Spirit Daily
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[NOTE: the following article is from Assist News Service. We must warn that John Debney's reaction to demonic attack -- in trying to engage it in conversation or challenge -- is not advised whatsoever; we warn strongly against that. We present his account, however, as an insight into spiritual battle]
Friday, February 27, 2004
A PASSION FOR MUSIC…A BATTLE WITH SATAN
John Debney, who wrote the score for The Passion of the Christ, reveals his
spiritual battle while working on the music for Mel Gibson’s powerful movie
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
BEVERLY HILLS, CA (ANS) -- John Debney is used to writing
movie scores for comedies like LIAR, LIAR and BRUCE ALMIGHTY, but he admits that
composing the score for Mel Gibson’s powerful movie, THE PASSION OF THE
CHRIST, was the most difficult assignment of his life.
For it turned out to be a battle between good and evil that he had never
experienced before in some 20 years in Hollywood.
“I don’t think I will ever be given the opportunity to write again for a movie
as powerful as this one,” he said during a recent media interview in Beverly
Hills, California. “I was stretched every which way but loose. I was stretched
by Mel Gibson. I was stretched by the Guy Upstairs and also I was stretched by
the guy downstairs. What it did was completely strengthen my faith and I have
realized something very interesting. I had never before subscribed to the idea
that maybe Satan is a real person, but I can attest that he was in my room a lot
and I know that he hit everyone on this production.”
Debney said that the battle he felt with Satan as he wrote the music became
“really personal between us.” He went on to say, “I had all these computers and
synthesizers in my studio and the hard drives would go down and the digital
picture that lives on the computer with the music would just freeze on his
[Satan’s] face. Then the volume would go to ten and it would happen all the
time.
“The first time it happened, it scared me. Once I got over the initial shock of
that, I learned to work around it and learned to reboot the computers and so I
would start talking to him.
“There was one day when I had been on the movie for about four months when it
really became bad that day and a lot of things that were causing doubt in me and
I had had enough. The computers froze for about the tenth time that day and it
was about nine o’clock at night and so I got really mad and I told Satan to
manifest himself and I said, ‘Let’s go out into the parking lot and let’s go.’
It was a seed change in me. I knew that this was war. I am not a physical
person, but I was really angry on this occasion.
“I am up on the second floor and on the bottom floor of my building there are
therapists and they see patients until midnight and their windows are right at
the parking lot and I was coming down the stairs and I had had it. I had booted
everything down and saved it and I was walking down the stairs and I was
verbalizing and saying to Satan, ‘Manifest yourself right now.’ As I am walking
out and saying, ‘Come on, let’s go now,’ I looked over and I could see someone
looking at me and I realized how silly I must have looked.” He didn’t manifest
himself, but I wished he would have. It changed for me after that.”
HOW HE FIRST GOT INVOLVED
John Debney explained that he was first brought into the movie by Stephen
McEveety, a producer on the movie. (Pictured:
John Debney talks about his
spiritual battle).
“The way God works is very mysterious,” he said. “This gentleman is life-long
friend who happens to work for Mel Gibson and Icon and he and I grew up on the
same street together in Glendale, California.”
This resulted in Debney writing some special music for the movie and Gibson then
came over to his office to listen to it. The next thing he knew, he was hired to
write the score.
“If you were to draw up a list of composers who would have been perfect for this
movie, I don’t think I would be on it.. It is a complete miracle that I became
involved with the project and every day the thing that go me through was my
faith prayer which was, ‘Lord, if you want me to make it to the finish line,
then help me make it to the finish line.’
“That was my journey. I started working with Mel Gibson and I found him to be
incredibly intense,” he said. “He’s incredibly demanding but he was also
incredibly collaborative.
“When I asked him what it was like to watch the horrendous suffering of Christ
day after day, he replied, “It was very difficult and I can describe the process
that I went through. I had to at times divorce myself from the visuals at times.
You can imagine, day in, day out, you are watching this incredibly powerful
journey that Christ went through, it was very difficult for me and I was able to
get past it and realize that it was a movie; that really wasn’t Him there
although the movie was very powerful and beautiful and a wonderful
representation of Him, so that kicked in and it was an intellectual process,
although it would obviously still get the best of me from time to time.
“For instance, I would be working on a certain scene, like when Mary flashes
back to the baby Jesus falling down, and I would see it 20 times, and then I
would see if for the 21st time I would just start to weep because it is so
elusive, the power of this film. That was way I would get through it. It was
difficult; it was uplifting. I would sit there and try and write a piece of
music on Jesus being hammered to the cross. So there has to be a little bit of a
disconnect. I had to distance myself enough and trust that He would tell me what
to do and everyone on the music say that day in and day out, it was extremely
difficult.
“I would imagine that we all worked as hard as we ever could. We were all
exhausted as we could ever be, but oddest thing was as exhausted and physically
drained that I was, I never got tired. I would be exhausted and yet I would find
myself in my studio at midnight.
“My studio is a lovely room and I have a work station with my keyboard. I write
everything at a keyboard now. Technology has got so far in the last few years
that I sit at the computer and realize the score. And what I mean by that is
that I wrote and I orchestrate at the same time. So that when Mel Gibson comes
and sits in the room, he will hear a piece of music that is fully orchestrated;
it’s synthesized orchestrated. He’ll hear the obo, and then the clarinet and the
strings, and so literally, I am composing note for note; instrument for
instrument.”
“So I have the screen in front of me with the visuals and then I have the
speakers and computer screens that have all my synthesizer information on it. So
my virtual orchestra is in a box and I just pick my instruments.
“What I was trying to do with the music was to write first of all the best that
I could write and try to be true to the period, so I tried to utilize
instruments from the period so there are a lot of ancient instruments in the
music. In the bigger picture, I gave it all up to the Lord and whatever came
out. I didn’t have a lot to do with the writing of this music. I have done a lot
of music, but literally things would just come out.
“I was tested. I once said to Mel, ‘With every lash that Christ felt, I was
feeling those lashes in my own way.’ I was sorely tested.
He then talked about doubt. “What happened with this movie was that I started to
doubt myself,” he said. “Mel started to doubt me and there was a lot of it going
around. You can imagine how important this film was to Mel and God bless him for
having the courage to do it. But during my working with him musically, he would
say things to me like, “It’s really good, but I want it to be great.” And I had
been up days and that the kind up for days.”
For those who have seen the movie, we can all say that despite all of the
spiritual battles that he went through, God used John Debney in a powerful way
to bring home the visuals in an incredible way. His passion for the movie really
paid off.
For more information on John Debney, go to
www.johndebney.com
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