Francesco Cabras and Alberto Molinari are the two directors who made The Big Question. In this interview they explain the genesis of the project and the surreal destiny of the documentary which was a success in the USA, but was not distributed in Italy.
We are between 2002 and 2003 and the shooting of the film is underway in Matera Christ’s passion.
The traditionalist and pre-conciliar Catholic, as he defines himself, as well as director Mel Gibson, is on set to atone for his and our sins. He is not a supporter of the Church, as an institution, and the religious view of him is conservative and uncompromising. He is directing Italian, Bulgarian and Romanian actors, who are required to act exclusively in Latin and Aramaic, in what will become a fierce film adaptation of the Gospel story. The only American is Jim CaviezelThe protagonist.
Christ’s passionreleased in theaters in 2004, is still today the R-17 film that boasts the highest grossing in the US, amounting to 370 million dollars.
But there is another story to tell, which happened in those same days. The spiritual impact, welcoming or repelling, was not only the spectators in the room.
During filming, the atmosphere on set was unlike any other film. The proof comes thanks to the documentary The Big Question which was shot over several days in between takes. Francesco Cabras e Alberto Molinari they had the intuition to ask a question to all those who wanted to answer, actors and workers.
Or rather, the question. As simple and banal as it is profound and definitive.
“God exists?” it is the starting point of an extended conversation on the perception of the divine, which strips all the interviewees before themselves. The result transcends the work that contains it, the directors realize this and adopt an original artistic style to chase that stream of consciousness.
Enthusiastic about the idea, Mel Gibson at first he co-produces the documentary in a majority stake with his company Icon, but when he sees the final version, everything is retracted due to “theological differences”. The film was later purchased and released in the United States. Oddly enough in Italy no one has the courage to bring it to theaters, much less on television.
20 years after its creation, The Big Question was screened at the cinema for the first time on April 12, 2023 in the Barberini multiplex in Rome. The hall is sold out and is repeated with a new date in the same cinema on April 26th.
The documentary resurrects thanks to UAM.TV which inserts it in its catalog and takes it around the country with a series of appointments: on May 9th again at the Barberini, on the 24th of the same month at the Monicelli in Narni, on the 29th at the City Light from Milan. Bologna, Florence, Turin, Aosta, Vicenza, Padua will follow.
Let’s retrace the history of The Big Question with Francesco Cabras e Alberto Molinari.
The Big Question: interview with the authors Francesco Cabras and Alberto Molinari
What roles were you engaged in on the set of The Passion of the Christ?
FC: I was cast by Gibson as Gesmas, the evil thief. Although he has had more than one experience in international productions and is very interested in the psychological work of the performers, I can’t consider myself a real actor and as a director I was more attracted by what happened on the set. A great pride was to have as partner in a mother scene Pasquale, the very old imperial raven, the protagonist of Pasolini’s Uccellacci and Uccellini. It was a privilege to have his eye eaten out by him.
How did you come up with the idea of asking the people working on the film “The Big Question” and then making it into a documentary?
AM: At one point we were traveling a lot around the world and we often thought that we should take advantage of this situation to ask some questions, always the same, to a diverse and multi-ethnic sample of people representing different approaches and beliefs. However, the commitment of the work never allowed us the time necessary to implement these intentions and it remained an idea on the back burner for several years. The evolution of that concept was then to literally place our idea within that impromptu city which is a film set. A microcosm in itself, not accidental, rich in a transversal human selection worthy of a tragicomedy.
How did you manage to convince Mel Gibson to let you carry on with the project?
AM: A small film club in Matera had organized a marathon of Ganga works, the production founded by me, Francesco Cabras and Francesco Struffi, editor and digital artist, co-author to all intents and purposes of The Big Question. Cabras had invited Gibson to the review without putting any hope in it but he arrived staying almost three hours. Strengthened by this precedent, we submitted the idea to him, to his team and to Enzo Sisti, the Italian producer who would later give us great support. Surprisingly after a few days a contract arrived in which Gibson proposed himself as the majority producer. Exactly like it happens in Italy right? Especially in terms of response times…
What was the most difficult aspect of making your documentary that you still remember clearly today 20 years later?
FC: I think the endless interviews. We ended up with about 200 hours of footage including additional shots with Greg the dog. You teach me, keeping energy and attention high in an interview is crucial, especially on delicate topics such as spiritual ones: as soon as you give in your interlocutor disappears instantly, you never get him back. And doing even many a day was exhausting, really. The same, but more on a physical level, was running after the dog up and down the hills of Basilicata. Even the assembly work was complex, almost a year counting it from the first selections.
Was there anything that particularly surprised you about the interviewees’ answers?
FC: At one point the most amazing thing was the apparent banality of the answers. I have to confess that personally I almost got angry at times and it doesn’t do me a great honor. Yet, not to be ecumenical, but a large portion of that banality was so real, pulsating, springing and defenseless that it glowed with humanity. And it was a treasure, because what is trivial can be just as fundamental. I understood this better over time. On the other hand, every time all three of us happen to review the documentary we find new ideas, we laugh or we are still positively surprised by statements that we know by heart, we are probably a bit stupid, but it happens. Then there are some answers that beyond the content have a disarming poetic grace.
When the documentary was completed, you went to present it in the USA. Who did you talk to and what happened?
AM: We went to Venice, LA, to the Icon studios to show it to Gibson. I remember that after leaving the car we literally got lost in the private parking in the basement, a metaphysical and somewhat foreboding situation. To break the ice, shortly after saying goodbye, I turn around and drop my pants, showing my butt and yelling “I am William Wallaaaace!” like he did in Braveheart. I see Francesco blanching and practically fainting. Gibson remains stone for a few moments, then bursts out laughing like crazy. This is followed by a lunch of excellent steaks delivered together with Jim Caviziel, nice chats without badges and a lot of relaxation. Then the vision finally starts. From here the story gets complicated and multifaceted in many rivulets but I’ll try to summarize it. Mel defined The Big Question as a kind of masterpiece from an artistic point of view but did not agree on the contents. He didn’t want a documentary off his set to be based on doubt rather than incontrovertible faith. But this only became clear later. So he blocked it, it should have been released in the cinema and then on DVD but it wasn’t like that. For us it was desperation. We were aware that we had made an independent work and different from the producer’s thought but we believed it was a plus value. We were wrong. In short, terrible months of attempts, negotiations, mediations and above all silences passed. When everything seemed definitively lost, Gibson performs a Beau Geste, renounces the majority of him, gives us the film without demanding cuts, only the prohibition of using his image in promotion. All this because despite everything, he is an ethically honest person, he is an artist and having appreciated our work, he decides to free him. The main train had passed but still another one was arriving. Immediately after the AFI Festival in Los Angeles selects it in competition, Variety dedicates two pages to it with photos, even Tarantino recognizes us at a surreal party. Michael Moore’s agent, Andrew Herwitz, takes it and distributes it with ThinkFilm in US theaters. From there many international festivals, some won, often very rewarding reviews.
Why was it not distributed in Italy?
FC: It has never been released in Italy, neither cinema nor TV. Only on DVD in the splendid Rarovideo series but it is no longer found. I do not know why. We also signed with a large distribution who then retracted. Infinite back and forth that led nowhere, an ancient story and common to many after all. After many meetings and promises, the sensation was that the more Catholic circles saw it as too irreverent or secular, and the more progressive ones considered it a strange unclassifiable object, paradoxically too close to The Passion although it represented in a certain sense, with due proportions, a cultural and stylistic counterpart. But it was very nice to project it in small circles and parishes created by particularly enlightened and free priests. Until today though, because thanks to Thomas Torelli and Uam-TV it is making its small-scale debut in Italian cinemas and on the homonymous platform. A real renaissance.
For some time there has been talk of the sequel, Passion of the Christ: Resurrection, which always appears to be in the pre-production phase. Do you know something that we don’t know? Would you like to be involved?
AM: Every year we get rumors from pretty reliable sources that filming is about to start but it never happens. It seems that 2024 is the right year. After all that has happened, the hypothesis of being involved would be as unexpected as it is welcome. Indeed, everything can be expected from Mel Gibson, and life offers us ideas for The Big Answer or The Bigger Question every day.
