ITALY: MEL GIBSON TALKS ABOUT HIS FILM PROJECT ON THE LAST HOURS OF CHRIST

Record ID: 393089

  • Title: ITALY: MEL GIBSON TALKS ABOUT HIS FILM PROJECT ON THE LAST HOURS OF CHRIST
  • Date: 20th September 2002
  • Summary: SMV OF ANTIQUE MOVIE CAMERAS SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) GIBSON SAYING: It's about something which has probably influenced 2,000 years of art and affected civilization in every possible way you can imagine after it. Its about the last twelve hours in the life of Christ. Because that's where it all culminates. I mean one can infer everything that went before it in the last t
  • Embargoed: 5th October 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ROME, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAZBGVV6KKU0CXIVERVNBT398L
  • Story Text: Apparently refusing to bow to the pressure of the US box office or the Vatican, Mel Gibson says the shooting of his new film on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ will be made in two ancient languages - Latin and Aramaic.
    The film The Passion of Christ, which Gibson starts shooting on location in Italy at the beginning of November, will be in Latin and Aramaic and there are no plans for subtitles.
    "I've always wanted to direct this - I would never trust anyone else to. I'm a megalomaniac and an egotist", said Gibson at a news conference to publicise the film.
    Gibson, a perennial Hollywood favourite with roles in the Lethal Weapon series and Braveheart, acknowledged his choice of languages for Passion was causing headaches as far as U.S.
    distributors were concerned.
    "No-one wants to touch something in two dead languages.
    They think I'm insane, maybe I am", joked Gibson, who was born in New York but grew up in Australia.
    When a journalist suggested he could be a genius he laughed loudly and said "Maybe I'm a genius", then decided "I prefer insane".
    The film could put Gibson at odds with the Vatican - the abolition of the Latin mass was one of the key reforms adopted in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, which sought to bring the liturgy closer to ordinary people. Latin is not widely used in modern Catholic services.
    Gibson said the film was about an important part of the history of mankind.
    "It's about something which has probably influenced 2,000 years of art and affected civilization in every possible way you can imagine after it."
    He has focused on the last hours before Christ's death.
    Because that's where it all culminates. I mean one can infer everything that went before it in the last twelve hours and extrapolate everything that came from those last twelve hours.
    So that's the obvious place to go. It's the most exciting place to go, it's also the most painful, brutal, you know, beautiful part of the whole thing", Gibson said in an interview following the news conference.
    The actor/director said that it was hard to maintain faith in an institution like the Catholic Church following the scandals that have emerged in recent months.
    "It's very easy to be shaken these days faith-wise. I don't want to drag the old scandals out again but I mean all this kind of paedophilia stuff in the United States", Gibson said. "It shakes the old foundation a little bit. Something ain't right in there. But there you go. Leave 'em to God" he added.
    Shooting, which should start on November 4, will alternate between the famous Cinecitta studios just outside Rome - famed for being the place where Federico Fellini worked - and cave-riddled Matera in southern Italy.
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