Mel Gibson produced this film in Sassi of Matera, as Pasolini did in 1964 with his Gospel According to St. Matthew. Even Richard Gere did his David here in 1985. It focuses on the 12 hours of Jesus' life leading to his crucifixion. Jesus speaks Latin and Aramaic without the aid of subtitles.
"Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages," Mel Gibson explained at a news conference Friday in the Sala Fellini at Cinecitta. "They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.
"I want to show the film without subtitles," he added. "Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend language barriers with visual storytelling. If I fail, I'll put subtitles on it, though I don't want to."
"The idea came to me 10 years ago and has been rambling around in my empty head, very slowly taking shape ever since," Gibson said. "I think this is a pretty timeless and timely story to tell, involving an area where there's turbulence now just as there was turbulence then because history repeats itself.
"I want to show the humanity of Christ as well as the divine aspect," he continued. "It's a rendering that for me is very realistic and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be."
I also wonder why a movie that apparently concentrates strictly on the crucifixion of Christ is going to tell people something they don't already know about Christ. There have been movies made already that show Christ's suffering rather graphically. If there's one thing most people know about Christ, it is that He was nailed to a cross. If the movie is not going to portray Christ's teachings about His own coming death, and the significance of that death, then I don't see what is so important about the movie.