Along the Way

by Martin Sheen

  “You gave me your word!” Helpless and furious, I’m weeping and screaming. I drag my arm up across my eyes to wipe away the tears.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he yells. “For God’s sake, can’t you be a good sport about this?”

  A good sport? A good sport? He lied to me and he won’t even admit it. He lied to me and he’s being dishonest. I don’t know which is worse.

  “I’m out of here!” I shout defiantly. I don’t know how I’m going to leave on my own, but I’ll find a way. I’m going home. That’s all I know.

  “You’re not going anywhere! You’re staying right here!” he hollers back.

  When my father rages, he can shout. But I’ve been holding my rage in for a long time, and tonight the lid is off. His rage doesn’t compare to mine. Not even close.

  “You lied!” I roar. “You lied!” I charge at him in a blind fury. He grabs me in a restraining hold, and suddenly—thwack—we’re both down hard on the wood floor, wrestling for our lives. He’s strong, but I am, too. We kick and roll around, giving it everything we’ve got. My head knocks against a plank on the floor. I throw him off me and tackle him again.

  “You lied!” I shout.

  Coming from behind us, I hear a rapping sound, knuckles against wood. Someone’s at the door? Then more knocking, louder this time.

  “What’s going on here?” a low, calm voice asks. “Is everything all right?”

  We look up from the floor. It’s Marlon peering in through the door screen. Shit. He heard us. I notice all the cabana’s windows are open, covered only by thin screens. Shit. That means everyone in the compound has heard us.

  My father and I both rise slowly, brushing dirt from our clothes. “It’s fine,” my father tells Marlon. “Everything’s fine.”

  Our fight that night remains one of the lowest points in our relationship. It was the only time we ever came to blows. The explosion was terrible but in retrospect, necessary. It showed me how determined and how strong I was as an individual. It also helped my father understand I was no longer a son who would quietly follow him everywhere he needed to go. I had a life that extended beyond the family now and a right to participate in it.

  A son’s struggle to free himself from a father’s influence can be a messy job. He has to push against the father’s authority to come into his own. The father’s struggle is no less difficult, but his is an internal one. He has to be willing to let the son separate and become his own man. Trying to hold on only stifles the relationship. It doesn’t give it a chance to grow. But the son doesn’t love or respect his father less for letting go of him. He winds up loving and respecting him more.

  With my mother’s help, my father realized the time had come. As much as he wanted to keep the family together, as much as he wanted to hold on to me for longer, he knew he had to let me leave. I said my good-byes to Laurence, to Jimmy Keane, and to Renée, Charlie, and Ramon. Within a week, I was on a plane bound for home.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MARTIN

  1976

  Emilio was right. I had no intention of letting him leave the Philippines before production ended. Every time he asked me about leaving I offered up a vague excuse. I was stalling for time, and he knew it.

  What were the options? I felt as if I were trapped inside an impossible dilemma. I couldn’t go back to California with him in the middle of the shoot, everyone knew that. No one, me especially, had thought we’d be filming in the Philippines for this long. Now there was even talk about breaking for Christmas and returning in January with a smaller crew for the final sequences. That meant we wouldn’t be done until next spring, possibly. For better or worse, I had an Old World belief that the kids were better off with me, wherever I was. If something went wrong with one of them I’d be there, and if something happened to me, they’d be there. We’re a family, I told myself. We have to stick together through this.

  But mostly, I would have done almost anything to avoid being in the Philippines alone. I was afraid that, if I let Emilio go, the other kids would want to follow, and then Janet would have to go with them. I’d been so unprepared for the experience on every level, from the abrupt departure from Rome to the physicality of playing the part to the realities of daily life in the jungle. It was an enormous film and I felt I had to carry the weight of it emotionally while all my weaknesses were exposed. And then there was my drinking, and my constant anxiety. It was a very risky situation for me and I couldn’t trust myself to resist the temptation to drink and misbehave if I’d found myself alone. But I also knew it wasn’t fair to expect Janet and the kids to stay just to keep me in check.

  Emilio was right about this, too: It wasn’t just about me anymore. When he shouted at me in the cabana, I knew he’d seen right through me. By focusing so tightly on myself I’d been ignoring him. I hadn’t realized how much his routine had been disrupted and how much he needed to get back to his own life. I had such a singular focus on myself and my career, I just assumed the kids would adjust and make friends in whatever new environment we brought them to. I didn’t pay much attention to how they were getting along or if they were unhappy. I just assumed that as long as they were with Janet and me, they were fine. Again, I didn’t make any plans. And this time, it showed.

  Instead of being honest with Emilio about going home I kept pushing his needs aside as if they were less important than mine. When the ego gets involved to that degree, the outcome is rarely good. It’s no wonder we came to blows that night. Emilio was blaming me, I was blaming him, and there was nowhere else for us to go. When he couldn’t convince me to listen, he had to get my attention somehow. Taking a swing at me worked. It was an act born of frustration and desperation. He couldn’t get me to notice his distress any other way.

  It was so strange to find myself rolling around on the floor, wrestling with my oldest son. It’s never a good idea to engage your children physically when they’re angry and emotional, but Emilio was wailing and weeping, and I was trying to control him, to keep us both safe. We weren’t punching each other and I wasn’t trying to hurt him or conquer him. I was just trying to contain him. Then Marlon came down from his cabana at the top of the hill, asking, “What’s going on here? Is everything all right?” He feigned innocence, but he was a father as well and knew exactly what was going on.

  I was so embarrassed to be seen by Marlon in such a compromising situation that I stood up and ended the struggle immediately. If he hadn’t materialized with his gentle inquiries, I don’t know where we might have ended up. We were both so angry and out of control it took someone from the outside to break it up. Marlon never even came into the room. He didn’t have to. Just seeing him at the door brought us to our senses.

  Not long ago, at my oldest grandchild’s graduation party, I saw a father in the audience interacting with his two young sons. The older one was about thirteen and the younger maybe ten. The older son had been playfully taunting his father all afternoon. He was brushing against him, swatting at him, and pulling on his shirt. “What do you want?” the father would ask, and the son would say, “Nothing.” Then a few minutes later he’d start playfully swatting his father again. The father was a good sport about it, but eventually he started getting annoyed. And I thought, Oh dear, no. Just receive your boy.

  Boys who have good relationships with their fathers at that age challenge the fathers in many subtle ways—emotionally, intellectually, and sometimes physically. It’s not an affront to the father because he’s always going to win a physical contest. But the boy has to know the father is receptive to this kind of play. It helps him come into his own as a man and to start exerting his independence from the father. It’s almost a tribal rite of passage, part of the initiation by which a boy becomes a man.

  The physical part of this relationship is important. Fathers and sons need to brush up against each other, whether it shows up as a friendly slap instead of a high five, or the son choosing to tackle the father during a football game instead of
tagging him. It’s personal, it’s direct, and it’s meaningful for both males. I received this from all three of my sons at one time or another during their adolescence. For example, on the basketball court they would slam into me unprovoked. I would see it coming and brace myself. It always carried a sense of, Look out! It won’t be long before you won’t be able to whoop me!

  The thirteen-year-old boy at the graduation who was swatting at his father was doing it out of affection. He was saying, Give me my attention as a man now. I’m no longer a little boy. You used to pick me up and hold me. Now I just want to be able to playfully challenge you and know that it’s okay.

  Because the father is the last line of authority before the son goes out into the world, the son has to learn from him that he’s capable of dealing with other male adults with confidence on every level. If he doesn’t have that confidence, everyone notices that he’s psychologically wounded. All his insecurities, all his imperfections become apparent. Such men project their darkest fear-based secrets when they go out into the world and their weaknesses are clearly visible. Bullies who persecute weaker kids have often been bullied or persecuted themselves, usually by a male head of the family. The message the bully has received is “This is what you have to do to get along in the world,” and he does unto others as has been done unto him. But if a boy is allowed to be physically playful with the father without fear, to trade punches with him, to arm wrestle with him, to bang into him on the basketball court or roughhouse around without being punished, to have no fear of physical contact with a male authority figure—this helps create a healthy child who doesn’t become aggressive. On the contrary, he becomes compassionate and confident. That unique type of male physical attention is necessary to foster confidence and growth in a boy, but it can happen only if the father is aware of this and able to respond.

  In my thirties, as the boys were coming into their teens, I was still primarily focused on my career and my own needs. The night when Emilio came at me in the Philippines was a startling revelation. He had discovered how dishonest I could be and how hurtful that was. He made me realize he’d reached an age where he needed something different from me. He didn’t need my approval or my protection the same way he once had. Now he needed my blessing. He needed me to allow him to separate and stay connected at the same time. And he needed my honesty. He needed me to be empathetic, just, and fair.

  Unfortunately, his needs came at me at the most vulnerable period of my life. It’s difficult to convey what it was like performing in that film, at that time, in that place, to travel emotionally deeper and deeper into the heart and mind of an assassin and to do it under the pressure of being over schedule, over budget, and at the breaking point of physical endurance. At some level, I suppose, art became life and life became art and I started losing sight of which was which.

  All of us did, I think. That was part of the brilliance of the film, no doubt, but it came at a great cost to those of us involved. In 1978, when Apocalypse Now was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where it shared the prestigious Palme d’Or prize, Francis told the audience, “My film is not a movie. My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It’s what it was really like. It was crazy. The way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane.”

  When you lose a sense of the border between reality and illusion, you enter a different state of being. I would retreat into the mindspace of Willard for days or even weeks at a time, and I know that had a negative effect on everyone I loved at home. I think especially of the impact it had on the three boys, who were moving into and through their teen years right then. A son who doesn’t get the special blessing he needs from his father, that he can get only from his father or father figure, will go looking for that validation elsewhere. He’ll have to go outside the family to learn he’s a worthy individual, that he’s cherished and loved. I got that blessing from my father through actions rather than through words. Still, I got it. Did my three sons get it from me? And what about Renée, the youngest and the only girl? What was her inner reaction to all that went on and what were her needs? Only they could answer those questions, and I had to allow them to do so, in their own time. But if they were going to challenge me in the same manner as Emilio, I had better be more prepared.

  EMILIO

  Bodega Cune, Haro, Spain October 2009

  When we announced that we’d be shooting in northern Spain for forty days in September and October, ten out of ten Spaniards told us we were out of our minds.

  “It won’t rain frequently,” they warned us. “It’ll rain every day. And if it doesn’t rain every day, it’ll rain twice a day.” They told us we’d be lucky to get half our filming done in that time. “Make the film next summer,” they said. “Make it next spring,” but we couldn’t wait till then. We already had everyone on board for the fall, and we had to do it then, rain or shine.

  Since leaving St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port three weeks ago we’ve been moving steadily west along the Camino, and so far we’ve had only one day of rain. Taylor says it’s the driest autumn he’s seen in his six years in Spain. The Spanish crew says this weather is a minor miracle. Even more providential is that the day it rained we were scheduled to film an interior scene. We never had to go outside.

  Today’s forecast also calls for rain but the sun is shining brightly when we arrive at our location. We’re filming in the town of Haro, in the northern province of La Rioja, known for its wine production. Haro is a few kilometers off of the Camino and for today’s shoot we’ve chosen a bodega—the local word for winery—that frequently attracts pilgrims. Bodega Cune dates back to 1879 and has buildings and wine cellars positioned around a courtyard. The layout is reminiscent of a small town square, which is the look we’re going for. The sequence calls for Tom and his small band of fellow travelers to stop at the bodega for a few bottles of wine, where Tom gets drunk and airs his grievances against the others. He becomes so loud and disruptive that the local police cart him away.

  At this point in the film Tom is traveling with the three pilgrims who’ll accompany him for the rest of his journey: Joost the Dutchman; Sarah the Canadian; and, most recently, Jack the Irish journalist who suffers from writer’s block, played by the Irish actor Jimmy Nesbitt. I modeled the character after the author Jack Hitt, whose deeply insightful and hilarious 1994 book about walking the Camino, Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route into Spain, was my inspiration as I wrote The Way.

  We take some time setting up to shoot in the bodega’s courtyard, where Tom and Sarah have a scene at an old grape press. Deborah and my dad rehearse their lines and then nail the scene for the cameras. The next sequence calls for the whole group to sit together at a table in the courtyard, where relations between them start to get tense. We’re just about to begin filming when the sky opens up and rain comes pouring down.

  We chose this bodega also because it has partial cover, a feature that turns out to be useful. We move the shoot to a table on an open-air patio with a tiled roof, protecting us from the rain.

  A director may wish to have a $100 million budget or six months to spend on location, but that’s not usually the case. Instead he has to assess his situation realistically. “What are our resources? Who are the players? What are they capable of? Where is the setting? How many days do we have to shoot? Do we have a chance of making it work?” Independent filmmaking is a zero-sum proposition, which requires creativity. After thirty years in the business I like that I can look at a scene and say, “On this budget, on this schedule, there’s no way we can do it without sacrificing something else.” The question then becomes, “If the scene is important to include, what are we willing to sacrifice to make it happen?” Directing a film is a series of constant compromises. Every day on set I have to ask, “What will this choice cost us?” Not necessarily in a financial sense, but what will it co
st us in the long term, given our ultimate goal? My most important role as a director is to make sure the film’s original vision isn’t compromised.

  So far, our experience with The Way has been different from any film I’ve made. It seems that every obstacle we’ve encountered somehow opens new and better doors. Maybe it’s because this is the first time I’ve looked at events that can be considered an inconvenience and instead thought, This could be an opportunity. For example, we’d originally planned to film Tom arriving in Spain by airplane, but we couldn’t get access to an actual plane. The only airplane offered to us looked like a shabby version of a 1970s Aeroflot jet and rented for 20,000 euros a day—the equivalent of $30,000 in 2009. There was no way we could make that work.

  Thinking about other options, I realized it didn’t matter whether we showed Tom arriving in Madrid by airplane or arriving in the Pyrenees by train, so we filmed the scene on a train coming into St.-Jean instead. The camera rolled as the train passed through a tunnel and captured beautiful footage of Tom’s face emerging from the darkness and becoming bathed in sunlight. Then at the railway station in St.-Jean we were able to film real pilgrims getting off the train to start their journeys. We never would have gotten those images if we’d stuck with our original airplane plan.

  Today at the bodega, our new and accidental set under the tiled overhang works even better than the setup on the grassy courtyard. On the patio, the four travelers have to sit in closer proximity, which makes for a more intimate exchange. For this scene my father, who hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in twenty years, has to transform himself into a belligerent drunk. I can tell this scene reminds him of how he used to behave after having a few, and he’s not happy about having to do it.

  “Do we really have to do another take?” he asks. “It’s so uncomfortable, and I’m so embarrassed. I just hate going there.”