The Camino de Santiago is the pilgrimage that leads from the French-Spanish border all the way to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where as legend has it, the remains of Saint James are buried. The Camino forms the basis of THE WAY, the latest movie from director Emilio Estevez. The story follows Tom (played by Estevez’s father, Martin Sheen), who decides to walk the Camino with the ashes of the estranged son tragically killed in the early stages of the journey. For Tom – and the others pilgrims he meets along the way (including James Nesbitt and Deborah Unger) – this is a spiritual and enlightening experience, and as one character tells Tom early on ‘The way is a very personal journey’. This is, of course, also the case for writer-director Estevez, who is quick to emphasize this point when The Hollywood News caught up with him recently.
‘I know something about losing a son on the Camino,’ says Estevez, whose son, Taylor, relocated to Spain after meeting his wife there. ‘So for me it was a very personal, very spiritual experience. Reconnecting with my son on that level was very gratifying.’
These family connections appear to have been the driving force behind THE WAY, as the story came about from Martin Sheen’s visit to the Camino with his grandson.
‘Martin went there in 2003 during a hiatus from West Wing,’ Estevez tells THN. ‘They only had a very short period of time of just two weeks, not enough to walk it, so they decided to take a car to Santiago and back. Martin came home and started telling me stories about the Camino and started nudging to say “hey, let’s go… let’s do this”.’
In fact, these father-son relationships are very much at the heart of THE WAY, something that was inevitable in the latest collaboration from Estevez and Sheen. And although Estevez is credited as screenwriter on this project, Sheen also contributed story ideas, ensuring that the movie is very much a collaborative piece.
‘I would try to incorporate a lot of his ideas organically into the screenplay,’ says Estevez. ‘He is collaborative but he’s also out there in terms of his ideas and it was up to us to make those ideas became a reality on film.’
We were also fortunate enough to speak with producer David Alexanian, who was keen to stress the importance of Estevez and Sheen’s relationship on THE WAY.
‘The dynamics between father and sons can be pretty tricky,’ Alexanian says, ‘but the tremendous respect these guys have for each other, coupled with the fact they both drove their ideas and opinions in a very strong way… this film benefited from that intense dynamic, it really turned it into something special.’
As such a personal project, it stands to reason that it should be small in scale, with no inflated ideas of grandeur. Estevez confirms that the movie not ony had a ‘nothing budget’, but he also describes it as ‘very guerilla style filmmaking’. Though this wasn’t without its problems, as the crew could find themselves at the mercy of the elements, sometimes shooting with less than one-hundred feet visibility due to fog (at times so dense that cast and crew would walk right past the set).
But filming out in the wilderness is not without its benefits either, as the locations served as a stunning and relatively cheap backdrop to the story.
‘It was hard to point a camera at anything in Spain and not come up with something magnificent,’ Estevez says. ‘There was about fifty-million dollars worth of production design that was just all natural.’
Alexanian is quick to agree: ‘We were very fortunate to find wonderful locations and use them as they were… we only built two sets and they didn’t end up in the film.’
It also sounds as if there was a touch of serendipity involved with the location shooting. Through the crew were warned away from certain parts of Spain due to seasonal heavy rain, it only rained twice, both times whilst they were shooting indoors.
‘We took the word coincidence out of our vocabulary,’ Estevez tells THN ‘There were too many moments of divine intervention…’
There is something else that Estevez cites as a crucial element of THE WAY.
‘As Americans we haven’t been citizens of the world for a long time,’ Estevez claims. ‘We built a wall around ourselves and this movie celebrates Americans once again being citizens of the world.’
And Estevez is very excited about this kind of cerebral filmmaking – having already proved himself as a director on past projects such as BOBBY, Estevez considers THE WAY to be amongst a canon of intelligent, contemporary movies.
‘This year we’re seeing films like the King’s Speech and True Grit,’ Estevez says, ‘movies that didn’t cost a lot of money and that are old storytelling about people. There is a void of these types of films. People are starved for movies that aren’t in 3D and are not about boys talking about their genitals.’
And it isn’t just Estevez that is enthusiastic for this type of movie – producer Alexanian expresses genuine confidence the director’s vision.
‘There’s a lot of heart in the film’, he tells us. ‘Emilio puts himself into the work and I would never produce for another director.’
It’s comments like this that reiterate the fact that this has indeed been a personal and engaging journey for all involved – those in front and behind of the camera, real or fictitious. On the back of this experience, Estevez is optimistic for the future of films. It’s clear that he has been invigorated by the production, and if nothing else, he demonstrates absolute passion for his project, an endearing quality for such a big-name star. And with this passion, the acclaimed director has attempted something subversive and intelligent.
‘The film is a celebration of life,’ he tells us. ‘It celebrates family, community, faith, and storytelling. All the things that Hollywood seems to have abandoned.’
Let us hope tat Estevez continues on this journey, delivering more movies straight from the heart.
