Mel Gibson: The Latest Interpretation of Christ

Superstar Mel Gibson is currently in pre-production on The Passion, a feature film about the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ. He will begin shooting in Italy on Nov. 4. Faithful Christians are wondering what to expect.

The last time a major Hollywood figure made a movie about Jesus, many considered the final product a blasphemous outrage. Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ emphasized what the director understood to be Jesus' human nature in a carnal, exploitative way. The film so enraged faithful Catholics and Protestants around the world that tens of thousands demonstrated in the streets.

The chances are that Gibson will produce a more orthodox version of Jesus' life. Gibson, like Scorsese, has made much of his Catholic roots. But there the resemblance ends.

Gibson says he has tried to live his adult life in accordance with his religious beliefs, a distinction that makes him a rarity in contemporary Hollywood. He has often described himself as “an old-fashioned Catholic,” but Gibson has declared his independence from the Catholic Church—he prefers a self-styled brand of old-style religious ritual.

“I believe in God,” he recently told the Italian paper Il Giornale. “My love of religion was given me by my father.” Raised in a family of 10 brothers and sisters, he has been married to his wife, Robyn, for 22 years. They have seven children, one of whom has chosen a religious vocation. His only daughter, Hannah, 21, has decided to become a nun, but Gibson refuses to name her order.

Gibson has also made speeches condemning abortion, contraception and homosexuality that haven't always played well in tinseltown, and he has built a private chapel in his beachfront Malibu estate, where a Latin Mass is said every Sunday.

Gibson's conduct augurs well for his approach to The Passion. The movie will chronicle the suffering Christ endured between the night of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. It will address some of the same themes as Scorsese's work but in what appears to be a more reverent and traditional manner.

“It is the drama of a man torn between divine spirit and human weakness. From the Garden of Gethse-mane, along the Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross), Christ has always been described as someone who went to his death without fear,”

Gibson told reporters in Rome. “My Christ will instead be someone who is deeply affected by suffering and from his side real blood will flow. The screams of his Crucifixion will be real as well.”

Gibson wants all the details of the narrative to be authentic. “It is a rendering that for me is very realistic and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be,” he said. “Many people have told the story, but it's like looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope. I mean Jesus either suffers from bad hair or it's inaccurate or you don't believe it.”

Gibson has chosen for his locations the towns of Matera and Craco in the rugged, impoverished Basilicata region of Southern Italy. Matera is famous for its paleolithic, limestone caves or “Sassi,” in the old center of town. Piero Paolo Pasolini shot there his 1964 masterpiece, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, which is on the Vatican's list of top 45 films.

Gibson says he won't be using any fancy special effects because Matera presents a “photocopy of the landscape you travel through as a Christian pilgrim in Israel.”

Gibson plans to shoot for 10 weeks beginning Nov. 4. He says the Italian autumn will bring “the right light to re-create the particular atmosphere I want.” There will also be some interior scenes shot on four sound stages at Rome's Cinecitta Studios.

Ironically, Gibson once turned down an offer to play Jesus in Scorsese's film, and once again he's staying away from the role. “There's two things I wouldn't do on film, and I said this when I was in my 20s,” he said. “I will never play myself if it comes to it and I will never play Jesus.”

In the two previous movies Gibson directed, the Oscar-winning Braveheart and The Man Without a Face, he also played a leading role. This time he wants to focus all his energies on directing. In The Passion, the part of Jesus will be played by Jim Caviezel (The Count of Monte Cristo and High Crimes), who's an outspoken Catholic.

Gibson and Ben Fitzgerald wrote the screenplay. The sources they credit include the four Gospels and The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by 19th-century German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, and The Mystical City of God by the 17th-century Spanish mystic Mary of Agreda.

Gibson is producing the movie through the Marquis Films division of his powerhouse Icon Productions. No Hollywood studio has picked up the distribution rights—not even Fox where Icon is based. Gibson refuses to reveal the cost. “[This project] is good for the soul, not the wallet,” he quipped.

One reason Gibson is paying for the production himself may be that he intends to shoot it in Latin and Aramaic, an ancient Near Eastern language that many historians believe Jesus spoke. “Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages,” Gibson explained to reporters in Rome. “They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius. Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend language barriers without subtitles with visual storytelling. If I fail, I'll put subtitles on it, though I don't want to.”

Bill Fuco, a Los Angeles-based Jesuit linguistics professor, has translated Gibson and Fitzgerald's screenplay into Latin and Aramaic, and will act as dialogue coach on the set.

There are media reports Gibson has sought the advice of bishops and theologians in Rome. But during his interviews with reporters there, he responded to a question about the Vatican in a way that may trouble some. “I agree with everyone who says the Vatican is a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said.

It's not clear exactly what he was referring to. Time magazine's Web site on Sept. 13 characterized this as “a scathing attack” on the Church as an institution. They point out Gibson's known affection for the Latin Mass and speculate that this is the reason for his comments about the Vatican. But the interview text itself does not confirm this.

Later in a Sept. 20 interview with Reuters, he remarked: “It's very easy to be shaken these days faith-wise. All this kind of pedophilia stuff in the United States, it's hard to hang on to a foundation with this stuff going on.”

According to the Hollywood grapevine, the problem may be that Gibson has not yet hired a press agent to help him manage interviews and he's making the kind of off-the-cuff comments that can get him in trouble when quoted out of context.

Gibson's upright lifestyle leads one to hope for the best in his movie's treatment of its subject matter. He has researched the material carefully. “The idea came to me 10 years ago and has been rambling around in my empty head, very slowly taking shape ever since,” he said.

It's clearly a labor of love on which he may lose millions of dollars of his own money. Nothing he has said or done, including his preference for the Latin Mass, indicates he would try to do anything other than present a traditional Christian understanding of Jesus' final hours and death. But the faithful should remain vigilant. They have been disappointed before.

John Prizer writes from

Washington, D.C.