“Lord, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing ...” says Jesus, crucified on the cross. To some extent, these words can be attributed to the author of the picture, Mel Gibson. After all, it’s still not clear what prompted him to create a film about the last 12 hours of the Son of God’s Passion of Christ, reviews of which before the premiere were not only twofold, but in some places and from some completely negative .
About leading actors
Although James Cavizel suited the main role in the film “Passion of Christ” according to the proportions of the body, according to Gibson, the actor did not come out with a face, and therefore throughout almost the entire film his face was corrected using computer animation. Only in the end, on the cross, can we see the real face of Cavizela, since the director decided that for some reason one make-up would be enough here. Most likely, because of the dirt and blood, it was more difficult for the animators to work on their faces, and the make-up under a layer of blood and dirt would not be too obvious.
How were the other actors and roles distributed in the film Passion of Christ (2004)? The role of Pontius Pilate went to the Bulgarian actor Hristo Shopov, who had long settled in Hollywood. On his further "acting being", "washing his hands" and moving away from the willful decision about the execution or pardon of Christ did not affect. He initially understood that the reviews in The Passion of Christ about his role would not be sharply negative, since his character was actually literally cornered by circumstances.
The role of Magdalena was played by the Frenchwoman Monica Bellucci, the role of Marie, the mother of Jesus, was invited by the Romanian actress Maya Morgenstern. Jude had a chance to play Luca Lionello. I wonder how the Italian actor felt after that. Judging by his further filmography, the demand for his acting talent did not particularly increase, but rather, on the contrary, slipped even lower. But any actor who takes on a sharply negative role in such a large-scale project should think ahead and understand how the role played by him, or rather, the character that he will have to play, will affect his future career.
Title
Initially, Mel Gibson wanted to name the film simply The Passion, that is, "Passion." But later, with common sense, he decided to slightly revise the name. “Passion”, in his opinion, sounded too generalized, and therefore he decided to sharply emphasize the name, adding an explanatory name to it, that is, the name of the person to whom these “Passions” belong, so that the public would concentrate more on suffering and trials Jesus himself, and did not think of the “Passion” as something blurred, hanging on the shoulders of everyone and everyone. Therefore, in the end, the film was renamed The passion of the christ, that is, "The Passion of Christ."
Script writing
The script was written by two people - Mel Gibson himself and Benedict Fitzgerald, who had previously participated in writing scripts for 5 not too large-scale projects that have nothing to do with such topics. The plot of the film “Passion of Christ” was created on the basis of four canonical Gospels at once - from Luke, from Mark, from John and from Matthew. Thus, it turns out that this is a kind of squeeze from all four Gospels, plus relying on other historical and religious texts. The creators of the script tried to identify how everything actually happened, isolating from each scripture the most similar, and therefore, as it seemed to them, the most real facts about how the final sufferings of Christ happened.
Where did the shooting take place
Filming took place in different places, but the film was shot in one of the regions of Italy Basilicata - in the town of Matera and the ghost town of Kraco, which is near Matera. The capacity of the Chinechitt film studio (Rome), which occupies 40 hectares, was also used, which gives it the right to be called one of the largest film studios available today in the European part of the continent.
The shooting of the crucifixion itself was carried out near the place where in 1964 P.P. Pazolini shot his sensational film at that time - “The Gospel of Matthew”.
About how James Cavizel was deceived and what he had to experience on the set
Passing the casting, James was sure that he would shoot in the film about windsurfing. What made him think that? Probably, only people controlling the sail while riding on a waterboard can spread their arms and hold them firmly by the pole. Imagine his amazement that his interpretation had completely diverged from reality, and that he would not have to raise his hands for fun.
But we must give him his due, he did not refuse to shoot in the film and steadfastly withstood all the vicissitudes of the filming process. And there were a lot of them, and the deprivations on his mortal head fell with interest.
Observers of the filming were witnesses of the fact that lightning once struck the crew, and one of the categories fell on Cavizela himself. Some saw in this the wrath of God. But be that as it may, with the actor, oddly enough, nothing happened, and the shooting continued after a break, as if nothing had happened. This fact also influenced the reviews of the “Passion of Christ” after watching the film itself. Like, not everything was as the creators of the picture interpret this. Although Cavizel or Gibson himself was not to blame for this, because he shot everything as it was said in the scriptures.
Other adversities that fell on the shoulders of the leading actor
Despite the fact that the shooting of the carrying of the cross by Jesus took place in Italy, everything happened in the winter. And the cold was such that Cavizel didn’t have a tooth on his tooth. He was really dressed only in a hoodie made of lion skin, and therefore he did not have to strain especially in order to depict deprivations on his face. It was hard for him also because the cross was real, not fake, and weighed 70 kg. Therefore, everything that was displayed on the actor’s face during the filming was no longer a game, but the response of his body to the “abuse” to which it was subjected.
Separately, it should be said about the make-up, which the specialists had to impose during the endless filming of mockery of the hero Cavizela. The film “Passion of Christ” (2004) went down in the history of cinema as well as containing the most realistic shots of flogging. But from the three-story layer of make-up, applied over and over to the actor’s body, he soon had blisters.
And in the process of filming the vice itself, he really got a lash a couple of times so that at the end of the filming process, Quizel had to go to the hospital for a rather long time.
Other complications
During the filming, it turned out that the performer of the role of the mother of Jesus, Maya Morgenstern, was pregnant. She hid this fact at the beginning of the filming process, so as not to lose the role. But when her stomach was rounded enough, it was too late to change something, and the film crew was forced to go into all sorts of tricks to hide from the audience the fact that Marie, for some reason, was somehow pregnant at the time occurring events. In addition, other circumstances threatened to stick sticks in the wheels of the upcoming premiere:
- Mel Gibson made it so that all the characters in the film speak exactly the native language of the characters in the picture. Moreover, Gibson also wanted to refuse subtitles, but later decided to leave them all the same, since this threatened to significantly reduce the future audience of viewers. Instead of viewing the picture, not everyone likes to read what is written in the credits attached to it.
- In order not to provoke a wave of anti-Semitism, none of the Jews from the crowd in the film shouted the phrase: “His blood is on us and on our descendants!”, Although these phrases really took place in the legends and scriptures.
- One Kansas resident, Peggy Scott, a 56-year-old woman, passed out while watching the premiere at the cinema and was rushed to a local clinic. But the doctors of the hospital failed to save her life.
About historical inconsistencies
Although in the film “Passion of Christ” (2004) from the outside everything seems “smooth” and as close as possible to reality, there are still several nuances that are worth paying attention to:
- In the film, horse harnesses are present in the horse harness, although in those days no one had even thought of them.
- In the picture, Jesus is nailed to the cross with nails that pass through the sweep of his palm. On some frames, this is clearly visible. In fact, the bones of the palms could not always bear the weight of the body of the person sentenced to death by crucifixion, and therefore the nails were driven precisely into the wrists. One of the Christian relics, the Shroud of Turin, depicting Jesus crucified on the cross, says that Jesus was pinned to the crossbar in this way (through the wrists).
- After Peter renounced Christ three times, the cries of roosters should have sounded (according to the scriptures). With this historical fact, Gibson and his company also decided not to bother.
- About the film “Passion of Christ”, reviews, and far from flattering, were left not only by the clergy, but, strangely enough, by astrologers. The fact is that the solar eclipse in his picture came on the very day after the night of the full moon. By all rules, at least two weeks should always elapse between these events. But the oversight in this film never taught him anything. Either he did not read reviews from astrologers, or in spite of them, in his next film Apocalypse (2006), he again makes the same astrological error.
On box office and the idea of making money from bible legends
Since the director of the film “Passion of Christ” himself is (in his words) a zealous Catholic and a follower of traditional Catholic views on Catholicism, he believes that all services should be held exclusively in Latin. But his zeal and commitment to Catholicism, as well as faith in God in general, did not prevent him from making good money on this very god.
Despite the fact that he donated $ 100 million from the box office of the Catholic Church, considerable profits settled on his pocket. This can be seen even in those box offices that are publicly known. A total of $ 55 million was spent on the film, along with marketing, while box office in the world reached 611 million. Even if you subtract half from this amount spent on actor’s fees and other donations, there’s still a tidy sum of 300 million, of which he, as the director of the picture, got no less than half.
Therefore, even in the light of the fact that his daughter, once imbued with high feelings for God, declared that she subsequently wants to make a “career” not anywhere else, but in the monastery, retiring into it and becoming a nun, earning royalties in the name of God hardly speaks about him in a good way. And the daughter, in the end, changed her mind with the monastery. Something is unclean here ...
Conclusion
In general, the picture was massive, solid and quite realistic. Superb scenery, great work by cameraman and costume designers. Entertainment is Gibson's hobby. But for all that, the picture still leaves a double impression. Even though Gibson himself in his book: “Passion: Photo from the movie“ Passion of Christ ”says:
... This is a film about love, hope, faith and forgiveness. He (Jesus) died for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It is time to return to this basic message. World has gone mad. We could all feel a little more love, faith, hope and forgiveness ...
Many may doubt his sincerity of words. Ultimately, films are always made in order to make money in the first place. What Mel Gibson did, and with which we, of course, congratulations.