As a director, Emilio Estevez rarely shies away from filmmaking as being a family affair. Since his 1987 directorial debut Wisdom, the actor best known for his work in The Breakfast Club and The Mighty Ducks series of films, has included roles for either his brother, Charlie Sheen, or his father, Martin Sheen. However, his latest feature The Way (which finds its theatrical release in Toronto and Vancouver this weekend after screening at TIFF in 2010) might be the most personal expression of Emilio’s connection to family yet.
Not only is the film dedicated to his grandfather, but Estevez wrote the film’s lead character with his father in mind to star. Based in part on a combination of Jack Hitt’s book Off the Road and personal experience, The Way tells the story of a California optometrist (Sheen) who travels to France following the tragic death of his son (Estevez) while on a soul searching pilgrimage along the famed Camino de Santiago, a thousand year old, 500 mile walk through Europe to the Spanish coastline. Once there, the father sets out to finish the journey started by his son despite being completely unprepared for the road that lies ahead.
Estevez, Sheen, and the film’s producer (and family friend) David Alexanian sat down with Criticize This! in the midst of a North American bus tour to promote the film and talk about shooting on location, the spirituality of the journey, and what it’s like working with family.
Andrew Parker: You guys are going on a fifty day bus tour to promote the movie yourselves. Does this feel like a different sort of pilgrimage to take after making the film?
Martin Sheen: It is! We’ve been out since August 27 and I guess we’ve gone a little over ten thousand miles since then. It’s fitting for something that’s about one of the great Christian pilgrimages.
AP: Martin, You were raised Catholic and there is that bit of tension in the film between your characters religion and spirituality. What kind of challenges did you guys face when going into this project?
David Alexanian: Let me answer that one…
(everyone laughs)
MS: What’s the matter with you? Who is this guy? I don’t even really know him! He was our driver two days ago and now all of a sudden, he’s the producer? Quit making statements for crying out loud!
(laughs)
Emilio Estevez: I’d like to say that the proof is not just in the pudding, but the eating of the pudding, so when you see the film you have a pretty good take on the spiritual path that we’re all on. In terms of my spiritual path, I’ve not defined myself with any one faith or aligned myself with any one religion. I feel as much as he’d like me to become a Catholic… We we’re baptized Catholic, but not practising.
MS: You’ve gotta practice if you want to get it right. I keep telling you that.
EE: (laughs) So, uh… It made for some pretty lively conversations between us because I didn’t want to stop at every church and have the main character fall to his knees and weep every time.
DA: By the very nature of this film, it is a Christian pilgrimage. By the fact that we’re in Spain, you can’t point a camera in any direction and not get a church in frame. I said the faith and the organization of the Catholic church will be on display in the film, but it isn’t about that. It’s about the interior journey, and the best place to start was to talk about Martin being a lapsed Catholic.
MS: Yeah, absolutely. For this journey to work, he’s gotta be lapsed.
AP: Also, many people do this trip for non-religious reasons as well, as you show in the film. Do you think that helps to make your film more accessible?
EE: Yeah, totally. I mean, I missed my gap year. I went right from school directly into working. I never even had that fantasy year where I could just throw on a backpack and go somewhere to explore. I definitely put a little bit of that sense of adventure into this film.
AP: Martin, in the past you’ve talked a lot about reincarnation…
MS: Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about all that. (everyone laughs) Let me tell you, I’ve got a whole different theory about that. (laughs) You know, I don’t know… We don’t know what God is, do we. I mean, really? I don’t have a clue. I used to have great joy in my faith, but my faith demands a lot of activity, social justice, and thedrive to clothe the needy, feed the hungry, house the homeless, all those demands of the gospel are what my faith is about. But I’m always hesitant to define what this whole great mystery is. That’s the bottom line. Nobody knows what this is that we’re a part of.
AP: Do you think you are more in a state of grace now and removed a bit from the same stressed out Martin Sheen that had a heartattack on the set of Apocalypse Now?
MS: Do you mean who I am now? The OLD Martin Sheen? (laughs) Are you surprised I’m still here now and standing up? (laughs) I don’t know, man. I mean, we live a very public thing so our offences are out in the open. If you have access to old interviews where I talk about things like reincarnation, you have to wonder whose idea that was. I don’t know, man. I just love being alive every day. I give thanks and praise for the mystery and I believe that God is in everything around us. I believe thegenius of God is to dwell in the places where we would least likely look within our wretched selves, and that’s what makes us human and unique. It’s hard not to be compassionate. Compassionate is what I think we should all be and we should be experiences.
AP: Is it hard to work with family and to direct your dad?
EE: No, on the contrary. I live very close to my parents. I live right down the street. I’m definitely a mama’s boy, make no mistake. I’m on the phone with her every day and I see this guy almost every day. Either I’m over at his place or he’s over at mine. I adore them. They’re the best.
MS: I just can’t seem to shake him. (laughs)
EE: The film is really an extension of that. It’s got a very organic representation of that family tension that we experience. It celebrates faith, family, community, all thethings we have in our lives. I have a microfarm at home and when I pull out a bunch of carrots, I can’t wait to run down the street and share them with him, or theneighbours, or David.
DA: Yeah, I live in the neighbourhood, too. And I mean, this is a film made by a grandson and a son and dedicated to a grandfather, so I think Hollywood, sadly, does spend a lot of time making films they don’t necessarily know anything about, whereas this film is something I think they were almost entitled to make thanks to their Spanish ancestry, and because Emilio’s son and Martin’s grandson lives right on the Camino. They were very intimately involved. It’s like when Martin says that all art is either personal or impersonal, and if it’s impersonal who cares. Film is by and large an impersonal art form, and this is a very personal film. They were able to bring out each other’s best because of that unique relationship, and the viewer is going to benefit a lot from that.
EE: It’s a very intimate kind of experience. And if you notice, the film never tries to be hip, or cool, or edgy, because I’m none of those things. It’s like how David mentioned, it’s a very authentic experience, and anyone who’s ever been on the Camino and knows it, whether they spent a week or six weeks on it, can tell you thefilm is exactly how it is. You will run into people that you would have never in a million years back home be attracted to or want anywhere near your space, and these are the people who end up telling you the most about yourself and who you are as a person.
DA: We didn’t want to Hollywood-ize it. You know, there’s temptation to do it, though. We’re sitting here with a film that gets you all this potential input, but we are the underdog. We’re marketing a film that Hollywood doesn’t necessarily embrace because they’re too busy pushing and looking for the next big budget movie. It’s not that they aren’t interested in our film, they’re just…
EE: Distracted.
DA: Yeah.
MS: We have no major connection to any Hollywood studio on this. We had a partner in Spain who helped us get it done there, and we had investors in America who helped us out back home with post.
DA: I mean, this was all Emilio’s idea. He had wanted to do something similar when he made Bobby, and I came on to help make that a reality. We didn’t want to do something hypocritical and only sell it in New York and Los Angeles like so many other independent productions. This is an independent film in spirit, but only because of how we really made it, but it’s a very mainstream film. It isn’t made for the sort of art house crowd. We don’t think it’s an art film at all, it works everywhere from Vancouver to Kansas City to anywhere in Middle America.
MS: We never wanted to bash anyone over the head with religion or sentiment. I think those are the two worst enemies of any artist. We wanted to invite you. You could take the journey vicariously. Young people have given us the most satisfying reaction because many of them are saying that they want to do the pilgrimage and they didn’t know anything about it. They’re just fascinated!
EE: It’s an open invitation to join us and be like the fifth Beatle, or whatever.
The Way opens in Toronto and Vancouver on November 4 and most major Canadian cities on November 11.
Top image: A scene from The Way. Courtesy Mongrel Media.
Paid advertisement
Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
PDF versionBy the time director/writer Emilio Estevez’s new film “The Way” opens nationwide Oct. 21, he and his lead star, dad Martin Sheen, will have crisscrossed the United States and part of Canada on a bus tour with exclusive screenings in about 30 cities.
“The Way” is the story of Tom (Sheen), a widower, sometime Catholic and a Malibu dentist, whose son, Daniel (Estevez), decides to leave his doctorate behind and see the world.
As Tom drives Daniel to the airport, he scolds him for not taking his place in the world. Daniel answers that he needs to find what that place is and gently suggests that his dad might do the same.
Not long after, Tom’s golf game is interrupted by a call with the news that Daniel has died in a small town in the French Pyrenees. Tom leaves immediately to bring his son’s body home. But once there, a kind police detective informs him that in this remote town his son was about to leave on a spiritual pilgrimage to the medieval shrine of Santiago de Compostela, where many believe the relics of St. James the Apostle are interred.
Tom has Daniel’s remains cremated and then decides that the two of them together will make this journey, which is also called pilgrimage, the way, or camino. People make this camino for different reasons but Tom has little idea of what he is in for or where he is going. He packs the tin with Daniel’s ashes in the rucksack the young man had prepared, and starts off.
Subscribe to NCR to get all the news and special features that aren't always available online. In this issue:
- Spirit and Mission
Catholic identity in health care
- Occupy Wall Street
A first person account from NCR's Jamie Manson
- Catholics in America
Survey offers portrait of US Catholics, from 1987 to now
On the first or second morning, after a terrible night’s sleep in a hostel, Tom drops the knapsack in a river and becomes thoroughly drenched fighting the current to retrieve it. It’s a cleansing, a rebirth, a humbling baptism for Tom as he begins his journey.
The camino is a time for confidences, listening, and seeing oneself, others and the world through new eyes. The journey is rigorous, with many obstacles from lack of sleep to being robbed to very sore feet, but it is a transforming journey toward freedom.
I interviewed Sheen in view of the film’s release and we began with his own personal life’s journey.
NCR: What or who inspired your Catholic social activism?
Sheen: Daniel Berrigan, SJ. But long before I met Dan and his brother, Phil, they were great sources of inspiration to all of us with their nonviolent resistance to the Vietnam War. But I didn’t become associated with him until the 1980s.The organization they founded, the Plowshares Movement, brought together concerned laity, religious and clergy within the church, but not only Catholic Christians but the Jewish community and others as well, to oppose the war nonviolently. It was a movement anchored in the scriptures.
The first time I heard the term the “nonviolent Jesus” was from John Dear, SJ, and it astonished me.
The ’60s were such a time of great violence and these men were calling us to activism based on the scriptures in line with the Rev. Martin Luther King. It was Gospel justice and I found it so moving and inspiring and it changed the direction of my life. For the spiritual life to be active you have to put your body where your spirit is. We must find a way to unite the way of the spirit with the work of the flesh
I feel that your opening performance in “Apocalypse Now” (1979) has something to do with your new film, “The Way,” because, to me, that performance reveals the sacramentality of film because it outwardly manifests the inner reality of a man’s darkness and despair. Thoughts?
I was 36 years old and I was an alcoholic at that time. That sequence was in large part a reflection of my own personal brokenness. I was not a practicing Catholic at the time, and I had no clue as to what I was getting into with the film. I was called in to replace someone [Harvey Keitel] and I came into a volatile situation in the spring of 1976. Six weeks after I arrived [in the Philippines] Typhoon Olga hit and the film was delayed. A year later, I had a heart attack, a really close call.
In film, if something is impersonal, no one cares. Things that last are things that cost people and the actors that portray them. I had an instinct that I could endure this role if I could be honest. I was playing a frightened, confused professional killer [Capt. Benjamin Willard], an unstable frightened alcoholic. I didn’t have a clue who this character was supposed to be and the director [Francis Ford Coppola] said to me: “It’s you. Whoever wants to arrive at any kind of certainty as an actor brings themselves.” I realized I could wrestle this demon. There’s an old saying that an artist gets a license to play this part. I used the license to go to a place that was both cathartic and terrifying. My poor wife, Janet, got a glimpse of this poor devil in that sequence, the anger, fear, resentment, disappointment that had built up over 36 years. It was filmed on my 36th birthday, you know.
So “Apocalypse Now” sounds like it is still with you.
Francis made a documentary in 1991 that came out on DVD a couple of years ago: “Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.” When it came out I had a new assistant who didn’t know me very well. And the film is very shocking and an honest portrayal of what went down during production. So she was watching it with me and she said to me, “This must be very upsetting for you.”
“It’s not who I am now,” I told her, “but who I was.”
I am conscious of being different from that time. The journey was made in terrible increments, it was hard to reveal myself and I saw it in a flash while watching the documentary -- and saw that I had moved on. I saw where I used to be when the film was made but the audience sees it where they are now.
What came next for you spiritually?
“Apocalypse Now” began a journey for me that culminated in Paris in 1981. This is when I was able to bring it all together -- my life, my family, my career, my brokenness. I was doing this little film in Paris and the family couldn’t come because of school and things. I had time to walk around and reflect on all that had gone down before, and I ran into Terrence Malick. I had known him from the early ’70s, since “Badlands.” At that time he was living under the radar. He is an articulate and spiritual man and he became a kind of spiritual adviser for me. We would talk endlessly when I wasn’t working. We would talk about spirituality and philosophy and the journey. He’s an Episcopalian.
That’s interesting. Because the Catholic News Service review of Malick’s latest film, “The Tree of Life,” says that “Malick’s agnosticism seems to win out.” It sounds like you would not agree with that assessment.
He and his wife Jill Jakes divorced after “Badlands” [1973]. He was broken and went to a church in Paris and met Michelle Morette. They married in 1985 and he brought her to the States but they split up in 1998. Terrence married his childhood sweetheart, Alexandra “Ecky” Wallace, that same year in Texas. Ecky attended seminary and I believe she is ordained. Today they attend an Episcopal church. Malick went to St. Stephen’s, an Episcopal boarding school, in Austin, Texas, and he’s very connected to that school.
At any rate, Malick became a kind of life coach for me. He became a great anchor for me. The last book he gave me to read, and he had me read several times, was The Brothers Karamazov and it transformed my spirit. When I finished reading it I put it down and literally got up and walked to St. Joseph Church [the English-speaking parish in Paris]. It was May Day and I banged on the door and this Irish Passionist priest opened the door and said, “What’s going on?” I told him, “I have been away from the church for a long time and I’d like to go to confession.”
Then what?
I had dropped in at St. Joseph’s occasionally while in Paris, so I was not unfamiliar. And I was fascinated by the new Mass. I had been aware of changes but was not practicing for a long time. I hadn’t wanted to rejoin the church and come back to a sense of fear and condemnation that I had absorbed growing up, that God would strike me down. When I had the heart attack I got the last rites in the hospital. I had a great fear of dying and going to hell. And the thing is, I loved the church as a boy. We were 10 kids in an Irish Catholic family; we went to Holy Trinity Parish in Dayton [Ohio] where the Sisters of Notre Dame taught.
What’s your favorite book?
To this day, The Brothers Karamazov -- it was also one of Dorothy Day’s favorites. She read Dostoyevsky and thought he was the door to the inner being, that he had an insight into humanity like no other.
How had the church changed from the time you stopped practicing the faith until your return?
I came back to the church of compassion, love and service, not a church that had me waiting to be condemned for my sins. I found the church of Mother Teresa and Daniel Berrigan. Mother Teresa drove me back to Catholicism and Dan Berrigan keeps me here. I became very active at that time.
What have you learned since that day in 1981?
The last 30 years have been by far the most difficult and the happiest of my life. Life has to cost you; if something of value costs you, then it is of inestimable value.
The thing I learned from the Berrigans is that you are not going to change the world, and maybe not even the person next to you. The only person you can change is you.
What’s the latest step in your spiritual journey?
I love the journey. I am always nervous on airplanes so when I was on a plane I’d bargain with God: Get us a safe landing, and I’ll do this or that. Even when I came back to the church I’d get my rosary out because I was afraid.
Once when I was on a plane leaving Washington, D.C., I was just exhausted. I was the first one on the plane and I fell fast asleep as soon as I took my seat. All of a sudden I was jolted awake. I had no time to get out my rosary, so I told God: Thank you for this life; it’s been wonderful. I could not have asked for anything better. If I don’t make it back, be with those I leave behind. If this is the end of the journey, it’s been wonderful and I am grateful.
Even this horrible time this year with our son [Charlie Sheen], it has made us, my wife and me and our family, pray more fervently. I love Julian of Norwich and St. Therese who said: “Everything is grace.” This is what my life is, through all the anger, everything: grace.
What’s it like to be a father in Hollywood?
There are no criteria, no code to being a father in Hollywood. It’s all happenstance; there is no way you can predict or prepare or plan for such energy that emanates out of this place. Charlie is experiencing what I did in “Apocalypse Now.” He is, at the depth of his being, an extraordinary man who is trying to lead an honest life, and he is in a very desperate situation. His choices have not been thoughtful or beneficial. Charlie tries to appease everyone, and he resents having to appease people.
He doesn’t seem to want to take the route of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He is decidedly against Alcoholics Anonymous; he won’t give a good word for AA. AA is one drunk talking to another. Bill [Dotson] and the other fellow hooked up in Akron [Ohio] and a local Catholic hospital, where with a nun and a Jesuit, began to form the steps together. The focus of the three most important steps is to make a fearless inventory (which for Catholics means the examination of conscience), and tell one person (confession), and make amends (penance and restitution).
Charlie has practical experience about trust and when betrayed he rages. He is a loving, deeply sensitive man trying to find his way in a very dark corridor and he is running out of candles.
But it sounds like you are there for him.
He is going through what I went through in my journey. We will be waiting at the end of that corridor with a lit candle.
“The Way” is your new film, written and directed by your son Emilio Estevez. What’s it about?
Themes of father-son relationships. It was Emilio’s inspiration. I wanted to do the camino and was fascinated by it and I planned to do it between seasons of “The West Wing.” So in 2003 I organized a family reunion in a village in County Tipperary, Ireland -- we’d lost a brother. My mother would have been 100. Six out of 10 of my siblings attended. It was a great celebration and I suggested that we all walk the camino together. They weren’t really prepared and the only one who showed any interest was my grandson Taylor, Emilio’s son, who was 19, and my friend Matt Clark. We went to Spain and tried to figure out how to make the camino. But my sister Carmen wisely noted, “You don’t have enough time or equipment to do this.” So we rented a car in Madrid and went to Burgos and stayed in a small albergo, or small hotel that looks after pilgrims. It was a little upscale. And Taylor met the daughter of the owner and fell in love right before our eyes.
Taylor asked if we could stop in Burgos on the way home from the shrine and stay over one night. Taylor ended up marrying her and lives there to this day.
How did the film come about?
When I came home I was telling Emilio that there’s a story there about some old guy who loses a son because I feel like I lost a son on the camino. So Emilio went on his own search, in his mind and heart. He sussed out how to do it, got the financing in Spain, and then filmed it in 40 days in sequence. At the end, as with most father-son stories, the son becomes the father and in this one, the father becomes the son. Tom, the father, is set free. That’s the journey.
The inward journey is a pilgrimage of transcendence; as you walk you hear the inner voice. You walk alone but you walk in community. For the whole journey Tom just wants to be alone. He’s the solo, individual American and these people he meets keep slowing him down and causing delays. He’s dragging these people and it becomes harder and harder, and the harder he tries the harder it becomes. He realizes he is just as they are, and he becomes a father to them and part of a community and he saves his spirit. That journey is not easy: the blisters! You have to lubricate your feet for days and days (be sure to carry Vaseline).
Who do these four characters represent?
They represent aspects of us, like “The Wizard of Oz.” They are on their way to see the wizard, the fulfillment of their hopes, the healing for their pain, and they learn so much. They all want to know why the other is making the journey, and everyone has their own reason for making the camino. They receive their diplomas at the end, and realized they had all that they needed because they just needed “to be.” They were all broken in some way; to be broken is being human; the camino is learning to accept and embrace and acknowledge that we are not perfect.
So many couples make the camino and they start together and then separate on the walk and then come together in the evening to share food, wash clothes; to share life with others -- the greatest journey.
The camino, and the film, show us that we are community and that when we share everything we are nourished. The Gospel tries to teach us that we are never alone, that we are meant to be in community.
The camino is a spiritual and a familial journey.
[Sr. Rose Pacatte is a Daughter of St. Paul, director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Los Angeles, and reviews movies for NCR.]
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the order of Catholic priests who serve St. Joseph Church in Paris. The Passionists serve that church. NCR regrets the error.
Posts
All Comments
