Posted on 02/24/2011 7:19:30 AM PST by marshmallow
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- "I've stopped using the word coincidence" to describe how the upcoming film "The Way" got made, said its writer-director-producer, Emilio Estevez. "It was providence. ... It was the divine."
"The Way," which stars Estevez's father, Martin Sheen, tells the story of four Westerners walking the 500-mile pilgrimage route from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Sheen, who joked during a Feb. 18 interview with Catholic News Service that "I did my own walking" in the movie without a stunt double's help, recalled the first time he tried to make the pilgrimage himself.
"It was in 2003, and we were between seasons filming 'The West Wing,'" Sheen recalled. "I really wanted to make 'the way,' but we really didn't have enough time. So I did what every good American did: I rented a Mercedes and drove the route," he laughed.
But it was in Burgos, Spain, on that vehicular trek that Estevez's son, Taylor, met the woman who would become his wife. "That was the first miracle," Sheen said, adding he urged his own son to write a documentary or drama about the pilgrimage.
Estevez, sitting next to his father, recounted other occurrences he attributed to divine providence.
For one thing, he was able to conduct his filming in 2010 -- not in 2011, as Spanish officials had expected.
When Spaniards saw his tight, 40-day shooting schedule -- "40 days -- the normal time it would take a pilgrim to walk from St.-Jean (France) to Santiago," Estevez said -- they told him, "It rains every day. Your 40 days will become 60."
Instead, "it rained two days," Estevez said. "And both days we were scheduled to shoot interiors."
Estevez also received permission from officials to film inside the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. "We didn't get it until 48 hours before we arrived" at the city that concludes the pilgrimage, he said, adding that his was the first dramatic film to have received permission.
In the film, Sheen plays a doctor estranged from his son (Estevez). When he learns that his son has perished in a storm in the Pyrenees on the first day of his pilgrimage, Sheen makes the impulsive decision to cremate his son's remains and go on the pilgrimage himself, carrying his son's remains with him.
Along the way, the doctor meets a carefree Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) who says he's making the pilgrimage to lose a few pounds, but gorges himself at nearly every opportunity; a bitter Canadian (Deborah Kara Unger) who says she'll quit smoking once she's completed the journey; and an Irish writer (James Nesbitt) with writer's block.
After a Feb. 18 screening of "The Way" at Georgetown University, Sheen told the audience during a question-and-answer session that the story structure is similar to that of "The Wizard of Oz," with Sheen's character as Dorothy, Dutchman Joost as the Cowardly Lion, Canadian Sarah as the Tin Man and Irishman Jack as the Scarecrow.
And therein lay another miracle during the film shoot. While looking for sites in the Spanish countryside to introduce the Jack character, Estevez found a field with baled hay -- a perfect tie between Jack and the Scarecrow.
"The Way" is more than just a movie to Estevez and Sheen. It was a chance for them to work together. Estevez called his father's acting in the film "the performance of a lifetime."
For his part, Sheen said the expected father-son roles were reversed in filming. "That's what the film is about," he added, "how the father is led by the son, because of the journey of the boy."
The movie is also an homage to Sheen's father and Estevez's grandfather, Francisco Estevez, to whom the film is dedicated. The elder Estevez was born in the Galicia region of Spain. Sheen said that when growing up in Dayton, Ohio, he heard his father speak often of the pilgrimage route, commonly known to Spanish speakers as "El Camino," which fueled his desire to make the pilgrimage himself.
Estevez said four preview screenings of "The Way" on behalf of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students brought such a great response "we may have to change our marketing strategies."
The early strategy, Estevez added, was to market merely to "humans," not to any specific demographic.
But Estevez said that in advance of the movie's Sept. 30 U.S. opening, he and Sheen will conduct a 30-day, 30-city cross-country promotion bus trip from Los Angeles to New York. "The Way" opens April 15 in England, Ireland and Malta.
The thought of making this pilgrimage has crossed my mind several times since my son died in August. I look forward to seeing this movie.
Ping!
Martin? I don't care for his politics (but I like his work).
Charlie? Well ... have I mentioned that I think Emilio seems like a good guy?
What is he trying to say comparing his move to Oz? Dorthy and gang were on a fools quest to seek help from a fraud.
Yes, but the traditional Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage is a dusty, dry, yellow road of sacrifice, fasting, physical pain, hardship, providence, repentance, introspection and prayer that ends in profound praise of the one true God and a resolve to serve Him better.
The seekers on the road to Oz were all seeking something and they all found it - but it was a “new age quest”.
This version (hopefully) is an “age old quest”!
Sadly, I was unaware that he had passed.
RIP.
I understand. What I don’t understand is why Estevez sees a connection between the two stories.
People are walking in both. So what?
Where’s Charlie when you need some pilgrimage humor?
Actually this is all weirder than people know. Martin Sheen is a big Nevada Test Site protester, which is mostly a Catholic operation of Franciscans and other liberation theology commies. Much grief has come from this group.
No surprise. Sheen is one of the worst liberals out there. The propoganda brainwashing from "The West Wing" was an example of his bile.
There's nothing really new age about the archetypal quest mythos. Whether it's Homer's Odyssey, medieval Grail lore, Browning's Childe Roland or Stephen King's Dark Tower series, or in fact Oz, the theme of a journey of self-discovery is about as old as the hills. Apparently there's something about it that speaks to the human experience since it keeps resurfacing :-)
As I stated,
1. Oz was a new-age version in which they find the answer inside themselves.
2. Whereas in the age-old version they find the answer in God.
The Way
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