In Rome, where centuries of human history tumble past in stone, marble and paint, Academy Award-winning director Mel Gibson recently recreated an even more ancient world: that of Jerusalem on the final day of Jesus Christ’s life for the film The Passion of The Christ. Collaborating with an accomplished cast and a devoted crew of artisans, Gibson revisited this eternal story with the uncompromising realism and raw emotion of contemporary cinema.
"The Passion" (taken from the Latin for suffering, but also meaning a profound and transcendent love) refers to the agonizing and ultimately redemptive events in the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ’s life, of which there are four separate accounts in the New Testament of the Bible, and the legacy of which has been reflected upon for the last 2,000 years. The powerful imagery surrounding The Passion has long inspired the artistic imagination, becoming a deep and abiding influence in Western painting as well as inspiring numerous motion pictures in the last century.
As early as the silent movies of Thomas Edison, The Passion was a theme addressed by the most ambitious of filmmakers. In 1927, Cecil B. DeMille directed the first epic treatment of Jesus’ life and death with the silent film The King of Kings. Then, in 1953, 20th Century Fox kicked off the new CinemaScope technology with The Robe, starring Richard Burton as a Roman tribune who seeks redemption after the crucifixion. By the 1960s, Biblical epics had become a whole film genre unto themselves, with George Stevens creating the monumental The Greatest Story Ever Told featuring lavish sets and an all-star "cast of thousands."
Around the same time, the Italian film master Pier Paolo Pasolini approached the subject in an entirely fresh way with The Gospel According to St. Matthew, which featured a completely non-professional cast, a naturalistic style and language taken directly from the Bible. In the 1970s, there were two counter-culture musicals: Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. More recently, director Martin Scorsese examined Christ’s final days with his controversial The Last Temptation of Christ.
But never before has any filmmaker attempted to bring this story to life with such intensely focused cinematic detail and realism. For Mel Gibson, creating such a film was a long-lived dream, taking a significant amount of his own passion and that of many others, including his Icon partners Bruce Davey and Steve McEveety, to turn into reality.
"My intention for this film was to create a lasting work of art and to stimulate serious thought and reflection among diverse audiences of all backgrounds," says Gibson. "My ultimate hope is that this story’s message of tremendous courage and sacrifice might inspire tolerance, love and forgiveness."
Gibson first began to research the scriptures and events surrounding The Passion more than 12 years ago, when he found himself in the midst of a spiritual crisis which led him to re-examine his own faith and, in particular, to meditate upon the nature of suffering, pain, forgiveness and redemption. Gibson, who as a director last brought to life 13th century Scotland in the Oscar-winning Braveheart, realized he now had a unique opportunity to put his art where his heart resided.
Gibson co-wrote a screenplay with Benedict Fitzgerald that drew faithfully from the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the script’s main sources. Still, Gibson knew he was going into largely unexplored artistic territory–into the realm where art, storytelling and personal devotion meet. "When you tackle a story that is so widely known and has so many different pre-conceptions, the only thing you can do is remain as true as possible to the story and your own way of expressing it creatively," Gibson says. "This is what I tried to do."
As for highlighting physical realism, Gibson says: "I really wanted to express the hugeness of the sacrifice, as well as the horror of it. But I also wanted a film that has moments of real lyricism and beauty and an abiding sense of love, because it is ultimately a story of faith, hope and love. That, in my view, is the greatest story we can ever tell."
From the beginning, Gibson knew a key to making The Passion of The Christ would be finding an actor capable of embodying to the highest degree possible both the humanity and spiritual transcendence of Jesus Christ. Gibson sought an actor who could lose himself in the role entirely, and whose identity would not interfere with the realism the director was seeking.
The search led Gibson to James Caviezel, last seen in The Count of Monte Cristo. Gibson had been riveted by a picture he had seen of Caviezel, especially by the actor’s penetrating eyes and transparent expressions, which Gibson felt had the rare ability to convey the essence of love and compassion in utter silence.
When Gibson called Caviezel early on, the actor was so taken aback that his response was "Mel Who?" Gibson jovially responded, "Mel Brooks". But the conversation soon turned serious when Gibson explained the role that he had in mind for Caviezel–a role Gibson told the actor he considered so tough and fraught with potential pitfalls he himself would balk at playing it.
Caviezel was daunted but energized by the challenge before him. It struck him as a remarkable coincidence that he had just turned 33, the same age as Jesus in the last year of his life. A practicing Catholic, Caviezel also found inspiration in his own religious beliefs and devotion, using prayer as a means to explore the character, words and tribulations of Jesus.
But really nothing could have prepared him for the incredible journey he would undergo during production. As Caviezel explains: "For day after day of filming, I was spat upon, beaten up, flagellated and forced to carry a heavy cross on my back in the freezing cold. It was a brutal experience, almost beyond description. But I considered it all worth it to play this role."
During the demanding production, Caviezel had to face his own physical vulnerabilities in a profound way. In one of the film’s most graphic sequences, Christ is scourged–or whipped– extensively, then further flayed with an infamous Roman torture device known as a flagrum, or "the cat o’ nine tails," a whip designed with multiple straps and embedded with barbed metal tips to catch and shred the skin and cause considerable blood loss. To capture Christ’s resulting wounds, Caviezel had to undergo grueling, full-body makeup sessions that lasted for hours. But that was just the beginning of his trials, for the irritating makeup caused his skin to blister, preventing him from even sleeping.
He also spent more than two weeks filming the crucifixion scenes, during which he had to carry, or more often drag under great duress, a 150-pound cross (about half the weight of a real crucifixion cross) to Golgotha, and later to be suspended from it. Caviezel trained for the tortuous positions he would have to stand in by holding squats against a wall for up to ten minutes at a time and lifting weights to strengthen his lower back.
In addition, he spent these weeks working in a loin cloth in the middle of the Italian winter, and experienced several bouts with hypothermia, often becoming so cold he could no longer speak. At times, the crew had to put heat packs on Caviezel’s frozen face just to warm up his lips enough to move.
It was fire and ice for Caviezel, culminating in one of the most shocking moments on the set when both Caviezel and assistant director Jan Michelini were struck by lightning while shooting in the midst of a thunderstorm. The bolt went right through Michelini’s umbrella and zapped Caviezel as well. Astonishingly, neither man was seriously injured.
The toll of physical and mental stress on Caviezel continued to build through the production. The actor suffered a lung infection at one point and an excruciating shoulder dislocation, as well as numerous cuts and bruises. "But if I hadn’t gone through all that, the suffering would never have been authentic," Caviezel comments, "so it had to be done."
The Passion of The Christ opens in Metro Manila theaters on March 31.