The Passion

[Jorath Calar]

I want to see... and most likely will.
My interest in it comes purely from a filmmaking point of view rather than religious one.
I read the review Timber posted and the opening scene sounds very intriguing.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Harkoliar: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />yorick ----------------------------- The passion on the other hand is being pilloried for being biblically ACCURATE by nonChristians.

nonChristians? Isnt Mel Gibson a Christian? just curious.. </font>[/QUOTE]Yeah he is... and the film is being lauded by christians, slammed by nonchristians, whereas the last temptation of christ, was criticised by conservative christian elements.

I personally loved TLTOC btw.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: I think this article from today's NY Times makes a good point -- that it focuses so much on its attempt to graphically represent the horror and gore of the crucifixion, that it's really hard to watch. Note also that the reviewer calls out his biggest artistic failure: that the film does not explain what all this suffering was for. I would think it would be important to explain the meaning of the story to the religion, so that it could be accessible to non-Christians, and if Mel in fact failed to do this, it would be a pretty big oversight. I'll probably see it, of course, but there are indications it may have a few flaws.

I think that would be spoonfeeding don't you? It has one objective and that is to show Christ's passion. The reasons why are the subject of an individuals spiritual search don't you think?

[Yorick]

Well I saw it, and while it's not exactly spoonfeeding, the REASON why Christ suffered is pretty clear. It starts with a quote. Satan then taunts Jesus challenging the ability for that reason to be accomplished.

Jesus later says "there is no greater love than one who would lay his life down for his friends".

The reviewer that missed this must have been asleep or unable to read English. Or stupid.

Similarly I found ZERO antisemetism. I did not walk out angry at Jews, I walked out loving Jesus.

In any case there are numerous Jews (apart from Jesus) portrayed in heroic or empathic light. Simon of Cyrene in particular - he is even called "Jew" so we all know the hero is Jewish (sheesh)

The Romans look pretty barbaric, but Jews and Romans all have merciful or compassionate representatives.

It seems there are two movies. One seen by those who know Christ and who have accepted every lash stroke he took as pain in our place.
The other is the person who doesn't know him who finds the violence gratuitous.

Ah.... the violence is the whole point!

Why is it that reviewers and critics seem to ignore INTENT in their assesment of a film. How is a film that is SOLELY depicting the pain Jesus shed, the blood he spilled and the blows he took, supposed to do anything OTHER than show that violence as realitisticly as it possibly can!!!!

It's extrememly annoying to me.

Anyhow, I wept most of the way... my girlfriend wept most of the way through it. It is the most compelling, emotional film I have ever seen in my life. It did present the man I follow. Strength, mercy, will, humanity, love, care, endurance, and deity.

[Timber Loftis]

Richard Corliss Editorial
Time Magazine

Friday, Feb. 27, 2004

Liberals—and being a member of the media, I of course count myself among them—can be a pretty funny bunch. When we are sympathetic to a controversial work of pop culture, we invoke the artist's right to create in an climate of total freedom, whatever feelings of outrage the work may stoke among the ignorati. (That is: other people.) When we disapprove, we talk about his responsibility to the sensitivities and sensibilities of good people. (That is: us.) So, in the aesthetico-religious sphere, we defend Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, which portrays Jesus as a human who slowly learns he's divine, and Kevin Smith's Dogma, a raw comedy about an abortion-clinic worker who is a lineal descendant of Jesus. Anyway, I defended these films in TIME, and I took at face value the testimony of Scorsese, who once contemplated entering the priesthood, and Smith, who describes himself as a devout Catholic, that their films were acts of faith.

The latest film of faith, by the movie industry's other Church-going Catholic, Mel Gibson, has received a frostier, more fulminating response. Critics of the film—and I don't mean film critics— haven't been content with saying they hate the film. Actually, it would be hard for them to do that, since most of them hadn't seen it when they spouted off. (Liberals used to deride those religious conservatives who organized protests of films they hadn't yet seen.) Instead, they wrap their bludgeons in Scripture, or historical citations, or obscure pronouncements from a religious hierarchy, or dark threats of the harm a movie can do. Some of them seem to have have a cell-phone connection to the Throne of Heaven.

God spoke to Andy Rooney; he (Rooney) told us so on 60 Minutes this week. The Almighty roused Mr. Eyebrows from the slumber of the senescent and confided, "Mel is a real nut case. What in the world was I thinking when I created him? Listen, we all make mistakes." Then Rooney had a question of his own for Gibson: "How many million dollars does it look as if you're going to make off the crucifixion of Christ?"

As Bart Simpson would say, that's funny for so many reasons. Only a few weeks ago, movie insiders were confidently predicting that Gibson would lose his hairshirt over this movie—the $30 million of his own money it took to produce, plus another bundle for prints and advertising. Now that the film has registered the highest opening-day midweek gross of any non-sequel in North American box office history, Gibson's supposed to be a panderer, pimping Christ's suffering to audiences who didn't realize they needed to see their personal Redeemer get scourged for the longer part of two hours. You tell me, Andy: How many millions did Cecil B. DeMille make off his silent-film smash The King of Kings? How many billions do the movie and TV moguls make each year portraying, in a manner that doesn't even attempt to be edifying, human suffering, mutilation and humiliation—for cheap thrills or cheaper laughs?

On Wednesday, PBS' Charlie Rose convened a panel of savants to hash out the controversy of the film's purported anti-Semitism and Gibson's provocative and defensive public statements. A hash some of them made of it. Leading the attack, Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens appropriated rhetorical tactics employed by both political fringes. Like some segments of the Christian right when Last Temptation and Dogma came out, he called for a boycott of a film he apparently had not seen. And he exhumed that favorite old pejorative of the Bolsheviks, fascist: he said the movie is "quite distinctly fascist in intention," adding that it is "an incitement to sadomasochism, in the less attractive sense of the word." Hitchens let viewers wonder for a moment which kind he preferred, then clarified his definition: the film, he insisted, is "an appeal to the gay Christian sadomasochistic niche market." That must explain the movie's $23 million opening day. Pretty big niche.

Donning canonical robes, Hitchens found Gibson in violation of canon law. Hitchens declared that "He specifically rejects the findings of the Second Vatican Council," which absolved Jews of culpability in Jesus' death. But the Council "found" a lot of things; what Gibson disputed was not the resolution of the Jewish question but, for example, the abrupt shift in the Liturgy from Latin to the the faithful's own modern language. Another panelist, Newsweek's Jon Meacham, added the observation that "The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued pastoral guidelines about how believers should dramatize the Passion ... almost every one of which Gibson violates." A renegade Catholic, if Gibson is one, would be happy to diss and disobey the bishops. But what other movie has been charged by journalists with such an arcane crime?

Plenty of commentators have criticized Gibson's defense-cum-promotion of The Passion as meso-Messianic. When he declines to denounce his father Hunter, an extreme religious and political right-winger who has in articles and interviews come close to denying the Nazi holocaust, Mad Mel is supposedly seeing himself as the suffering Jesus and his dad as God the Father—He who demands the ultimate sacrifice, He who must be obeyed. Mel has also sounded addled, even paranoid, when he said that making this movie was putting his career on the line. But, as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you can't be persecuted. Every studio turned down The Passion when Gibson shopped it last summer. They stayed away from it because it was too hot, in what Hitchens would describe as "the less attractive sense of that word." That wouldn't mean much for standard religious bio-pics, which are usually financed by church organizations, shown in remote locations and unknown to the mass moviegoing public. But Gibson is one of the world's top stars, whose last 10 major-studio films (since Braveheart) have grossed a cumulative $1.27 billion at the North American box office and a similar amount abroad. Signs, his last movie as an actor, grossed nearly $400 million worldwide. And though he's not on screen in The Passion (except for a closeup of his hand driving the first nail into Christ on the cross), he has made himself the movie's star, poster boy, and chief proselytizer.

He is also, as Hollywood must acknowledge, among the canniest of filmmakers. Braveheart, the last film he helmed, won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. So Gibson might have expected a few nibbles from the major studios for his latest historical epic. Now that The Passion has opened vigorously, and has a chance to become the biggest foreign-language hit in American movie history, the studio sultans might be a tad annoyed with themselves that they turned down a sleeper hit they could have nabbed for peanuts last summer.

Even if the Hollywood hierachy is vexed or embarrassed by the Gospel according to Gibson—you may expect a few barbs thrown his way by Billy Crystal this Sunday at the Academy Awards— it is unlikely to shun him. This is, after all, a business that hires actors and directors who happen to be drug addicts, spouse-abusers and convicted felons. One man convicted of child molestation has directed films for Disney and New Line. Gibson's criminal rap sheet is clean; he is guilty only of standing by his deluded old man and expressing opinions that are less popular in Hollywood than they are in the rest of the country. So my bet is that the studios will keep hiring him, for two reasons. One: they believe in box office, and Mel delivers it for them. Two: they could then boast they have hired at least a token religious right-winger.

Decades ago, Hollywood regularly produced religious films: The Song of Bernadette, The Bells of St. Mary's, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima. The bosses who financed these pictures may not have liked them or shared the beliefs expressed in them, but they had their reasons for greenlighting them. One is that they often made money. Another is that the mood of the country was more pious. Today, a fervent Christian conviction—so often aligned with belligerent conservatism—is, to many in the media, a threat or a joke. They don't understand religious devotion, at least in the less attractive sense of the term. They are much more comfortable producing anti-religious entertainment (all the comedies that make mock of God, Jesus and the clergy) than some sweet sappy Nun's Story.

The attitude goes beyond religion. For better or worse, the current tone is skeptical, derisive and gross. Years ago, American Pie replaced American piety. A lot of movie people don't respect Gibson?s obsession with his Passion project; they are offended by it; fear it. And I'll bet, since the movie could earn huge profits for Gibson and his distribution partners, they resent it.

It happens that I like R-rated movies, South Park, certain naughty songs and dirty jokes — and, with some strong reservations, The Passion of the Christ. And I don't feel threatened that a lot of people who don't ordinarily go to movies have flocked to Gibson's film. Neither should the studios. Religious films could be a tattered genre Hollywood could revive, making a few bucks and a lot of converts to the old magic of movies. At least, it would indicate that liberal Hollywood isn't afraid of serving up the occasional helping of traditional values alongside its usual smorgasbord of guns, fists, tits and smirk.

[Smoothie]

Here are my thoughts:

If you are a believer of Jesus, this movie will be very spiritual to you. If not then it is more a well done interpretation of a major work, the Gospels. Mel has stuck pretty much to the story adding only a few minor effects like the devil character. The brutality of the film is shocking and I think that the reason it is more violent than any other movie I have seen is this. Usually in a violent film the violence is not centered on one person but rather on a war, a series of killlings, on a short ending death scene (eg. Braverheart) In this film you have to see the torture and suffering of one man, and not only that but the effect it has on his family and loved ones. It is emotionally grueling and I cried almost entire time. I wanted to outright sob but that would have been embarraasing in mixed company. Because of the nature of this film it is not a movie I would say has a lot of replay value but by the same token is a movie people should see. There is one scene that just killed me where Mary is overcome and doesn't want to approach Jesus. She is in a tunnel and then she remembers him as a child and him falling and crying and runs to him and then she runs to the son now a man who is her son. That really killed me.

[Yorick]

I agree. I did actually outright sob at one point. My girlfriend was a mess as well.

The intent is issue is still what bugs me. Reviewers seemingly judge a film according to the intent they believe a film should contain, rather than taking the film as it is, and assessing it's merits.

Timber that was a great article. Thanks for posting it.

I for one am glad Mel is being blessed financially. He put his career on the line. A lot of guts that man has.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Yorick: Timber that was a great article. Thanks for posting it. I for one am glad Mel is being blessed financially. He put his career on the line. A lot of guts that man has.

No probs, Yorick. I may be an aetheist, but I wholeheartedly support the benefits religion bestows upon society. I also wholeheartedly support an artist's attempt to portray portions of the bible realistically -- no matter your religion, this text is one of the defining texts of the last 2000 years of human civilization.

Now, on the skeptical side, Mel could have just been a shrewd investor. Regardless, I support his efforts to make his vision of this work into film. I also think his past performance indicates he is a superb director with a keen eye for film.

Additionally, I note that though I may have reasoned myself into aetheism, I nevertheless attended Baptist church and Sunday School as a youth, and am familiar with the story, and I appreciate an attempt at an honest rendition of it. No matter my religion, I consider it one of the greatest stories of true love and true faith that exist on our meaget little planet.

Finally, I reiterate that I have not seen the film -- but I will.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

<font color=deepskyblue><font color=tan>Timber</font> - I also want to thank you for that article. It's good to see someone actually recognizing - and highlighting - the double-standard prevalent in Hollywood regarding "religious films".

<font color=yellow>Yorick</font> - The fact that critics can't seem to understand the "intent" of the film graphically illustrates two points; 1)they have come to expect all movies to follow standard Hollywood forumulas. By the normal "formula", Jesus would rise up and eradicate the Romans AND the Pharisees after He arose from the dead. In Hollywood, the "bad guys" are supposed to die a violent and horrible death at the hands of the hero. But this movie is the exact opposite. Which leads to point number 2)the critics just don't know or understand the story of Jesus, His Life, His Ministry, His Death and His Resurrection.

The critic who said the "intent" of the violence is never explained just shows how little he knows about the Bible. For those who know the story, no explanation is needed.

I just got back from seeing the movie myself. I also broke out in sobs many times...mostly when Jesus' suffering was reflected through the effect it had on Mary. The scene where she runs to him in the street was one point, but the scene where she kisses his feet on the Cross made me cry out loud (fortunately, I was in the very back of the theater).

Other scenes that moved me to tears was Jesus' Grace to the thief on the cross to His side, Peter's realization that he had denied Jesus 3 times, and ALL the scenes with Mary having to watch her first-born son being beaten, scourged, and tortured.

The actor that portrayed Jesus was incredible. His facial expressions captured the Grace of Jesus, yet also expressed the effects of the physical anguish he was feeling at the same time.

After seeing the movie, all I can say is that words simply aren't adequate to fully describe the impact this film will have on those who watch it. As many people have said already, it isn't a movie - it's an experience.

I would recommend that all Christians go see it. No matter how strong or weak your faith, the movie will move you.

Non-believers will have to decide for themselves whether it is worth going to see or not.</font>

[Yorick]

You forgot that he should have Black, Asian and Native American disciples as well as a love affair with Magdalene.

Also, the Jewish crowds should have Palestinians in them (never mind Arabs came to Israel some 600 years later) while there should actually be no reference to Jews owning Israel during this time.

Good call Cerek. Nice post. Peters denial set me off as well.