[Gocamino] Subject: Re: More on the movie "The Way"

Sun Sep 19 09:46:32 PDT 2010

Thanks to Grant & Rosina for the updates!
Re Bob's message: for any of you who have Netflix, this film "The Way" is
already in their list of future releases...So soon after it is released on
DVD, Netflix members should have access to it...have had it in my "save"
list for months! I'll let the group know once they post the available date.
A dear pilgrim/hospitalera friend, Marisa, lives in the town of Aoiz, in the
Pyrenees foothills.  There was much excitement in their town last summer, as
the film crew was doing some filming in their local area. It's not precisely
on the Camino Francés, but does have a beautifully preserved Roman bridge
that I think rivals the beauty of the one in Puente La Reina.
(funstuff: Marisa volunteers every August at the Franciscan Albergue in
Santiago at the St. Francis Monastery a few blocks from the cathedral. Her
eldest daughter, also a pilgrim vet, is the town nurse in Valcarlos, tending
the local residents and pilgrims in need. If any of you should ever meet
them, please give them an extra hug from me! Her middle daughter spent last
July/August with me in So.California...and her youngest daughter is named
"Leyre"....yes, the magic of the Camino continues!)
Abrazos to all,
Patricia in California
pbarboni at cox.net

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Today's Topics:

   1. More on the movie "The Way" (Rosina)
   2. Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen Get Spiritual (Grant Spangler)
   3. Re: Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen Get Spiritual (Robert Spenger)

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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:17:13 -0400
From: Rosina <blaroli at aol.com>
Subject: [Gocamino] More on the movie "The Way"
To: GoCamino at oakapple.net, saintjames at yahoogroups.com
Message-ID: <8CD24040C1751B3-1DEC-3788 at webmail-m096.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

TORONTO (Reuters) - Losing funding for a film is any director's nightmare,
but the collapse of Emilio Estevez's planned follow-up to his 2006 movie
"Bobby" now seems like divine providence to the director.
Becoming a victim of an industry-wide funding crisis freed up Estevez to
shoot "The Way", a personal look at a man's spiritual rebirth filmed on a
shoestring budget and starring his father, Martin Sheen.
"It was a blessing," the Catholic-raised Estevez told Reuters on the
sidelines of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film
premiered this week.
The idea of religious destiny is a thematic fit with the film, which tracks
a man's journey along Spain's Camino de Santiago de Compostela -- also known
as The Way of St. James -- a 780 km (485 mile) pilgrimage route through
northern Spain walked by thousands each year.
"As the financing was falling apart and as I was starting to embrace that,
(Sheen) said 'let's go to Spain and make a movie on the Camino'," Estevez
said.
"It wasn't something I was jumping at to do... But over time, we sort of
figured out what the story would be.
Sheen plays Tom, a lapsed Catholic who makes the journey after his
semi-estranged son, played by Estevez in flashbacks, perishes on the trail.
For Sheen, best known for playing President Josiah Bartlet from TV's "The
West Wing", walking the Camino had been a lifelong dream, in part because
the trail ends in Galicia, the northwest corner of Spain where Sheen's
father emigrated from.
Sheen's birth name is Ramon Estevez and the clan also includes "Two and a
Half Men" actor Charlie Sheen.
"I was thinking of a story with two old men and a boy who falls in love on
the Camino," said Sheen, whose attendance at the film's premiere was delayed
because he joined a picket line of striking workers at the Toronto hotel
where he was staying.
Estevez, however, favored a story focusing on a father and son.

"I thought the themes we could tackle in this were bigger," Estevez said.
"Life and death, fathers and sons, community and faith... and the road being
a metaphor for life."
INSECURE
Estevez has tasted critical and commercial success as both an actor in films
like "Young Guns" and "The Breakfast Club", and as a director -- "Bobby",
about the assassination of Robert Kennedy, was nominated for two Golden
Globes.
But he admitted to some insecurity in putting such a personal film in front
of an audience.
"You make a film and you don't know who it's going to appeal to," he said.
As well, his latest effort comes in economic climate much different than
when he released "Bobby" in 2006. "The Way" has yet to land a distribution
deal.

"I had a horrible dream that everyone left the screening," Estevez said.
"There wasn't anybody but a couple of people for the question and answer,
and I woke up drenched in sweat."
Happily for both Estevez and Sheen, the actual premiere followed a different
script, with a long standing ovation from the crowd at the packed
thousand-seat theater in Toronto.
And seats remained full for the Q&A despite a fire alarm that rang through
the final 10 minutes of the film.

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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:49:14 -0700
From: Grant Spangler <gaspangler at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Gocamino] Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen Get Spiritual
To: ?Rosina Wachtel <blaroli at aol.com>, ?GoCamino OakApple
	<gocamino at oakapple.net>, ?Yahoo Saint James
	<saintjames at yahoogroups.com>
Message-ID: <SNT107-W62A005B4154B71C4F6CDFDD97B0 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"

Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen Get Spiritual
9/16/10 at 5:30 PM 

Father and son Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez's latest collaboration is The
Way, a film about a man (Sheen) who walks El Camino de Santiago, a
pilgrimage through Europe, to cope with the death of his son (Estevez). As
with Men and Work and Bobby before it, Estevez wrote and directed the film,
which just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. We caught up with the
pair there, and spoke to them about religion, Twitter, and Sheen's ancient
cell phone. 

Your film just premiered at the festival. Was it nerve-racking?
Estevez: They laughed at all the right places, which is good. Sometimes they
don?t laugh at the right places. But I was standing there sweating like I?d
just run a marathon. 
Sheen: I sat. And sweat. I had a lot of anxiety. We put so much into this
one. And you know we weren?t trying to please anyone. We weren?t trying to
beat anyone over the head. 

Would you say this is a faith-based film? 
Estevez: Maybe. I?m not Catholic. I don?t have an agenda. I wanted to make a
movie about truth more than faith. That it connects with a faith-based
audience is terrific, but in special screenings the secular audience was
saying, ?Yeah man, it?s not about God; it?s about fathers and sons. It?s not
about Catholicism; it?s about spirituality.?
Sheen: And transcendence. 

Martin, you?re Roman Catholic? 
Sheen: I?m a practicing Catholic, but not without being critical. I believe,
as a Christian, that God became human and that?s the genius of God. That the
genius would choose to hide where I would least likely look: myself! But I
find that light, that love, that joy here that I find in you, and in him.
And in everybody. 

Emilio, do you consider yourself Christian?
Estevez: I?m more of a humanist. We disagree about everything.
Sheen: I can?t get him to show the slightest interest in Catholicism. I
invited him to go to Mass with me this morning. 

Why didn?t you go?
Estevez: Why don?t I always go? I?ve been. I think it?s something you have
to come to on your own. At one screening, whether it was in Denver or
Detroit, someone in the audience says, ?What?s your personal relationship
with Jesus?? And I didn?t even blink and I said, ?Like a lot of people in
this room, I?m struggling with it.? Spontaneous applause. 

The film was very earnest. Do you think it?s the right time for a film like
that?
Estevez: I think it?s the only time for a film like that. Where people are
now in terms of the economic crisis, they?re looking at what we think is the
bottom, and I think that?s when people look to film and to spirituality.
What we found is that the stuff ? the computers, the bracelets, the clothes
? all the crap that we?ve encumbered our lives with, it?s really
meaningless. The film?s not full of shit. And that?s rare these days.

What?s your relationship like with ?stuff? ? with iPods and cell phones and
BlackBerries and computers? 
Estevez: I?m not a Luddite, but I?m outside more than I?m on my computer. We
have a micro-farm ? it?s a step up from a garden. We have a pretty extensive
vineyard. We grow about 60 percent of our own food, make our own wine, have
chickens for eggs. 

What about your relationship with this stuff, Martin? 
Estevez: He can?t even program a VCR. And people don?t even have them
anymore.

Do you have a DVD payer?
Sheen: I don?t know. Do I?
Estevez: Yeah.
Sheen: I have no computer.
Estevez: My mother?s in charge of all the technology.
Sheen: I have no interest in the computer. I could care less. I took two
courses and flunked them both and thought, That?s trying to tell me
something. I have a cell phone. 
Estevez: It?s ancient. 

Do you have a Twitter account? 
Estevez: I don?t. I won?t. What I find interesting is that the people that
follow your Twitters are called ?followers.? Talk about false idolatry,
right? 
Sheen: Disciples!
Estevez: It?s creepy.

Would you take it as a very personal rejection, a personal criticism of your
ideas and values, if this film got panned?
Estevez: It?s like giving birth and you?ve raised this baby and we?re
putting him out into the world, and you want that baby to get an A. Or come
back with a gold star.
Sheen: It?s like we groomed a filly who had never come out of the gate, but
we knew we had a wonderful horse. Now a lot of places have barns with
multiple horses and choices, but we only had one. But if you don?t get any
negativity, then you?re not getting an honest response because not
everyone?s gonna love it. 

Have you gotten negative responses at all?
Estevez: No. 

Fuente:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/09/emilio_estevez_and_martin_shee.
html

Buen Camino,

Grant

http://www.ElCaminoSantiago.com
Resources for the Pilgrimage Road to Santiago

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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:03:11 -0700
From: Robert Spenger <rspenger at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Gocamino] Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen Get Spiritual
To: GASpangler at hotmail.com
Cc: ?GoCamino OakApple <gocamino at oakapple.net>, ?Yahoo Saint James
	<saintjames at yahoogroups.com>
Message-ID: <4CD0CD54-8D71-40F9-9D53-E3445739E9A6 at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

The sad part about it all is that it will probably never get distributed -
no matter how well it is received at film festivals. Maybe (and hopefully) I
am over pessimistic, but somehow it seems to me to be highly unlikely that
we will ever get to view this film.

Bob S.

On Sep 17, 2010, at 9:49 AM, Grant Spangler wrote:

Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen Get Spiritual
9/16/10 at 5:30 PM 
Fuente:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/09/emilio_estevez_and_martin_shee.
html
Buen Camino,
Grant

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