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When talking about making The Passion of the Christ, actor and director Mel Gibson often sounds like his character Graham Hess in the 2002 thriller Signs. The two-time Oscar winner played a disgruntled priest who described two groups of people: those who see God's hand leading them and those who believe only in chance. Hess asks: "Are you the kind to see signs?"

Gibson does. "There are signals. They are as clear as traffic lights. They just grab you and you know you have to listen and you have to follow," Gibson told The New Yorker last fall. He told another reporter that while making his Jesus movie, "a lot of signs shoved me in the right direction. I just had to do this and I have to roll with it even if it's painful at times. But it's like childbirth—[the vision] had to work itself out."

The Passion of the Christ opened in theaters on February 25, Ash Wednesday. Many respected evangelical leaders have hailed the film as a groundbreaking triumph. In its first five days, the film earned $125.5 million dollars—making it the third most successful five-day opening in history. Evangelist Billy Graham said he was "moved to tears" by the movie. "I doubt if there has ever been a more graphic and moving presentation of Jesus' death and resurrection," Graham added.

But not everyone is praising the film. For more than a year, Gibson and his movie have been the subject of heated debate over criticism of anti-Semitism, historical inaccuracy, and Gibson's own faith. The controversy has revealed Gibson as a messy but passionate believer who adamantly felt called by God to film a bold, graphic, and realistic vision of Christ's last 12 hours on earth.

While much of the debate over The Passion of the Christ has centered on Gibson's interpretation of the Gospels, the controversy really starts with his beliefs. A lifelong Catholic who once considered the priesthood, Gibson has long been maligned in the press for conservative views against abortion, birth control, and homosexuality. Though he has earned the support of evangelicals in the promotion of his movie, Gibson adheres to a traditionalist, pre-Vatican II Catholicism that firmly distances his theology from that of Protestants—and even mainstream Catholics.

Gibson often rubs his critics the wrong way because he is notoriously outspoken and brash. He swears frequently, isn't politically correct, and once even threatened the life of a reporter's dog.

"The thing you have to understand is the distance between Mel's heart and mouth is greater than between his imagination and his mouth," Paul Lauer, Gibson's marketing man, told The New Yorker. "He is an artist, and [when] his creative energy kicks in, he comes out with these imaginative, wild things."

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