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二十世紀霍士影片公司 發行
米路吉遜 Mel Gibson 驚世傑作
本年度最具爭議性電影
全球熱論必看話題作
耶穌受難前震人心的12小時
受難曲
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
占卡維素 Jim Caviezel 飾 耶穌基督
美亞莫根絲坦 Maia Morgenstein 飾演 聖母瑪利亞
蒙妮卡貝洛琪 Monica Bellucci 飾演 瑪利亞瑪達肋納
ICON PRODUCTIONS 貢獻
ICON 製作
米路吉遜 Mel Gibson 導演、監製及編劇
貝拉迪費茲哲羅 Benedict Fitzgerald 聯合編劇
布魯士迪維Bruce Davey 史提芬麥艾維迪 Stephen Mceveety 監製
安素薜斯迪 Enzo Sisti 執行監製
尊迪尼 John Debney 音樂
梅利斯奧米蘭洛迪 Maurizio Millenotti 服裝設計
尊韋特,ACE John Wright, ACE 剪接
法蘭西斯高費哲尼 Francesco Frigeri 美術設計
卡納迪斯贊尼,ASC Caleb Deschanel, ASC 攝影
瀏覽www.thepassionofthechrist.com
4月1日 全城見証
受難曲
The Passion Of The Christ
前言
由二十世紀霍士影片公司負責香港發行，近日在美國廣被談論之電影《受難曲》(The Passion of The Christ) 鐵定於復活節檔期在香港上映。由金像導演米路吉遜監製、執導，編寫的《受難曲》講述耶穌基督受難前十二小時的經歷。並由曾主演《隔世救未來》(Frequency)的占士卡維素 (James Caviezel) 飾演耶穌、《廿二世紀殺人網絡2殺人網絡》(The Matrix Reloaded) 的蒙妮卡貝洛琪 (Monica Bellucci) 飾演瑪利亞瑪達肋納、而羅馬尼亞裔女演員美亞莫根絲坦 (Maia Morgenstern) 飾演聖母瑪利亞。
本片由米路吉遜投資三千萬美元拍攝，他是根據聖經中的四福音（瑪竇福音、瑪爾谷福音、若望福音、路加福音）編寫。全片在意大利取景拍攝。為了忠於史實，全片以拉丁語、阿拉姆語及希伯來語拍攝。而米路亦表示《受難曲》是喚醒世人，並不是冒犯任何人，並形容這部電影是關於信心、希望、愛與寬恕。
教宗若望保祿二世表示這部電影真實地展示聖經所述的一切，他說： "It is as it was."。而國際知名傳道牧師葛培理看此片時，更激動得落淚，形容為「一生講道盡在一部電影中」。不少影評人對此讚口不絕，華盛頓網站形容《受難曲》是一部製作認真、極具說服力和令人動容的電影。
故事大綱
《受難曲》是講述納匝肋人耶穌受難前十二小時的痛苦經歷。電影故事由革責瑪尼莊園開始。耶穌與十二門徒吃罷最後晚餐後，門徒伯多祿、雅各伯、若望三人跟隨耶穌來到革責瑪尼莊園祈禱。耶穌抵抗撒旦的誘惑。耶穌被門徒猶達斯出賣，耶穌被捕並被帶回耶路撒冷城內，接受司祭長的審判。司祭長指控耶穌犯了瀆神的行為，並應判死刑。
司祭長帶耶穌到衙門，並向羅馬總督比拉多道出耶穌的罪名。比拉多認為耶穌是在黑落德管轄的白冷出生，他以政治衝突為理由將審判交給黑落德處理。但黑落德卻推回比拉多審判耶穌。總督有一個慣例，每逢節日都會隨群眾要求，釋放一名囚犯。比拉多給公眾選擇釋放殺人犯巴辣巴抑或是耶穌。群眾選擇釋放巴辣巴，並要求處決耶穌。
比拉多於是判耶穌行鞭刑以作懲戒，但當羅馬士兵鞭打耶穌後，亦未能平息群眾，群眾要求判耶穌釘十字架。比拉多見無濟於事，恐怕群眾生亂，就拿水在眾人面前洗手，吩咐士兵做他們所想的。
耶穌背著十字架，經過了耶路撒冷的街道，到了哥耳哥達。耶穌經歷最後掙扎，明白他的父親為什麼捨棄他，並在他的母親，聖母瑪利亞面前，被釘在十字架上。
www.thepassionofthechrist.com
關於故事
"The Passion" 拉丁文解作受難，亦可解作恭敬和超越人類的愛。而《受難曲》一片是講述耶穌基督受難前的十二小時所受的痛苦的折磨和最後為世人贖罪的經過。劇本是根據聖經新約中四部福音包括約翰福音、馬可福音、馬太福音和路加福音和二千多年遺留下的歷史所編寫。而這部電影的靈感深受著西方的畫和過往有關於耶穌的電影所影響，如《萬王之王》 (The Kings of Kings)、《萬世流芳》(The Greatest Story Ever Told)、《萬世巨星》(Jesus Christ Superstar)、《基督的最後誘惑》(The Last Temptation of Christ) 等等。
拍攝《受難曲》是米路吉遜畢生的夢想。他說：「我希望籍著這部電影能夠激勵大家的思想，和令不同宗教信仰的觀眾反省。我最終的希望是電影所給予的信息是重大的鼓勵，而耶穌的犧牲能夠喚醒容忍、愛和寬恕。這些都是現今世界裡所需要的。」米路吉遜亦希望這部電影能表達耶穌的犧牲是如何偉大、如何震驚。他說：「這是一部關於信心、希望和愛的電影。在我而言，這個故事是最偉大和最值得講的。」
米路吉遜花了十二年時間研究聖經中所記載有關耶穌受難的事，期間他對自己的聖靈上有所動搖，這令他再次考驗自己的信心，從而明白痛苦、寬恕和贖身的真正意義。他希望藉著現今電影的技術，特別是運用攝影帶出的真實感和畫面的震撼力，還有美術設計和演員的表達方式。
關於言語
對於一向討厭看字幕的美國觀眾來說，全片以拉丁語、阿拉姆語及希伯來語拍攝絕對是一個挑戰。根據歷史研究，當時的猶大人包括耶穌和其門徒都是說阿拉姆語；而羅馬人則是說拉丁語；而當時的知識份子則是說希伯來語。
在對白方面，米路吉遜亦不敢怠慢，特別邀請皇家瑪莉曼大學地中海文化學(Mediterranean Study)的威廉富高神父作顧問。威廉富高神父是阿拉姆語和古代希臘文化研究者，地位顯赫。威廉神父將《受難曲》的劇本翻譯成阿拉姆語、拉丁語和希拍來語。而他亦在拍攝現場擔當對白訓練師，隨時候命到現場，給予最後的劇本翻譯和顧問。
來自不同國家的演員，包括美國籍的男主角占卡維素、意大利女星蒙妮卡貝洛琪和羅馬尼亞裔女演員美亞莫根絲坦等等在拍攝前都上堂，學習阿拉姆語的發音。正因為這些語言都不是各位演員的母語，所以強迫他們運用內心和身體去演繹。
關於演員
身兼監製、導演、編劇的米路吉遜希望能夠挑選一位演員能夠同時擁有像耶穌般的人性和靈性。他希望這位演員能夠完全忘記自我，完全投入這個角色。及後，米路看罷占卡維素在《基度山恩仇記》《The Count of Monte Cristo》的演出後，非常欣賞他強烈的眼神及坦誠的表情，他覺得在一片沉默底下，這種眼神和表情能夠表達出愛和憐憫。
而對卡維素而言，演繹耶穌一角期間雖然令他氣餒，但這項挑戰對他而言亦是一種激勵。巧合地，卡維素的年紀與耶穌當年受難時的年紀一樣都是三十三歲。身為一位天主教徒的卡維素，他從自己的信仰，通過禱告獲得更多靈感去演飾耶穌所受的苦難。卡維素憶述：「在拍攝的時候，我要在極寒冷的天氣下，每一日都被人唾沬，挨打、鞭打及背負著很重的十字架。這些痛苦的經歷非筆墨所能形容，但是我覺得這是值得的。」對於外間一直批評此片過份暴力，但卡維素認為導演米路吉遜只是將事實給觀眾看的，他不會無理地渲染暴力。我絕對相信這是事實。」
面對苛刻的製作，卡維素面對極深的體力透支。耶穌受難前，被羅馬士兵鞭打，他們所用的鞭是用皮帶所造的，而皮鞭更有一些釘。當耶穌被鞭打的時候，皮膚也被撕碎。維卡素每日都需要花極長的時間讓化妝師在他身上化妝，化妝的時候他不能睡著，而後遺症是皮膚因敏感而生水泡。而拍攝耶穌受難的情節共花了兩個多星期，當中維卡素要背負一個重十百五十多磅(註：耶穌受難當日所背負的十字架重三百多磅)的十字架上哥耳哥達。
而且維卡素只是披著極單薄的布在嚴寒的天氣底下拍攝，他曾數次因為身體出現低溫現象而令他不能說話。工作人員見狀，立刻將熱包放在他的面頰上，令他的舌頭溫暖方才可繼續拍攝。除此之外，卡維素亦曾親身經歷生死邊緣的經歷，在拍攝時，一度閃電從卡維素及助理導演Jan Michelini身邊掠過。兩人都沒有受傷，實在令人驚訝。
為了拍攝這電影，維卡素可說是身心受創。因為在嚴寒的天氣下拍攝，肺部曾經受感染，而且因為拍攝被鞭打、背負十字架和釘上十字架等情節，他的肩骨曾經移位，而且身上有很多被鞭打的傷口和瘀傷。雖然如此，卡維素表示若他沒有經歷這些，耶穌受難的經過便不會真實地拍攝出來。他說：「我一定要這樣做。」
至於心靈上，卡維素面對不能預計的心理和聖靈上的挑戰。他說：「我已經記不起為了真正貫徹演繹這個角色，我在拍攝時向神禱告了多少次。」維卡素感覺今次上了很多生命的課堂。「這個角色改變了我的生命。我再不害怕做應做的事。反而更害怕自己沒有做應做的事。」
而飾演另一個重要的角色 - 耶穌的母親瑪利亞，導演米路吉遜揀選了擁有猶大人血統的羅馬尼裔的女演員美亞莫根絲坦。米路吉遜欣賞過美亞十年間在歐洲演出的作品，直至看到她面上的那一種溫和和軟弱，立刻找尋機會與她會面。
而美亞表示能夠演繹瑪利亞一角可說是生命中獨一無異的人生經歷。為了對 "瑪利亞"一角更深的認識，美亞尋找了不少畫、雕塑和文學作品作寫照。美亞看過《愛難曲》的劇本超過二百次，她發現瑪利亞與耶穌之間的那份親情和喜樂是很有意思的。她說：「在演繹瑪利亞的一角的時候，我學懂怎樣超越痛苦和苦難，並將之化成愛。我感受到當時瑪利亞所受的痛苦是多深，因為一個母親要親眼看著自己的兒子受傷和死亡。」很巧合，在拍攝這部電影的時候，美亞發現自己懷有身孕，這啟發她更深的靈感去表達母親的愛。
而另一女角瑪利亞瑪達肋納則由意大利性感女星蒙妮卡貝洛琪飾演。當蒙妮卡知道米路吉遜開拍一部關於耶穌受難的電影時，她被深深的吸引，更向米路自薦。而她亦非常欣賞導演米路吉遜。她說：「米路天生便是導演。」她表示米路在拍攝時說話不多，但你可以從他的身體和風格聽到更多他的說話。
在拍攝前，蒙妮卡與其他演員一樣都要學習阿拉姆語。她說：「可能我是意大利人，學習阿拉姆語並不是一個難題，反而我覺得阿拉姆語很美麗。」不過，雖然她花了很多時間學習，但她相信這部電影幾乎是一部默片，正所謂無聲勝有聲，她們希望演出更勝她們所說的話。
而撒旦一角由意大利女星露珊蓮達切蘭丹奴 (Rosalinda Celantano)飾演。為了製造催眠的凝視，露珊蓮達特意將眼眉毛剃掉。她在電影中會不自然地以慢動作出現，而且她的聲音是由一名男演員配音，目的是增加紊亂、困惑的氣氛。
關於製作
全片在意大利拍攝，包括有近二千年歷史的城市Matera和擁有全球最頂尖的工匠，位於Cinecitta的影棚。Matera有很多美麗的石山和古羅馬時代留下的石柱。至於Cinecitta影棚，馬田史高西斯曾在此建造了十九世紀的紐約拍攝史詩式電影《紐約風雲》，而米路吉遜則在此建造一世紀的耶路撒冷。
美術設計由曾參與《西西里亞的美麗傳說》的法蘭西斯高費哲尼(Francesco Frigeri)擔任，加上Carlo Gervasi負責場景佈置，兩人攜手設計大量而有歷史味道的場景，如神殿、巡撫的官邸及刑場。耶穌受難的地方位於耶路撒冷的哥耳哥達，這是一個宏大而堂皇的城市，被群山所包圍，到處都是市集、城堡、陸橋、雕像，但在今時今日，根本沒有可能找到這樣的地方。費哲尼(根據搜集回來的資料，花了十星期在Cinecitta影棚後的一塊2.5公畝空地設計一個新的耶路撒冷，並以Matera的群山和石山作背景。同一時間，製作隊伍於Matera以高高的石牆包圍耶路撒冷，重新建造耶穌童年生活和受難的地方 -哥耳哥達。
至於攝影方面，由四度被提名奧斯卡的卡納迪斯贊尼(Caleb Deschanel)擔任。迪斯贊尼曾與米路吉遜於《孤軍雄心》(Patriot)合作，花了很長的時間與他討論對電影的看法，他以意大利畫家卡拉瓦橋(Caravaggio)的帆布畫及文藝復興後期的作品取靈感。卡拉瓦橋擅長於運用光線，以寫實宗教畫聞名於世。米路吉遜認為卡拉瓦橋的風格便要《受難曲》所要的風格。他說：「卡拉瓦橋的作品很美麗。充滿暴力，帶有黑暗的感覺，但很超越自然的感覺，很有靈性。很難捉摸、很離奇、很不可思議。而迪斯贊尼所面對的挑戰亦升級，因為絕大部份的拍攝都是在晚間或在暗淡的室內場景進行。」
而服裝方面，由奧斯卡金像得主梅利斯奧米蘭洛迪(Maurizio Millenotti)擔任。同樣以卡拉瓦橋的作品為靈感，利用豐富，強烈陰沉的米色、棕色和黑色為主。他花了很多功夫做大量的資料搜集，製造了當時耶路撒冷人所穿著的束腰寬外衣、帽、披風和涼鞋，還有羅馬士兵所穿的頭盔和護胸甲。
演員介紹
占卡維素 Jim Caviezel
生於運動世家，自少熱愛籃球，但一次足傷令他將興趣轉移到演戲方面。九一年，他在奇洛里維斯主演的《不羈的天空》(My Own Private Idaho)中，獲得首個演出機會。九七年，在狄美摩亞的《伴我雄心》(G.I.. Jane)中飾演軍中營友。他的突破性角色是九八年的《狂林戰曲》(The Thin Red Line)，與影帝辛潘做對手戲。而在《隔世救未來》(Frequency)中，他與丹尼士葵飾隔世同時出現的父子，演出大受好評。他在電影《基度山恩仇記》(The Count Of Monte Cristo)的演出，引起米路吉遜的注意，決定邀請他擔演耶穌基督一角。
美亞莫根絲坦Maia Morgenstern
羅馬尼亞資深舞台劇演員，曾獲Stars of Tomorrow獎及Felix Prize最佳女演員獎，曾演出多部羅馬尼亞電影，在電影大師安哲羅普路斯的經典片《尤列西斯的凝望》(I;uses Gaze)中，有深刻動人的演出。
蒙妮卡貝洛琪Monica Bellucci
意大利最性感女演員，在《西西里的美麗傳說》(Malena)中飾演楚楚可憐的妓女獲得一致讚賞。而在兩部《廿二世紀殺人網絡》(The Matrix)中的性感演出，令影迷留下深刻印象。她在《不可挽回》(Irreversible)一片中長達八分鐘的強暴戲引起了甚為激烈的迴響。
關於米路吉遜
在紐約出生的米路吉遜(Mel Gibson)，十二歲時隨家移民澳洲，並在那裡接受演藝訓練。九七年演出《未日戰士》(Mad Max)成名，並回流荷里活，拍出多部叫好叫座的電影，包括《轟天炮》(Lethal Weapon) I、II 及III集、《贖金風暴》(Ransom) 、《偷聽女人心》(What Women Want) 及《賭俠馬華力》(Maverick)等等。九三年初執導演筒，拍出了 "The Man Without a Face"，九五年再接再勵，拍攝《驚世未了緣》(Brave Heart)，獲得奧斯卡最佳影片及最佳導演獎。2000年，他連氣參與三部電影演出，包括《孤軍雄心》(Patriot)、《咪走雞》(Chicken Run)及《偷聽女人心》，三部電影均收逾一億美元。2002年，他演出《鬼眼》(The Sixth Sense)導演的力作《驚兆》(Signs)全球賣座，成為他歷來最高票房的電影。
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
PRODUCTION NOTES
ICON PRODUCTIONS Presents An ICON Production
A MEL GIBSON FILM JIM CAVIEZEL "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST"
MONICA BELLUCCI MAIA MORGENSTERN SERGIO RUBINI Casting by SHAILA RUBIN Music by JOHN DEBNEY
Costume Designer MAURIZIO MILLENOTTI Film Editor JOHN WRIGHT, ACE Production Designer FRANCESCO FRIGERI
Director of Photography CALEB DESCHANEL, ASC Executive Producer ENZO SISTI
Produced by MEL GIBSON BRUCE DAVEY STEPHEN McEVEETY Screenplay by BENEDICT FITZGERALD and MEL GIBSON
Directed by MEL GIBSON
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
Synopsis
The Passion of The Christ is a film about the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth's life. The film opens in the Garden of Olives (Gethsemane) where Jesus has gone to pray after the Last Supper. Jesus resists Satan's temptations. Betrayed by Judas Iscariot, Jesus is arrested and taken back to within the city walls of Jerusalem where the leaders of the Pharisees confront him with accusations of blasphemy and his trial results in a condemnation to death.
Jesus is brought before Pilate, the Roman Governor of Palestine, who listens to the accusations leveled at him by the Pharisees. Realizing he is confronting a political conflict, Pilate defers to King Herod in the matter. Herod returns Jesus to Pilate who gives the crowd a choice between Jesus and the criminal Barrabas. The crowd chooses to have Barrabas set free and to condemn Jesus.
Jesus is handed over to the Roman soldiers and flagellated. Unrecognizable now, he is brought back before Pilate, who presents him to the crowd as if to say "is this not enough?" It is not. Pilate washes his hands of the entire dilemma, ordering his men to do as the crowd wishes.
Jesus is presented with the cross and is ordered to carry it through the streets of Jerusalem all the way up to Golgotha. On Golgotha, Jesus is nailed to the cross and undergoes his last temptation - the fear that he has been abandoned by his Father. He overcomes his fear, looks at Mary, his Holy Mother, and makes the pronouncement which only she can fully understand, "it is accomplished." He then dies: "into Thy hands I commend my Spirit."
At the moment of his death, nature itself overturns.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
SOURCES:
The screenplay for The Passion of The Christ was adapted by director/producer Mel Gibson in collaboration with Benedict Fitzgerald (Wise Blood, In Cold Blood, Heart of Darkness, Zelda) and depicts the last twelve hours of Christ's life on Earth. It was adapted from a composite account of The Passion assembled from the four Biblical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
LANGUAGES:
All the characters in the film are heard speaking the languages they would actually have spoken at the time. This means Aramaic for the Jewish characters, including Christ and his disciples, and "street Latin" for the Romans. Greek, which was commonly spoken among the intellectuals of the period, was not quite as relevant to the story.
LOCATIONS:
The Passion of The Christ was filmed entirely in Italy, primarily in two locations:
MATERA
The crucifixion scenes were filmed in a beautiful city of Matera, in the Basilicata region of Southern Italy, near where Pier Paolo Pasolini shot The Gospel According to St. Matthew in 1965.
CINECITTA STUDIOS
Jerusalem was a single mammoth set constructed at the famed Cinecitta Studios on the outskirts of Rome by the famous production designer Francesco Frigeri and set decorator Carlo Gervasi.
This single large complex included the Temple in which Christ's religious tribunal occurs, the courtyard of his several hearings before Pilate's Palace, and the enclosure in which he is beaten and scourged.
THE CREATIVE TEAM:
Gibson asked cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Patriot, The Right Stuff) to make the movie look like the paintings of Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio, whose images are known to have a lifelike glow from sharp contrasts of light and darkness.
"I think his work is beautiful," Gibson has said of Caravaggio. "It's violent, it's dark, it's spiritual and it also has an odd whimsy of strangeness to it."
Forty-percent of the film was shot at night or indoors under wraps in order to get an effect of light fighting its way out of the darkness.
The costumes were meticulously researched and hand-crafted by award-winning designer, Maurizio Millenotti (Hamlet, Importance of Being Earnest), to enhance the overall visual design Gibson wanted for the film with Caravaggio-like shades of brown, black and beige.
Although most of the crew was recruited in Italy (and most of the cast either in Italy or Eastern Europe), the entire special make-up and hair crews, led by Keith VanderLaan and Greg Cannom (A Beautiful Mind, Pirates of the Caribbean), were Hollywood imports. Gibson knew he needed the best make-up technicians in the world to create the uncompromising and often harrowing realism he was after in the scourging and crucifixion scenes.
Actor James Caviezel endured seven-hour make-up sessions daily when shooting the movie's later sequences.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
About The Production
"You are my friends, and the greatest love a person can have for his
friends is to give his life for them."
In Rome, where centuries of human history tumble past in stone, marble and paint, Academy AwardR-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 2000 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, and became the most successful film of Pasolini's career. In the 1970s, The Passion was represented in two counter-culture musicals: Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. More recently, director Martin Scorsese was also drawn to examine Christ's final days with his own controversial The Last Temptation of Christ.
But never before has any filmmaker attempted to bring this story of passionate sacrifice 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 producing 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.
He continues: "My ultimate hope is that this story's message of tremendous courage and sacrifice might inspire tolerance, love and forgiveness. We're definitely in need of those things in today's world."
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 OscarR-winning Braveheart, realized he now had a unique opportunity to put his art where his heart resided. He imagined bringing the full power of modern motion picture technology - and especially current cinema's realistic and visceral cinematography, production design and performance styles - to the subject of The Passion.
Gibson co-wrote a screenplay with Benedict Fitzgerald Wise Blood 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 his decision to highlight 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."
The Passion of The Christ is directed by Mel Gibson and produced by Bruce Davey, Gibson and Steve McEveety. Enzo Sisti is the executive producer. Among the talented crew joining the production are four-time OscarR nominee Caleb Deschanel as director of photography, award-winning Italian production designer Francesco Frigeri, double OscarR nominee Maurizio Millenotti as costume designer, the special effects makeup team of Keith VanderLaan and Greg Cannom (who has twice won an Academy AwardR) and two-time OscarR nominee John Wright as editor.
ARAMAIC - AN ANCIENT LANGUAGE COMES ALIVE
One of Mel Gibson's earliest decisions as director of The Passion of The Christ was to have the Jesus of his film speak the same language that the historical Jesus spoke 2,000 years ago. That language is Aramaic, an ancient Semitic tongue closely related to Hebrew that today is considered by some linguists to be a "dead language," still used in dialects by only a small number of people in remote parts of the Middle East.
Once, however, Aramaic was the lingua franca of its time, the language of education and trade spoken the world over, rather like English is today. By the 8th Century, B.C. the Aramaic tongue was widely in use from Egypt to Asia Major to Pakistan and was the main language of the great empires of Assyria, Babylon, and later the Chaldean Empire and the Imperial government of Mesopotamia. The language also spread to Palestine, supplanting Hebrew as the main tongue some time between 721 and 500 B.C. Much of Jewish law was formed, debated and transmitted in Aramaic, and it was the language that formed the basis of the Talmud.
Jesus would have spoken and written what is now known as Western Aramaic, which was the dialect of the Jews during his lifetime. After his death, early Christians wrote portions of scripture in Aramaic, spreading the stories of Jesus' life and messages in that language across many lands.
As the historical language of expressing religious ideas, Aramaic is a common thread that ties together both Judaism and Christianity. Professor Franz Rosenthal wrote in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies: "In my view, the history of Aramaic represents the purest triumph of the human spirit as embodied in language (which is the mind's most direct form of physical expression) . . . [It was] powerfully active in the promulgation of spiritual matters." For Gibson, too, there was something ineffably powerful about hearing Christ's words spoken in their original language.
But to bring Aramaic to life on the modern motion picture screen was going to be an enormous challenge. After all, how do you create a film in a lost First Century tongue in the middle of the 21st Century?
Gibson sought the help of Father William Fulco, Chair of Mediterranean Studies at Loyal Marymount University and one the world's foremost experts on the Aramaic language and classical Semitic cultures. Fulco translated the script for The Passion of The Christ entirely into First Century Aramaic for the Jewish characters and "street Latin" for the Roman characters, drawing on his extensive linguistic and cultural knowledge. After translating the script, Fulco served as an on-set dialogue coach and remained "on call" to the production, providing last-minute translations and consultations. To further authenticate the language, Gibson also consulted native speakers of Aramaic dialects to get a sense of how the language sounds to the ear. The beauty of hearing this dying language spoken aloud, he recalls, was very moving.
Ultimately, the entire international cast of The Passion of The Christ had to learn portions of Aramaic - most doing so phonetically - becoming perhaps one of the largest groups of artists ever to take on an ancient tongue en masse. For Gibson, the film's "foreign language" had another benefit: learning Aramaic became a uniting factor among a cast made up of many languages, cultures and backgrounds. "To bring a cast from all over the world to one place and have them all learn this one language gave them a sense of common ground, of what they share and of connections that transcend language", he says.
It also compelled the cast to look more deeply into their physical and emotional resources above and beyond the use of words. "Speaking in Aramaic required something different from the actors", observes Gibson, "because they had to compensate for the usual clarity of their own native language. It brought out a different level of performance. In a sense, it became good old-fashioned filmmaking because we were so committed to telling the story with pure imagery and expressiveness as much as anything else".
LABORS OF LARGER LOVE: THE CAST TAKES ON THEIR ROLES
From the beginning, Mel 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 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 more deeply explore the character, words and tribulations of Jesus.
But really nothing could have prepared him for the incredible journey he would undergo during the production of The Passion of The Christ. 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".
Gibson was quite clear to Caviezel from the start that it was his intention to film Jesus' suffering with as much authenticity as possible, never flinching from the chaos and violence that Christ was swept up in according to accounts. Even for Caviezel, the torment Jesus endures throughout the film was terrifying at times but he says: "No one has ever showed Jesus in this way before, and I think Mel is showing the truth. Mel hasn't used violence for violence's sake and it has never felt gratuitous. I do think the realism will probably shock some people but that is why the film is so incredibly powerful".
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 soon caused his skin to blister, preventing him from even sleeping during this time.
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 the 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 literally 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".
There were also unexpected psychological, and spiritual, challenges. "It was bizarre," he admits. "I was thinking I'm just an actor playing a role but I also began to see that this couldn't be just another role. I had no idea how much I would have to pray during this film to keep things in perspective".
Ultimately, Caviezel feels he learned many vital lessons. "The role changed my life in the sense that now I'm no longer afraid of doing the right thing", he explains. "I'm now more afraid of not doing the right thing".
To play Mary, the mother of Jesus, Gibson went farther afield, choosing Maia Morgenstern, a renowned Romanian actress of Jewish descent. Gibson had viewed Morgenstern in a decade-old European movie and upon seeing the tenderness in her face, immediately thought of her for the role. With little else to go on, he set out on a quest to meet her, discovering she is considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation in her country.
Morgenstern says taking the role "wasn't so much a choice as recognizing a real chance in my life to do something important, to have a unique life experience". To gain a greater understanding of Mary, Morgenstern scoured paintings, sculptures and literature for portraits. "I was very inspired by art in my preparation", she says, "because seeing Mary in so many different ways, I opened myself up to see what emotions came to my soul". She also read the script more than 200 times to make the story an integral part of her own fabric - and she found great meaning in scenes that reveal Mary's affectionate and joyful relationship with Jesus before these events.
As she meditated upon the nature of Mary, Morgenstern began to see the character on a larger level. "Capturing Mary for me was about understanding a way of life, about how someone transcends pain and suffering, and turns it into love", she explains. "I believe it is the most painful thing imaginable to see your son wounded as Mary does, to lose your child as Mary does, but all she can do is keep loving and trusting and try to use all the compassion in her heart. That is what I wanted to get across on the screen". In an interesting twist, Morgenstern was herself pregnant while playing the role, giving her further inspiration into exploring the depths of maternal love.
Morgenstern also sees the film as having real relevance to modern audiences, regardless of their religious background. "The beauty of the movie for me is that it speaks so powerfully about humanity, and also the lack of humanity that has caused us to continue killing one another for the last 2000 years", she observes. "These are very important things to think about".
Also immersing herself into the life of a woman beloved through the centuries is international film star Monica Bellucci (The Matrix series) who portrays Mary Magdalene. When Bellucci heard that Mel Gibson was making a film about The Passion, she was so intrigued by it, she immediately pursued him. "I thought it was such a strong and courageous project to take on", she explains. "I knew it would not be an easy movie, but it is also the kind of movie that you know audiences are going to think about for a long time afterwards. This is what drew my interest".
After meeting with Gibson, he cast her as Mary Magdalene, which thrilled Bellucci. She comments: "I wanted to play Mary Magdalene because for me she is so human. When Jesus saves her it's as if he makes her aware of her own worth as a human being, and for the first time she experiences a man looking at her in a different way. To me, she is a woman who gets to know herself and finds a better person than she ever thought she could be".
Learning Aramaic came almost naturally to Bellucci. "Maybe it is because I am Italian, but for me it felt very familiar and very beautiful," she says. "But even though we spent so much time learning Aramaic, I think of the film almost as a silent film because we went deeper than language in the performances".
On the set, Bellucci was impressed not only by the devotion of the cast, but by the wide range of cultures and beliefs she encountered. "What I liked is that even though this is a movie about the life and death of Jesus, there were people from everywhere, every religion, every background, all together working on creating this one film. Not just as an actress, but as a human being, this was a great experience".
She also found a real affinity with Mel Gibson's directorial style. "He's a very instinctive director", she comments. "He doesn't talk a lot but it is as if he can tell you more things with his body and mannerisms than with talk. Of course, he's very intelligent, but he also feels things very quickly and deeply and to me, this is very important for a director".
Also taking on an iconic role is Italian actress Rosalinda Celantano who portrays the film's Satan, depicted as an androgynous figure who can shape-shift into many forms, spreading fear and doubt. The actress' eyebrows were shaved to create a more hypnotic stare and she was shot in slow-motion to add a further sense of unnaturalness to her portrait. Later, her voice was dubbed with that of a male actor to increase the aura of confusion that surrounds Satan. Mel Gibson explains: "Evil is alluring, attractive. It looks good, almost normal, and yet not quite. That is what I tried to do with the Devil in the film. That's what evil is about: taking something good and twisting it a little bit".
Despite the tremendous gravity and intensity of the film's subject, which often sparked equally intense and often life-changing conversations among cast and crew, levity also prevailed on the set. "Mel kept it light whenever things were getting tough", notes Jim Caviezel. "He knew that with the extraordinary pace of the filmmaking and the cold conditions and just the sheer difficulty of it all, we had to find ways to laugh. Luckily, Mel is also quite the practical joker".
FIRST CENTURY JERUSALEM IN 21st CENTURY ROME: THE DESIGN
Once the cast was set, the filmmaking team scoured the globe for locations that could replicate the look and feel of ancient Jerusalem, and the arid surrounding Judean desert, in Christ's time. They scouted from Morocco and Tunisia to New Mexico and Spain but the logistics of moving from one place to another were mind-boggling. Ultimately, Gibson found himself drawn to Rome which offered two extraordinary advantages: 1) the legendary studios at Cinecitta renowned for their set-building artisans, considered the finest in the world; and 2) the nearby 2,000 year-old city of Matera, an idyllically beautiful town of rocky vistas and ancient stone blocks in the Basilicata region that so brings to mind Jerusalem, it was also chosen by Pasolini as the primary location for The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
Collaborating closely with Gibson were Italian production designer Francesco Frigeri (Malèna) and set decorator Carlo Gervasi who were given the task of designing such extensive, historically-based sets as the Temple, the Praetorium and Pilate's Palace. Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' death was a city of vast splendors, set among surrounding hills and lined with colorful markets, citadels, viaduct bridges and public monuments. Nothing like it exists today (destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans, the only thing that remains of Herod's Great Temple is The Western Wall in modern Jerusalem). So in just ten weeks Frigeri designed the city sets from scratch on 2 1/2 acres of backlot at Cinecitta, with Matera's hills and stone outcroppings used later for backdrops.
Based on research, Frigeri's compacted version of Jerusalem reflects the city's mix of influences, from the Roman to the Herodian, a place of towering white columns, long flights of stone steps and Roman-style arcades, as well as of sun-baked limestone houses, open-air street bazaars and narrow, unpaved streets. With its vast space and set-building facilities, Cinecitta is one of the few places in the world it is possible to recreate on an entire city - in fact, just prior to Mel Gibson recreating First Century Jerusalem at Cinecitta, Martin Scorsese forged 19th century New York there for his epic Gangs of New York. Meanwhile, in Matera, the production team recreated the high stone walls that surrounded Jerusalem, the scenes of Jesus' childhood and the crucifixion at Golgotha.
Also essential to the visual style of The Passion of The Christ is the work of renowned cinematographer and four-time OscarR nominee Caleb Deschanel. Deschanel, who previously collaborated with Mel Gibson on The Patriot, spent long hours with the director discussing his vision for the film, looking to the canvases of Caravaggio, the groundbreaking late renaissance painter, for inspiration.
Caravaggio's rich play of light, his palpable realism and his shifting themes of darkness and spiritual illumination completely revolutionized religious paintings in the 17th century, breaking away from the idealization of religious experience. Gibson, too, wanted to break the mold of sanitized treatments of The Passion. He saw the immediacy of Caravaggio's style as a match for the storytelling style of the film. Gibson has said of Caravaggio: "I think his work is beautiful. It's violent, it's dark, it's spiritual and it also has an odd whimsy of strangeness to it".
Deschanel rose to the heights of the challenge, shooting almost half the film at night or in dark interiors to attain the effect of light fighting its way out of the darkness. Notes producer Steve McEveety: "Caleb does things in a big way, just as Mel does, and his work has a scale and a breathtaking quality that captures exactly what we wanted". It worked so well that upon seeing his first dailies, Gibson was heard to exclaim: "Caleb has created a moving Caravaggio."
Award-winning costume designer Maurizio Millenotti - who has worked with directors ranging from Fellini and Zeffirelli to Tornatore - was further inspired by Caravaggio's paintings, using rich, contrasting shades of beige, brown and black. He also conducted extensive research into the wide range of culturally divergent First Century Jerusalem garments - clothing the crowds of Jerusalem in natural fiber tunics, hooded cloaks and sandals, while the Roman soldiers are adorned in typical molded breastplates and head-pieces.
Adding to the textural detail of Millenotti's costumes is the work of the special makeup and hair crews, led by the team of Keith VanderLaan and two-time Academy AwardR winner and six-time OscarR nominee Greg Cannom (whose recent work together includes A Beautiful Mind and Pirates of the Caribbean). Gibson brought the duo and their crew to Italy because he knew he needed the best make-up technicians in the world to create the physical realism he was seeking.
Jim Caviezel spent an arduous 4 to 8 hours a day in the makeup chair, as he was transformed with a series of high-tech wigs and prosthetics. For the scenes of Christ's torture and crucifixion, the makeup became even more intense as Caviezel's face and limbs were savaged and scarred in stages. Keith VanderLaan did his own research into the anatomy of crucifixions, which modern medical science believes would have resulted in appreciable blood loss and respiratory distress, among other sufferings. Indeed, the word "excruciating" is derived from the horrific pain caused by crucifixions.
The makeup effects team devised methods to graphically reveal the nails being driven through Christ's hands, and the skin being scourged from Jesus' back as he is whipped. To create authentic scars, the makeup team tattooed Jim Caviezel's back every single day until he was covered in welts and gashes. Finally, VanderLaan also forged an articulated, rubber stand-in for Caviezel who could be suspended on the cross for certain wide shots to allow the actor some physical relief.
Summarizes Steve McEveety: "In the end, the film turned out far grander than we expected, and this is surely because of the enthusiasm that so many people brought to the project. There isn't anybody involved who didn't give their whole heart and soul to the film. It's a real collective achievement". For Gibson, the film is a collective achievement he hopes will become a singular and personal experience for each audience member, no matter their background. Comments Gibson: "One of the greatest hopes I have for this film is that when audiences walk away from it, they will be inspired to ask more questions".
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
ABOUT THE CAST
JAMES CAVIEZEL (Jesus) was born and raised in Skagitt County, Washington. The Caviezels were a family of athletes, and James steered initially towards athletics, especially basketball. It wasn't until an injured foot sidelined him that James began to develop other interests. His first acting gig was an undergraduate stage adaptation of the Frank Sinatra musical Come Blow Your Horn. In the early 1980s he re-located to Los Angeles, working as a waiter and making the rounds of auditions.
He found small roles on popular TV shows like Murder, She Wrote and The Wonder Years. He talked his way into his big screen debut as an airline reservations clerk in Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) by pretending to be a recent Italian immigrant with a thick accent. He continued to get small roles in pictures like Diggstown (1992), Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994), but he also began to be noticed. As "Slov" Slovnik in G.I. Jane (1997) he made his presence felt in several scenes of intense fraternization with co-star Demi Moore.
His breakthrough role, however, was another military assignment, the brooding pacifist Private Witt in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), holding his own in the presence of co-stars like Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, and Adrien Brody. His evident ability to mix soulful introspection with physicality and action came to the fore over the next few years in his work in projects like Ang Lee's Civil War-era "Western" Ride With the Devil (1999), and in Gregory Hoblit's ingenious time-twist thriller Frequency (2000), in which he played a troubled son hooking up across two decades of time with his long-dead father (Dennis Quaid). In 2001 he starred with Jennifer Lopez in Angel Eyes, directed by Luis Mandoki. He had all the soaring range needed to convincingly play the wrongly convicted Edmond Dantes in Kevin Reynolds's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' classic The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), and a war hero wrestling with a murder charge in Carl Franklin's courtroom drama High Crimes (2002), with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.
It could be said that Caviezel's role in The Passion of The Christ is the ultimate in terms of making simultaneous physical and emotional demands upon a performer. The actor was chosen for the role because he was willing to commit to this unique project whole-heartedly. Prior to shooting, Caviezel spent several months preparing himself physically, spiritually and emotionally for the most demanding role of his career. It was a daily struggle learning Aramaic, the language actually spoken by Jesus, and during production he endured full-body makeup sessions that sometimes dragged on for ten hours. He spent entire shooting days exposed on the cross in freezing temperatures, and during the grueling scourging sequence at Cinecitta, one of his shoulders was dislocated. But Caviezel came away from the experience convinced that Someone had been watching over him, a sense that was borne out when the actor was struck by lightning while working on Golgotha - and simply got up and walked away.
In 2004, James Caviezel will also appear with Robin Williams and Mira Sorvino in Omar Naim's Final Cut and with Claire Forlani and Jeremy Northam in Rowdy Harrington's Stroke of Genius.
MAIA MORGENSTERN (Mary) is a major Romanian theater actress who studied at the world famous Film and Theatre Academy in Bucharest. She has been a member of the reparatory companies of three prominent Romanian theater organizations, the Piatra Neamt National Theatre (1985-1988), the State Jewish Theatre (1988-1990) and the National Theatre (1990-present). She received two major awards for her work on the stage, Stars of Tomorrow Award 1992 and the Felix Prize as Best Actress in 1993. Since making her film debut in 1983 in Maria Callas Dinescu's Prea cald pentru luna mai she has appeared in dozens of Romanian feature films and in several international productions, including Roger Christian's Nostradamus (1994), The Seventh Room of Márta Mészáros (1995) and Theo Angelopoulos's Ulysses' Gaze (1995), in which she co-starred with Harvey Keitel. Morgenstern appeared in the television special Joe Chapelle's Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (2000). Morgenstern herself believes that she did her best film work prior to The Passion of The Christ in Lucian Pintelle's Balanta (The Oak Tree, 1992) and János Szász's Witman fiúk (The Witman Boys, 1997).
MONICA BELLUCCI (Mary Magdalene) first attracted international attention in the US with her sizzling performance as Malèna, the beautiful young widow who turns a small Italian village upside down in the 2000 film Malèna by Giuseppe Tornatore. But at that point Bellucci had already been a major star in Europe for several years, a great beauty whose depth as a performer was well known. In fact she was celebrated as a female icon years before she began performing, launching a successful career as a model while still a pre-law student at the University of Perugia. Her slinky black & white TV commercial for Dolce & Gabbana stimulated pulse rates around the world.
In 1990, director/producer Dino Risi offered Bellucci a leading role in the Italian television series Vita Coi Figli (Life With Sons), opposite Giancarlo Giannini. She made her feature film debut in Francesco Laudadio's La Riffa (1991), and from then on she was rarely referred to as a "model turned actress." Her performance in the 1996 French thriller The Apartment (1996) established her as a full-fledged film star and earned her a nomination for a Cesar award, the French equivalent of the OscarR.
Almost from the beginning Monica Bellucci has attracted the attention of international filmmakers. Francis Ford Coppola gave her a small role as one of the seductive Brides of Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and she appeared with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman in Stephen Hopkins's Under Suspicion (2000) and in the French martial arts/horror sensation Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf), produced by Luc Besson. She has made a point of ignoring traditional distinctions between the art house and commercial career tracks for performers, appearing in 2003 in both Gaspar Noé's transgressive shocker Irréversible (2003) and opposite Bruce Willis in Antoine Fuqua's action adventure film Tears of the Sun.
Monica Bellucci's iconic significance increased exponentially in 2003 with her back-to-back appearances as the cyber goddess Persephone in the Wachowski Brothers's The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
She will also be seen in the upcoming feature films, She Hate Me and The Brothers Grimm.
MATTIA SBRAGIA (Caiphas, the High Priest) is one of Italy's most respected character actors who has been performing in films, on television, and in the theater for almost thirty years. He made his motion picture debut in 1974, in Franco Rossetti's Nipoti Miei Diletti (1974). He has since become a clear favorite of several of Italy's top directors, appearing in Tonino Cervi's Ritratto Di Borghesia In Nero (1977), Mauro Bolognini's La Dame Aux Camélias (1981), with Isabelle Huppert, and Pupi Avati's Storia Di Ragazzi E Di Ragazze (1989), to name only a few. He has also acted often in international productions such as John Frankenheimer's The Year of the Gun (1991), Norman Jewison's Only You (1994), and James Ivory's The Golden Bowl (1999).
Sbragia's most recent film appearances have been in Tom Tykwer's Heaven (2001) and Brian Helgeland's The Order (2003). He has also appeared frequently on television, in productions such as Damiano Damiani's landmark MOW Lenin: The Train (1990), with Ben Kingsley, and Josée Dayan's 1998 version of The Count of Monte Cristo, with Gerard Depardieu. On stage, he has had major roles in productions of The Tempest, Orestes, Faust, and The Iliad. He is also a noted theater director who has staged successful Roman productions of Madame Bovary, Padrone Del Mondo, La Poltrona, and Ore Rubate.
HRISTO NAUMOV SHOPOV (Pontius Pilate) is the scion of one of Bulgaria's leading film families, the son of popular actor Naum Shopov, who has hundreds of credits dating back to the late 1950s. Since making his own debut in 1981, in Dishay, choveche (Breathe, Little Man!, 1981), Hristo Shopov has become one of the country's most successful actors in films like Lyudmil Todorov's Lyubovnoto Lyato na edin Lyokhman (Love-Summer of a Schlep, 1990) and Iancho Ianchev's Requisite (2000), while also appearing regularly in low-budget American movies filmed on location in Eastern Europe, such as Octopus (2000), Mindstorm (2000), Interceptor Force 2 (2002) and Alien Hunter (2003). He was seen most recently on American theater screens in Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone (2002), a fact-based Holocaust drama, with David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, and Harvey Keitel.
CLAUDIA GERINI (Claudia Procles, Pilate's Wife) As a child growing up in Rome, Claudia dreamed of becoming an actress, dancer, and singer. And then in 1986, at the tender age of 13, she won the Miss Teenage Italy pageant, and enthusiastically seized the opportunity. Her first professional experiences were in ad campaigns for Perugina Baci ("Kisses") Chocolate Candy and Schweppes soft drinks, and she had just turned 15 when she was cast in her first film role, in Sergio Corbucci's Roba Da Ricchi (Rob the Rich, 1987). She continued to attend school while pursuing her film career, and made her stage debut in 1994. She is also passionate about music, and has recorded several albums in both English and Italian. She finally got a chance to sing on film in Fuochi d'artificio (Fireworks, 1997), written and directed by Leonardo Pieraccioni.
Gerini has had her greatest success in comedies, beginning with Viaggi di Nozze (Wedding Journeys, 1995) a vehicle for writer/director/star Carlo Verdone. The pairing was so successful that Verdone and Gerini teamed up again in Sono pazzo di Iris Blond (I'm Crazy About Iris Blonde, 1996), an even bigger hit that was released on video in the US by Miramax. Gerini made four films in 1998, including Deceit, an English-language thriller in which she co-starred with Jonathan Pryce. She has appeared most recently in Mario Camus's La Playa de los Galgos (Beach of the Greyhounds, 2002) and as Signora Raguzzi in Audrey Wells's critically acclaimed Under the Tuscan Sun (2003). Gerini supplied the voice of the heroine, Marina, in the Italian dubbed version of Disney's animated Sinbad, and recently completed filming Sergio Castellitto's Non ti muovere (Don't Move, 2004), with Penélope Cruz.
LUCA LIONELLO (Judas Iscariot) followed in the footsteps of his actor father, Alberto Lionello, launching his career as a performer with numerous appearances on the Italian stage. He ventured into film with entry-level roles in several major productions, including Marco Bellochio's The Devil in the Flesh (1986) and Paprika: Life in a Brothel (1989), directed by Caligula-author Tinto Brass. Lionello has since amassed an impressive list of Italian credits, and a growing reputation as one of the nation's most gifted younger actors. He recently starred in the successful Italian TV crime series La Banda (The Squad, 2000) and has worked regularly as the voice-dubber of choice for such American stars as Michael J. Fox and Tom Cruise.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
MEL GIBSON (Director, Producer, Co-Writer) was born the sixth of eleven children in upstate New York and at the age of 12 moved with his family to Sydney, Australia. He attended the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) at the University of New South Wales, where his stage appearances included the role of Biff in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. On the strength of his stage work Gibson came to the attention of physician-turned-film-director George Miller, who cast him in the title role in Mad Max (1979), the low budget SF car chase thriller that became a surprise smash around the world. The same year he played an almost diametrically opposite role as a gentle mentally handicapped man in Tim, and won the Australian Film Institute's Best Actor award. He was further established as an international star by Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981), which brought him a second Australian Best Actor prize, and by Miller's Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), which was released in the US by Warner Brothers.
Gibson solidified his reputation when he teamed with Weir again for The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), for which he was nominated "Best Actor in a Lead Role" by the Australian Film Institute. He then made his American debut opposite Sissy Spacek in The River (1984), portrayed mutineer Fletcher Christian in Roger Donaldson's The Bounty (1984), and a charismatic young convict in Gillian Armstrong's dark romance Mrs. Soffel (1984). But it was undoubtedly the continuation of the Mad Max series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and the opening salvo of an even more durable action-adventure franchise, Lethal Weapon (1987), that truly certified his standing as a global superstar.
After starring in Tequila Sunrise (1988), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Air America (1990), and Bird on a Wire (1990), Gibson formed Icon Productions with partner Bruce Davey to produce Hamlet (1990), directed by Franco Zeffirelli. The role brought him the William Shakespeare Award from the Folger Library in Washington, DC. Gibson has since starred in several Icon projects, including Forever Young (1992), Maverick (1994), Payback (1999) and What Women Want (2000), while continuing to work in films produced by other companies, such as Ron Howard's Ransom (1996) for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe in the "Best Actor, Motion Picture Drama" category and Richard Donner's Conspiracy Theory (1997). Gibson also made his directorial debut in 1993 with Icon's The Man Without a Face.
In 1995, Gibson produced, directed, and starred in the critical and box office success Braveheart, which received ten Academy AwardR nominations and won five, including best Picture and Best Director. In addition, he received a Golden Globe Award as Best Director, a Special Achievement in Filmmaking Award from the National Board of Review, the National Association of Theater Owners/ShoWest award as Director of the Year, and was named Best Director by the Broadcast Film Critic's Association. He was further nominated for the "David Lean Award for Direction" and for an "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures" by the Directors Guild of America.
In 2000, Gibson became the first actor to star in three films, in the same year, that have earned $100 million in domestic gross. In Roland Emmerich's The Patriot, Gibson portrayed Benjamin Martin, a reluctant hero swept into the American Revolution when the war threatens his family. For a change of pace, Gibson leant his voice to the all-American rooster, Rocky, in the DreamWorks/SKG model-animated adventure comedy Chicken Run. Later that year he portrayed Nick Marshall, a chauvinistic advertising executive who gets in touch with his feminine side in the Paramount Pictures/Icon Productions smash hit What Women Want (2000). The romantic comedy, directed by Nancy Meyers and co-starring Helen Hunt, achieved, at the time, the best three-day December opening ever ($33.6 million) and has become the film industry's highest grossing romantic comedy ever. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance, in the "Best Actor, Motion Picture Comedy" category.
In 2002, Gibson starred as real-life Vietnam war hero Gen. Harold Moore in Randall Wallace's We Were Soldiers, an account of the 34-day battle against hopeless odds that signaled the beginning of ground combat in the war (and prefigured its outcome) and as the Rev. Graham Hess, confronting an alien invasion (and a crisis of faith) in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. Signs has become Gibson's highest grossing film worldwide to date.
BENEDICT FITZGERALD (co-writer) worked for two years with Mel Gibson on the screenplay for The Passion of The Christ. He brought unique qualifications to the job, having first won acclaim for his adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood (directed by John Huston, 1979). He is the son of renowned Poet Robert Fitzgerald whose translations of Homer, Virgil and Sophocles are still considered by most as definitive, and Sally Fitzgerald, whose editions of Flannery O'connor's letters (Habit of Being) are equally renowned. O'Connor herself, America's most honored Catholic writer, was a friend of the Fitzgeralds.
As a screenwriter, Fitzgerald has continued to specialize in literary adaptations. The more challenging the better. In the 90's he wrote a teleplay for Zelda (directed by Pat O'Connor,1993) starring Natasha Richardson and Timothy Hutton, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (directed by Nicholas Roeg, 1994), with John Malkovich and Tim Roth, Moby Dick (directed by Franc Roddam) with Patrick Stewart as Captain Ahab, In Cold Blood (directed by Jonathan Kaplan, 1996) with Eric Roberts. Fitzgerald is currently working on a mini-series for German TV based on Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Last Days of Pompeii.
BRUCE DAVEY (Producer) Academy AwardR-winner Bruce Davey is president/CEO/producer at Icon Productions, the company he co-founded with partner Mel Gibson in 1989. In this capacity Davey oversees every facet of Icon's day-to-day operations, from the creative to the financial. A native of Sydney, Australia, Davey began his career as an accountant and business manager for actors, rock groups and musicians. He first met Gibson in a professional capacity in 1980, and when the actor was putting together Hamlet (1990) he asked Davey to move to L.A. to work with him as his production partner.
Davey has produced such Icon hits as Forever Young (1992), Immortal Beloved (1994), Gibson's directorial debut The Man Without a Face (1993), Maverick (1994), Airborne (1993), An Ideal Husband (1999), Gibson's multi-OscarR-winning Braveheart (1995), Payback (1999), Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey (1999), Wim Wender's The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), What Women Want (2000), We Were Soldiers (2002), and The Singing Detective (2003). Davey has been a driving force behind Icon's on-going commitment to superior family films, including FairyTale: A True Story (1997), recipient of the 1998 BAFTA Award for Best Children's Picture.
Davey is currently preparing the Icon Productions' Paparazzi for release in 2004.
STEPHEN McEVEETY (Producer) literally grew up in the entertainment industry. As a boy he appeared in episodes of the Golden Age TV series Gunsmoke, My Three Sons, and Star Trek, and was influenced by his father's success as a writer, director, and producer of successful family entertainment films.
McEveety followed the same course as his father, with early work as an assistant director on Real Genius and Early Frost. He then served as a production manager for films like The Trip To Bountiful, Flatliners, and Mel Gibson's Forever Young and associate produced Hotshots.
McEveety currently has an exclusive producing deal with Icon Productions where he executive produced What Women Want, Payback, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Immortal Beloved, The Man Without A Face and Braveheart, which garnered ten Academy AwardsR nominations and won five, including Best Picture and Best Director. He also served as producer for We Were Soldiers, 187 and Airborne, which he also wrote.
Paparazzi is his latest project for Icon that will be released in 2004.
ENZO SISTI (Executive Producer) is a native of Rome with extensive experience in Italian and European cinema. He has worked as a production accountant, production manager, and producer over the years on dozens of Hollywood productions filmed in Europe, including Clash of the Titans (1981), Ladyhawke (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Gangs of New York (2002), the Martin Scorsese picture that was filmed back-to-back with The Passion of The Christ at Cinecitta on the outskirts of the Eternal City.
CALEB DESCHANEL (Cinematographer) graduated from USC School of Cinema-Television in 1968. In 1976 he won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for a short film he shot and directed called, Trains. In 1979, Deschanel, with the help of former USC classmate George Lucas, met Francis Ford Coppola and did second-unit photography on Apocalypse Now. That same year he was elevated to director of photography and not only astonished moviegoers with his cinematography for the Coppola-produced The Black Stallion, nominated for a BAFTA Award, but quickly earned a reputation among critics for his brilliant achievements in cinematography for image and light.
Deschanel received back-to-back OscarR nominations for his camerawork on The Right Stuff (1983) and Natural (1984) and has since produced an impressive list of cinematography credits, including Fly Away Home, Hope Floats, Message in a Bottle, Anna and the King and The Patriot, for which he won an ASC Award. Deschanel has directed the films and several episodes of the David Lynch-produced TV series Twin Peaks. He is co-founder of Dark Light Pictures and just finished work on Timeline, a Richard Donner film to be released in 2004.
FRANCESCO FRIGERI (Production Designer)and CARLO GERVASI (Set Decorator) have worked together on some of the most prestigious and beautiful sets in the history of Italian cinema. Their distinguished careers have spanned four decades, and a wide variety of styles, embracing Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967), with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Luchino Visconti's lush period drama The Innocent (1976), the raucous drag comedy La Cage aux Folles (1978), Federico Fellini's The City of Women (1981), Nikita Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore's The Legend of 1900 (1998) and Malèna (2000), Julie Taymor's Shakespearean shocker Titus (1999), and Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game (2002), in which John Malkovich assumed the title role as Patricia Highsmith's amoral schemer.
JOHN WRIGHT (Editor) is a two-time Academy AwardR nominee for his work on The Hunt For Red October and Speed, also garnering a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for the latter. Among the many films he has edited are The Thomas Crown Affair, X Men, The Rock, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Broken Arrow, The Last Action Hero, Frances and Sea of Love. For his work on the acclaimed telefilm Sarah, Plain and Tall, Wright received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Editing as well as the American Cinema Editors' Eddie Award.
After serving in the U.S. Army, Wright began his career as an apprentice editor with David Wolpert Productions, assisting on such documentary projects as The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. He went on to become a film editor and associate producer on several National Geographic specials. Early in his career, Wright won his first Eddie Award for the documentary Life Goes To War: Hollywood and the Home Front.
JOHN DEBNEY (Composer) is one of the most sought-after composers in Hollywood. His unique ability to create memorable work across a variety of genres, as well as his reputation for being remarkably collaborative, have made him the first choice of top-level producers and directors.
John wrote the scores for two of the year's biggest hits, Bruce Almighty and Elf. John's previous collaborations with Bruce Almighty's director Tom Shadyac include another Jim Carrey hit, Liar Liar.
Debney's other credits include the Robert Rodriguez family action hit Spy Kids, as well as Spy Kids 2; the animated Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
John is working on the Disney animated feature Chicken Little. He also reunited with his The Princess Diaries director Gary Marshall for Raising Helen and next year's Princess Diaries 2. John is also going to collaborate with director Joe Roth on Skipping Christmas.
MAURIZIO MILLENOTTI (Costume Designer) has worked with most of Italy's most demanding and acclaimed directors, including Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, Ermanno Olmi and Giuseppe Tornatore. He has been nominated for OscarsR for two films directed by Zeffirelli, the opera adaptation Otello (1986), and Shakespeare's Hamlet (1990), with Mel Gibson in the title role. He has been designing costumes for the stage since the early 1970s and made his film debut in 1984 on Fellini's And the Ship Sails On. Millenotti has worked with Icon Productions on several projects, including Bernard Rose's Immortal Beloved (1994), produced by Bruce Davey. Additional credits include Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect (1987), Fellini's The Voice of the Moon (1990), Olmi's The Secret of the Old Woods (1993), and for Tornatore The Legend of 1900 (1998) and Malèna (2000), the latter featuring The Passion of The Christ co-star Monica Bellucci in the title role. He is currently completing work on Kevin Reynold's Tristan & Isolde (2004), produced by Ridley Scott for 20th Century Fox.
KEITH VANDERLAAN and GREG CANNOM (Special Effects Makeup) Frequent collaborators Keith VanderLaan and Greg Cannom were nominated for an OscarR in 2002 for their work on Ridley Scott's Hannibal. Their companies, VanderLaan's Creative Audience and Cannom's Cannom Creations, engineered the horrific "flayed-face" makeup that rendered actor Gary Oldman all but unrecognizable in that film. Cannom and VanderLaan also engineered the startling full-body transformations wrought upon Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face (1993) and Robert Downey, Jr., in the Icon Productions The Singing Detective (2003). These achievements made them the ideal special makeup technicians for The Passion of The Christ, which required an extraordinary level of visceral realism in the crucifixion and scourging scenes.
Greg Cannom began his career assisting SFX makeup legends Rick Baker, on The Fury (1977) and The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), and Rob Bottin, on Joe Dante's werewolf classic The Howling (1981). He received Academy AwardR nominations for five other films, including Titanic, and Bicentennial Man. His other credits include Monkeybone, Bless the Child, Big Momma's House and The Insider. The Mask is also a well-known hit for Cannom.
Over the years, VanderLaan and Cannom have worked together creating unique costumes and extreme makeups for a wide variety of feature film and television projects. Among the most memorable are Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), The Mask (1994), Thinner (1996), Blade (1998), Big Momma's House (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Bulletproof Monk (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). Most recently, Cannom, VanderLaan and their Passion of The Christ collaborator Mary Kim worked together on the revival of three of the cinema's most memorable creatures - Count Dracula, The Wolfman, and The Frankenstein Monster - for Universal's 2004 release Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman as Bram Stoker's crusading vampire hunter.
Icon Productions, Inc is an independent motion picture production company founded in August 1989. Unlike most other independents, Icon internally funds most of its development and packaging costs, allowing it to retain creative control of projects through production.
Icon Productions films include Hamlet (Warner Brothers), Forever Young (Warner Brothers), The Man Without a Face (Warner Brothers/domestic, Majestic Films/foreign), Airborne (Warner Brothers/domestic, Majestic Films/foreign), Maverick (Warner Brothers), The Singing Detective (Paramount Classics), Immortal Beloved (Columbia/domestic, Majestic Films/foreign), Braveheart (Paramount/domestic, 20th Century Fox/foreign), On Our Selection (Village Roadshow), Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (Warner Brothers), 187 (Warner Brothers), FairyTale: A True Story (Paramount), Payback (Paramount/domestic, Warner Brothers/foreign), An Ideal Husband (Miramax/domestic), Greenwich Mean Time, Ordinary Decent Criminal (Miramax), Felicia's Journey (Artisan Entertainment), What Women Want (Paramount), and We Were Soldiers (Paramount). Forthcoming Icon productions include Paparazzi.
Copyright c 2004 Icon Distribution, Inc. in all territories
Icon Distribution is the author of this motion picture for purposes of copyright and other laws/.
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