by Paul Fischer
by Paul Fischer
"Here take one," says Mel
Gibson, in the midst of autographing a hardbound collection
of production photos from The Passion of the Christ, 
what
he describes as 'picture books.' Relaxed and in a cheerful mood, Gibson
is fully aware that what began "as this tiny low-budget film" has been
wrapped like a desert sandstorm in controversy. Not one to shy away from
the press, on this occasion the Oscar-winning director and Hollywood star
is speaking only with high-profile television and a few major outlets.
"Quite frankly," he says, "the film doesn't need it. I
don't like doing press and never have. You put up with it and if you need
to do it to help something, then OK, you help make an awareness. But this
doesn't need it, because it's got its own kind of life." Gibson
says that doing little publicity is a good thing "because I'm an idiot
when I open my mouth. I might as well shut up and go away. Besides, once
you go out there, you end up engaging in the nasty kind of editorial name-calling,
which I didn't want to do. That's what this isn't about."
Gibson reluctance to speak out has little to do with the firestorm of debate that has surrounded and plagued The Passion of the Christ from the outset. Gibson's problem in adapting various Gospel and Biblical sources, was to draw a fine line between Biblical authenticity and personal belief and deliver a film that is a clearly a fusion of all of these elements. Gibson is unapologetic about his work and understands why his film has generated such ferocious debate. "Whenever you delve into politics, religion or spirituality, you're gonna touch some nerves, because not everyone's alike. I expected a little disturbance. It's gone beyond what I imagined it would," he says, waving his arms about, a despairing look on his face. "I thought we'd just get out there and preach to a few Christians, and maybe make the investment back." Mel says he is astounded by the media response and widespread criticisms. "I honestly did not see the furor of this whole thing, which is like a firestorm. Every time you open the newspaper it's a new thing, even the sports pages. The awareness is through the roof. It had a lot of opposition even before we finished filming, with cannonballs flying over the bow, so, it was prejudged and condemned. I just tried to stay out of that."
That includes the notion that both he and the movie are anti-Semitic. Gibson admits that all
accused
of anti-Semitism because he bought the rights to this book on Charles
Lindbergh [who, despite his heroic achievement, was a Nazi sympathizer--cc],
which makes me think it's very loosely slapped around. The really funny
thing was, this mantra about anti-Semitism keeps coming up. If anything
gets said often enough it slowly becomes amalgamated into so many accepted
truths, which is too bad. Throughout the past year you'd pick up the newspaper
and there'd be something. It's given me a daily opportunity to practice
tolerance," he says of the allegations that have been part of an ongoing
media campaign against the film. Since tolerance is a theme of the film
– and of Catholicism- Gibson refers to a scene in The Passion
of the Christ that wasn't in the original script, from the Gospel's
Luke. "It was that scene where Jesus is on the Mount, saying that you have
to love everybody including your enemies, because if you just like people
who like you, what good is that? There's no trial or sacrifice in that.
I put that in specifically because of my own experiences," Gibson admits.
Some of those experiences, Gibson says reflectively, were what brought him back to his own Catholicism. His devoutness and renewed spirituality came about when he was 34, during what he calls "a dark night of the soul. Somewhere along the line you're going to hit the wall," Gibson explains. "I realized then that I was completely and utterly spiritually bankrupt. There's a lot of misery in that." Gibson won't reveal the specifics of his own personal crisis, though he will say it had nothing to do with the film industry. "You don't have to be spiritually bankrupt because you're dealing with this industry, but it helps," he adds with a laugh. "What makes one spiritually bankrupt is a lack of maintenance." He didn't start out that way, he adds, "having been a pretty happy-go-lucky kid. Eventually you ask yourself 'What is this all about? Is it some kind of joke? Why am I tortured here like this?' It's like 'I want to get out! I don't like it here' yet (you're) too scared to get out. You're paralyzed in this middle, no-man's land of agony. It's that Hamlet question of 'Will I check out or will I stay?'" he admits. "At that point you have to really begin to ask yourself some serious questions, and to change things if you want some answers and any kind of peace at all." So, at a low point in his life, Gibson took a hard look within to try and make an attempt to investigate his own Catholicism. "I didn't practice very well or execute what I professed to believe."
Gibson's cold shoulder to religion came about, in part, as a result of the kinds of temptations put in his way by Hollywood adulation and stardom. Gibson was 31 at the time of the first Lethal Weapon, made 8 years after Australia embraced him as the young Mad Max. By the time he got to Hollywood, Gibson was certainly intoxicated by what he discovered over the rainbow. "I embraced the secularism of this industry and the peace that went with it," he admits. "It was very seductive, with a lot of things to offer but, no matter the excesses and the luxuries, it's just not enough and doesn't fill the void." At the height of his international success, Gibson "just got to that place where I questioned what it's all about. It was like turning into something like a circular torture-fest, just going round and round, which became an attempt by me to change the course of things, put a stop to it and take another route. To find some answers and heal my wounds, because life is a scarring experience."
Out of this need to fill a spiritual void, Gibson turned
to the Bible and the Gospels of the New Testament. Ultimately, this fueled
a need to re-tell the greatest passion plays in the history of Mankind.
Thus The Passion of the Christ was born, and became an obsession
for over a decade. Gibson doesn't respond directly when asked if the experience
of the film finally filled that dark void. "Put it this way. I'm more
fulfilled now than I was," adding that his remains a spiritual evolution.
"I'm still really venal and have all the same flaws that I had as when
I started. It's a long process, I'm just a work-in-progress and that's
all there is too it. I may be flawed beyond belief, but I think I have
a couple of clues as to what not to do anyway, because it's easy
to grab at the nearest apparent solution."
For Gibson, The Passion of the Christ is a story that has something pertinent to say to a largely secular movie-going audience. "I think what I've attempted to do with the film is make it realistic and human. I think the first things that hit you are the human aspects of the story. What we all relate to is a human experience because that's what we are. Animals with a spirit. I think most people have a sense that they're something beyond all this," he says.
As for Mel, having put so much of himself in this Passion, one can only wonder, where he can go from this experience, as a filmmaker. "There are other things you can do, though they won't be as intense or as controversial as this, thank God," he adds with a grin. When The Passion of the Christ is finally behind him, he still longs to be behind the cameras. "I love the storytelling process of directing. I think I know how to do it. My school was George Miller and Peter Weir, and I just sucked it up like a sponge." As for his future as an actor, Gibson, who hid behind make up and a character in The Singing Detective, longs to escape the 'Mel Gibson persona,' whatever that might be. "I think I'm tired of it as is everybody else. My Utopian ideal would be anonymity," but laughingly concedes that such obscurity "might happen in Peking because we all look alike to them." As for future acting gigs, he doesn't seem enthused on that front, "though there's always some bus you can catch, but it's not as exciting for me." He laughs when asked how much money he still gets offered for a new Lethal Weapon. "Ah, good question. I'm too old and I can't deal with the action stuff anymore." That also tends to rule out the much delayed Mad Max 4. "It's getting to the point where they'll start calling it Fat Max," Gibson hopes, at the very least, to work again with Weir and Miller. "Those guys are masters so of course I'd love to work with them again. The trouble is, will they want me?"