"Playing God"

Mel Gibson who has had much mainstream success with the Lethal Weapon movies, Braveheart, Ransom and most recently last summer's mega hit Signs has an unusual project lined up next. Gibson plans to direct a movie currently title Passion, about the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ.

Since he comes across as a somewhat religious person and his last role even dealt with faith doing this doesn't come as a surprise. However he plans to have the entire movie done in two ancient tongues Latin and Aramaic. Both languages are pretty much dead today. If that isn't odd enough as of right now, there will be no subtitles either. This will certainly frustrate anyone trying to sell this movie not only US audiences, but the ever important foreign market. This doesn't sound like a movie Warner Brothers will want to invest time or money into, however Gibson sees it as a chance to do something different.

"For me that's more real and hopefully I'll be able to transcend language barriers with filmic storytelling," Gibson said.

Shooting will switch between the famous Cinecitta studios just outside Rome and cave-riddled Matera in southern Italy. Gibson who holds church services entirely in latin in his CA home in Latin seems pretty passionate about the film.

"Many people have told the story but ... it's like looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope....No-one wants to touch something in two dead languages. They think I'm insane, maybe I am,"

Jim Caviezel who stared in The Count of Monte Cristo and High Crimes will portray Jesus. I have never seen either of these movies, so I have no idea if that is a good choice. Gibson who can play anything from a villain (Pay Back), to a suicidal hero (lethal weapon) to warm hearted father with a touch of depression (The Patirot, Signs) is not likely to actually appear in the movie.

I'm currently enrolled in a film class, and are viewing silent movies. These movies had to rely on actor's body language (many times having to be cartoonish in order to convey emotions) having your entire cast using words movie audiences won't understand seems to be along the same lines. Granted Gibson will have the luxury of actual dialogue to express emotion and anyone going to see the movie is likely to be familiar with the story of Jesus. However unless the movie is amazingly directed audiences are likely to be alienated by the film.


Most Underrated Gibson Movie:
Conspiracy Theory

ps. I have figured out how to edit posts after I have put them up on Tucker's world. So now you can leave comments about the mistakes I make (not that I will correct most of them, I even managed to screw up the title of the last blog when it was first posted.) on my nonexistent comments link. Seriously feel free to email me. Im also touched that Drew pointed his TERMINUS readers to check out "War...What is it Good For?"