst for a movie in a dead language with no subtitles.

True. I grew up in a conservative family in the Bible Belt.  My dad has worked for a Baptist-owned company that publishes and distributes Christian literature worldwide for 27 years.  He is an artist/designer and does layouts of Sunday School literature for churches (not just Baptist). To say the least, we grew up pretty religious.  

Since my dad has an art background, he is very open to other films that most conservatives aren't.  My family will definately go see this movie when it comes out.  But, like RK said, we are far and in between.  

It's a kneejerk reaction for conservatives to protest, and I would expect it mostly from its violence.  But, it could surprise me if Gibson stays close to the Gospel, he may have the Christian community on his side.  That was the trouble Scorsese unfortunately ran into.  They could care less about artistic value, but it better be damn sure it mirrors the Gospel.

...then how come jesus is being played by some white-boy? JC was down, yo (and i dont mean Jim Cazeviel).

Very True.  I never could figure out why they couldn't cast a Jewish man with dark hair to play the role of Christ.  Unfortunately Christ has been immortalized as a blue-eyed, blond-haired caucasion.

[Jeremy Blackman]

This will hopefully mean the loss of Gibson's credability in Hollywood.  An attempt at an "artistic" movie with a conservative christian message.

That's probably an accurate prediction, but I love the premise. No subtitles... for some reason I can't get over that. And I liked Braveheart.  

[RegularKarate]

That's probably an accurate prediction, but I love the premise. No subtitles... for some reason I can't get over that. And I liked Braveheart.  

I think it's an interesting premise, but only in the hands of a decent director, not Mel Gibson (who doesn't even understand what the word "continuity" means).

and it's okay that you like Braveheart, a lot of people were tricked into liking that movie.

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm not sure if this movie really will be a statement of anything really full blown conservative. I know Gibson's position and all, but the way he speaks on approaching it, it feels more like the passion that Martin Scorsese had for making the film, because he always had said that his life consisted of two things, religion and movies. It feels like an inner passion for Gibson than a need to represent a side and if he brought it to a very realistic movie, he would have to include a lot of violence, things that really not is fully expressed by people of religion and may not really be looked up to. I think, in the end, it will be a movie with what Gibson believes in but too truthful to really be a conservative filled movie.

I also am a big fan of Braveheart and would have easily put it in my top ten list of that year for the best of the best and think Gibson is a fine director.  I just don't associate Braveheart with being the greatest like so many people do.

I think with the potential and the scope that Gibson wants this movie to take on, it could be a great film.

~rougerum

[Victor]

how can anyone call gibson a bad director? hes even got a hat!

[RegularKarate]

Mel: Okay, you're Jesus okay!  I'm gonna say action, then put on my headphones and you're gonna put that look on your face like the one I did in Braveheart... just like I showed you... a hundred times.  You got it?

Jesus: is that a helicopter?

Mel: that's what the ninjas jump out of.

[Satcho9]

I read an article somewhere that Jews arent happy with the protrayal of Jews in the movie. And they have been harrassing Mel and even sent him some death threats.

My advice Mel: Stick it to em'

[bonanzataz]

Mel Gibson won't ever lose his credibility in Hollywood, but this is still VERY risky.

Spending $25 million on a movie that will likely have no audience. He's obviously got the ambition to do it and he knows what he wants. I'm excited to see this, solely out of curiosity. Just to see if he can pull off the no subtitles and the audience will get what's going on.

[Duck Sauce]

Spending $25 million on a movie that will likely have no audience.

Its an investment for his ego. Now he can claim how artistic he is, and how risky he is. If it does well, he is a genius, if it fails, its because you didnt understand it and he is still a genius.