Interview: Frank Deasy, writer of The Passion

|PIC1|Frank Deasy is the renowned writer, producer and director that the BBC selected to pen the script for its Easter prime time special The Passion.

He spoke to Christian Today about why he particularly wanted to write The Passion and the unexpected journey of discovery that penning the series has been for him.

CT: Were you sceptical at all or concerned that you wouldn't have the freedom to remain faithful to the cross and resurrection of Jesus as the Bible tells it?

FD: It actually happened the other way around. I read in the newspaper that Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC One, wanted to do The Passion as a series across Easter week and I felt very drawn to the project and contacted the BBC, for whom I have written many dramas previously, and asked to be considered.

It is hard to say in those early meetings. It becomes very much a journey, and it is one that is a collaboration as well and one that has to be taken with a measure of good faith and trust and also requires that one is open to being surprised. But what I felt was that the BBC were taking a very responsible position in wanting to do a faithful adaptation but one that worked as a drama for a prime time audience, which is a big ambition, but one that I certainly found exciting,

CT: Knowing that your audience was going to be a mix of Christians and non-Christians what did you feel you wanted to convey - or indeed get away from - in your telling of The Passion?

FD: One of the things I wanted to get away from was a telling of the story of The Passion in which the majesty of Jesus is assumed and one in which a great deal of knowledge of the story and Christianity is assumed.

What I personally was fascinated by was the duality of Jesus in his divinity and his humanity. The more I read about it the more it became clear to me that this is essentially a mystery but his humanity has to be total otherwise he is somewhat of a tourist in his own Passion.

The Gospel accounts do differ. In Mark and in Matthew I found a very human Jesus whereas in John he seems almost all the time conscious of his eternal life. I was drawn by the human Jesus who goes to Gethsemane and pleads for his destiny, for the cup to be taken away, and is essentially met by God's silence. I was touched by the transformation of that pain and suffering into something that is greater and transcends suffering and turns it into something more meaningful through sacrifice and love. So the redemptive story was very attractive to me.






CT: This story has been told many times, and there are many film versions. Did you find it a challenge to write something fresh?

FD: I did find it a challenge to write something fresh. If you look at it purely as a text, the more time one spends with the text the more rewarding it becomes. There is such a wealth in the text that it became fresh for me and new to me and I felt a trust that that would come through in the telling.

One of the things that surprised me to be truthful was how a lot of Jesus' message has become - and I don't mean this in a controversial sense at all - but I would say it has become a vaguely virtuous ideal or a set of strict moral codes that at times can seem quite unforgiving.

The more I went into the Gospel texts the more I found a Jesus who was intensely spiritual and for whom there was a very clearly outlined path of sacrifice itself, of one's own vanity, of one's own ego, of acceptance and sacrifice and unconditional love, that outward giving generosity as a response to the dangers and pain and suffering of this world. I suppose that became a sort of touchstone for me to try and find a way of dramatising it. It is a challenge to dramatise unconditional love because it is not something that one tends to see a great deal of unfortunately.

CT: Did you find it difficult to create suspense in re-telling a story in which everyone knows what happens next?

FD: It is a pretty extraordinary week! And when one includes the point of view of Caiaphas, the high priest who asks for Jesus to be crucified, and the point of view of Pilate it becomes a week that is filled with intrigue and suspense and political manipulation and that is very dramatic.

It is also a tumultuous week in the Jewish calendar. At the time of the Passover festival the population of Jerusalem quadruples and pilgrims flood in from Galilee and all of Judea. So that creates a very chaotic atmosphere that is visually very vivid and strong.

But of course the real suspense is the emotional journey and what became clear to me late on in the writing is that Jesus takes his disciples through this Passion - because it's not only his Passion. In a sense it is all of their Passion. And the week becomes a crucible in which the disciples are forged to become the people they became, the people who carried forward this message, and whether they can let him go, how he helps them to let him go and he also has to find in himself the ability to let them go. Those scenes to me are moving on a human level but they are also very instructive on a spiritual level.

CT: Your portrayal of Caiaphas as the family man is quite a new one. What was your motive behind that?

FD: If one's starting point is that this is going to work as a piece of drama one has to adopt the approach that one would towards any drama, that the audience learns what it needs to know at the very points at which it needs to know it. So they have to learn what are people's motives, what are the reasons why people behave the way they do? What are their goals? Why are they the people that they are? And obviously you have to portray Caiaphas and Pilate to do that.

And the more I began to see Caiaphas from his point of view as trying to protect a theological and social order the more reasonable it seemed to me to portray his family life, that he is trying to protect the people he loves, which is a very human instinct. And it became intriguing to me as a writer and Ben Daniels as an actor to explore how one's own fears and desires to protect leads Caiaphas down this - to him - convincing road. That is one reason.

But the other reason why it became even more compelling is that he acts as a tremendous counterpoint to Jesus and he really illuminates exactly what Jesus is saying. By being a strong and sympathetic opponent to Jesus, Jesus' arguments have to work harder to come across. And that is a great dramatic situation where in a sense it is right against right, rather than a very simplistic right against wrong.

It certainly is a new approach. When Caiaphas is addressing the Sanhedrin it is a very politically and emotionally charged meeting and at one point he asks is it so wrong to sacrifice one man to save the rest, which is a very powerful statement against Jesus having just before said 'I have come to sacrifice myself to cleanse the world of sin'. One illuminates the other.

On a simple historical level it gives a context to the story and gives reasons that we can understand today as to why people would behave the way they do.

But it's ultimately for other people to decide what all of this means to them. My job is to dramatise and humanise the questions and then people bring their own faith, or antipathy to faith or their own lack of faith to watching and they then make their own decisions.

CT: Is that also the thinking behind the open ending?

FD: The thing I enjoyed most about writing the ending was writing the reactions of the disciples and their responses. I didn't want to approach the story with an attitude of appropriating it for some contemporary agenda or point of view. What we wanted to do was try and open it up from inside and do it in a way that maybe threw some new light onto it. But even in doing that I feel the disciples said what I think people would pretty much say today and that is where I feel the strength of the ending is, that they ask the questions I hope the audience will be asking.

CT: Are you worried Christians might quibble over your use of artistic license and where you have had to elaborate a little bit?

FD: I've tried to find a human truth that feels real and that is not always the same as a theological truth and so I would hope that people would be open to the fact they are watching a piece of drama rather than a theological treatise. It's a different discourse.

CT: What do you hope the viewers will come away with from The Passion?

FD: I hope they come away with a sense of the spiritual wealth of the Gospels and the immense spiritual dignity and power of Jesus as a character. But I wouldn't take any credit for that - genuinely! I just hope we have brought it to life in a way that is open and fresh and invites in an audience.