The Passion of the Christ

With Easter coming up this weekend, I always feel compelled to watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.  It’s so hard to watch, but truly grips your heart and allows you to see what the Lord went through to save us from our sins.  If you’ve never seen it, trust me, you’ll want to watch it, especially this week.  I love the trivia I found on the film.  Take a look.

–In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Jim Caviezel spoke about a few of the difficulties he experienced while filming. This included being accidentally whipped twice, which has left a 14-inch scar on his back. Caviezel also admitted he was struck by lightning while filming the Sermon on the Mount and during the crucifixion, experienced hypothermia during the dead of winter in Italy.

–Jim Caviezel experienced a shoulder separation when the 150lb cross dropped on his shoulder. The scene is still in the movie.

–This is the highest grossing foreign language film and/or subtitled film in US box office history. It is also the highest grossing religious film in worldwide box office of all time.

–This film had more pre-ticket sales than any other film in history until Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) presales beat it.

–Jim Caviezel required heart surgery after the completion of The Passion, following the extreme stress in the making of this film and the several accidental injuries received.

–According to Mel Gibson, the long shot of Jesus lying in Mary’s arms after having been taken from the cross, was greatly inspired by Michelangelo’s famous statue “La Pietà,” a work of art that inspired many other depictions of this scene.

–During the scourging scene, Jim Caviezel accidentally got whipped twice. The first time knocked the wind out of him, and the second time hurt so much it caused him wrench his hand quickly from his shackles, scraping his wrist badly. The remainder of the scourging scenes were finished by using visual effects: the actors playing Roman soldiers held sticks without the leather tails, and acted out the whipping motion, while Caviezel would react as if hit. The tails were later digitally composited into the shots. Make-up wounds on Caviezel’s body were digitally covered until the actual hit by the whip, creating the illusion that they suddenly appeared.

–Jim Caviezel was given a prosthetic nose and a raised hairline. His blue eyes were digitally changed to brown on film.

–Because of their experiences during film production, many of the cast and filming crew converted to Catholicism after the completion of the film. Among those who converted was an atheist who played Judas Iscariot.

–According to Caleb Deschanel, the majority of the movie was shot with a speed above the normal 24 frames per second. This created a sense of relative ‘slow motion’ in most scenes, which gave the performances and events more weight and drama.

–As of 2010, it has not been commercially released in Israel for “lack of interest”.

–In one scene while hanging on the Cross, Jim Caviezel can be seen to have a blue colouration of skin. This was not a special effect, but a case of asphyxiation, the cause of death for crucified victims.

–The name of the Roman soldier who pierced Christ with a spear is Cassius, as we heard Abenader shout his name when giving him a spear. This is a reference to the Catholic tradition that the name of the soldier who pierced Christ’s side was Cassius Longinus, who was later believed to convert to Christianity and is venerated in Roman Catholicism as a saint.

–The film begins without opening credits. The title of the film is stated only in the closing.

–At actual Roman crucifixions, the nails were driven through the wrists and not through the palms as in the film. The structure of the hand is not strong enough to support the weight of the body and the nail would have torn through between the fingers. However, the Christian tradition shows the nails as driven through the palms. In the Bible, the nails were said to be driven into the hands of Jesus. Medically, the hands include the wrists. – Edit: Recent study of ancient crucifixions have revealed that it is likely that the nails were in fact driven through the hands as opposed to the wrists. The hands have a nerve running through the middle of them that would have caused unbelievable amounts of pain when the nail was driven through. To support the body’s weight, ropes were tied at the wrists and the elbows to tie them to the crossbeam, then the legs were broken causing the weight of their body to pull on the upper body, eventually resulting in death by slow suffocation.

–Mel Gibson: Gibson’s hands nail Christ to the cross during the Crucifixion scene. Gibson said “It was me that put him on the cross. It was my sins” that put him there. According to special edition commentaries, Gibson also supplied the foot of Jesus (washed by Mary Magdalene) and the arms that tie Judas’ suicide rope. His crying, screaming voice is heard during the latter scene.

–All trivia courtesy of IMDB