Mel Gibson ping
Posted on 03/07/2005 6:03:45 PM PST by wagglebee
Mel Gibson says he cut scenes from his soon-to-be-re-released blockbuster film, "Passion of the Christ," to tone down the violence that earned it an R rating and kept some people from seeing it.
Gibson said he received "truckloads of cards and letters” when the original film was released.
"What came up again and again was that a lot of people were turned away because of the brutality in the film and were afraid to watch," he told Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s "World Over Live" Friday night.
"So I thought if I softened it up a bit, I could have a wider audience. Essentially it’s the same film, but what I’ve done is to excise some of the aspects of it,” he explained. "The trick was to excise or imply some of the aspects of it that were pretty much in your face, without actually showing them."
Gibson said he edited the film by reducing its length by about five or six minutes.
Gibson said among the changes he made was the scene showing the crowning of Christ with the crown of thorns.
"You see it, but it’s farther away," he said, adding that viewers no longer see the nails being driven into Christ’s hands.
Despite the changes, Gibson said, "it still works." Gibson spoke about his recent visit to meet Sister Lucia, the Fatima visionary, as first revealed by NewsMax.com in January. [See: Mel Gibson's Secret Meeting With Fatima Visionary]
Calling her "incredibly childlike," Gibson described her convent as "pretty austere and spartan."
Noting that he believes that the full contents of the famed Third Secret have not been revealed, he said, "I still don’t think we got all it," but said he did not raise the subject with her.
"You can’t go in there and say, 'So, what’s the Third Secret?'" he explained. "But I still want to know."
Sister Lucia passed away last month, renewing interest in the subject of her visions of the Virgin Mary. London's Daily Mail reported this weekend that Gibson is considering a movie about Fatima.
Commenting on the recent Oscar awards ceremonies, where Hollywood turned its back on "The Passion," Gibson said that he made none of the usual Hollywood moves to promote his film.
"The whole notion of these awards ceremonies is ludicrous. ... It’s really a marketing exercise."
The awards ceremonies, he added, are "a celebration of mediocrity."
"My film is not right wing or political, but they made it so," he said.
He noted that he was delighted that his film won the People’s Choice award.
As for the Oscar, Gibson said: "I didn’t expect one. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I didn’t try to market the film. People are spending 15 or 20 million dollars to market their films. That’s a lot of money for a little gold statue." Gibson also revealed that he will be going back to acting in a couple of upcoming films.
They are also a rally for anti-American Marxism.
Mel Gibson ping
I think of the Oscars as a little more than a puddle of virulent bodily excretions.
Wow! You hold them in that high a regard. They still do the Oscars?
Mel is right in saying that the Oscars are a joke.
On another note, as one who doesn't have the stomach for violent movies, I was not at all shocked by the violence in his movie "The Passion", just saddened at what people are capable of. I think it was something I needed to see in order to fully understand what Jesus went through on the way to the cross. It was not exactly a walk in the park! I appreciate the honesty in this film.
"My film is not right wing or political, but they made it so," he said.
Mel hits it right on the head here, too.
Not the bottomless Tuxedo, I assume.
That's good news. I've always enjoyed him in front of the camera as well. Hoping for MadMax IV! ;-)
I thought the movie was great; however, it is still unclear to me when the man who played in all these war movies became religious :} I look forward to his next movie. For whatever reason, they all seem to be very addictive.
Yeah, they still do the Oscars. They do each other the rest of the year, though.
I was sort of hoping that Mel Gibson would make the movie he was rumored to be making about the Maccabbees (spelling?), I think that would prove to the Jews once and for all that Gibson is a man of profound faith and not an anti-Semite.
.
MEL's -PASSION- was about our Past and our Future
MEL's -FATIMA- will explain what we can do about both in the Present
MEL GIBSON =
The Spiritual gift that just keeps on giving
I wasn't shocked either, but then there's a difference between the gratuitious senseless violence of a zombie horror/Jason/Freddy Kreuger flick which is done to entertain that audience, and the violence of historical drama and events, like Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List or The Passion which is done not to entertain but to impart important information and emotion[1]. Anyway I think it's a good move putting out a PG-13 (I guess?) version. It might get shown to younger audiences and in more churches.
[1] Braveheart for example I thought had a mix of both. Much of the violence was quite essential to the story, and some of it was gratuitous.
There's already been one movie on the subject, THE MIRACLE OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA, released in 1952. It was not an A picture but it holds up surprisingly well.
I would love to see a Fatima movie done by Mel, although he should be careful to not bring up too much conspiracy about the Third Secret as that would distract from the main message of Fatima.
:)
The oscars can't be that bad...Clint Eastwood won one.
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