Thanks all - I too have been wondering whether to see it.
Braveheart style violance is about as much as I can take and yes I did cover my eyes for some parts there.
Thus I will not ever see this movie. I am a very visual person and tend to have nightmares weeks or months afterwards that incorporate the most scariest of the gore. I don’t need more gore shots in my mental library to heighten the frights.
What strange timing. I just watched this movie for the first time last night. It left me with a big “meh”. The bloodiness left me sickened and there was so much violence that is nowhere in the bible, I guess to drive home the point that Jesus really suffered a whole big bunch. I thought the acting, especially in the beginning, was overly dramatic.
$.02
I thought is was an excellent movie. It is very violent, but I think a lot of the descriptions here are exagerrations.
Posted by DiosaBellissima:
I know, but it’s a public-domain story; you can do anything you want with it. An unexpected twist would have been a relief.
furt:
Exaggerations. I don’t think so. The brutality in the movie is as realistic as possible, and committed systematically, slowly, in cold blood. Jesus is beaten, kicked and scourged for what seemed like about twenty minutes, until he’s good and bloody. Then there’s a pause, and you might think he’s done and they’re going to take him back in front of Pilate; but no. Now they bring out the serious scourge, the one with iron hooks, and go to work all over again. Instead of just leaving bloody stripes, the hooks seem to be ripping pieces of flesh off his back. Occasionally a hook will be embedded in the flesh and have to be jerked out with a sharp tug on the whip. This goes on until the entire back of his body looks like bloody steak. Then there’s another pause, and you might think that finally they’re through. But no; they turn him over so they can do the other side.
For me, the most excruciating moment was when they were nailing him up; the cross looks like a standardized product, with pre-drilled nail holes. They’ve already pounded an iron spike through one hand, but now his armspan isn’t quite long enough for his other hand to reach the other nail hole. So they just haul on the rope around his wrist until both his shoulders dislocate and they can nail his remaining hand using the pre-drilled hole. This is filmed lovingly, so that you can almost feel your arms being pulled out.
Great film for what it intended to be- a corrective to the over-sanitary crucifixions of former Jesus movies. A lot of hate has been flung around here unfairly.
However, it may well not be your cup of tea. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is a great film also, but I have female friends I would never expect to watch it.
If you’d like to have a Movie Night later which will raise similar issues as PASSION, ask that another Jesus movie be scheduled- for example, pair LAST TEMPTATION with the original silent KING OF KINGS for a wide historical range of Jesus Cinema.
From your description, I cannot doubt that it is filmed lovingly; I’m just a little confused/concerned as to loving what?
I found it very moving; but I would not expect someone who does not share my faith to have the same reaction. Naturally, it is violent; but without the religious context it is worse than that – pointless violence.
Not every detail of the film is in the bible (although the most violent episodes are - the beating, scourging, and nailing). But the other details are taken from centuries old Catholic tradition - Gibson didn’t just make stuff up to satisfy his bloodlust. It’s true that he didn’t pull back, that’s for sure.
As usual I agree with FriarTed’s comments. I would also add that I found it deeply moving, beautifully made, and very difficult to watch. I am very glad I saw it the first time, but it may be a long time before I want to see it again.
Passion of the Christ Gruesome!!?
Geesh!![euphemism for Jesus]
You’d think people hadn’t ever seen Freddie, *Jason *or Alien/Predator!!
It ain’t a bad movie. More passion than story.
But not good enough to see more than one or twice.
It is fantastically gory, but I thought it has excellent production values, tried its best to accurately depict the time in which it took place, and was shot extremely well.
Even if you’re not a Christian, I think it can serve as an example of man’s inhumanity to man, since even many non-Christians believe that Jesus was a good guy who was unjustly killed in a savage manner (yes, I know others believe the whole thing is made up; that’s for a different thread).
The only change I would have made (as if I would ever embark upon such a project) would have been to end the film with the pietà, which is also perhaps the most beautiful shot of the movie. That marks the real end of the Passion. The Resurrection is not considered part of it and shouldn’t have been included.
I watched it with my dad last Christmas. It was very gory and very sad. For the first time I thought about what it woud’ve been like to be Mary (Mother) and watching your child go through all of this. As a christian I believe in what the gospel preaches, I just had never thought about it as a mom before.
I cried.
I will never watch it again. They showed the main crucifixion scene in my church last Easter and I closed my eyes during most of it.
I think it’s a very disturbing movie, but I think it’s a very important movie.
Now, that aside, are you going to watch Dogma ?
I won’t make an effort to see it, but I won’t make an effort not to, either. And I don’t think I’ll watch PotC.
I saw part of Freddie once; I thought it was disgusting and changed the channel.
In addition to the comments about much of the movie not being in the book, I was most interested when I found out that while the events it depicts are mostly mentioned in the bible (some are invented), it most closely matches a manuscript dictated by one Anne Emmerich, a German nun in the 1800s, that describes her visions of Jesus’s last day. The movie, and this manuscript (what I read of it) are nearly identical - I firmly believe that this is where the blood and gore came from.
To me, this is very telling.
I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago. Either the gore doesn’t translate to the small screen or people seriously need to toughen up. I’ve seen more gore in a Robocop movie.
Beyond that, the movie was just a big steaming pile of “Meh.” I thought it was pretty mediocre, and if it hadn’t been for the hype and the controversy, it would have tanked. Sort of like The Last Temptation of Christ. In both, Jesus came across as an overwrought flake. There he was on the cross bleeding and philosophizing and having flashbacks to really deep moments, and I was on the couch going, “For the love of Ned, just fucking die already!!” Both movies owed quite a bit more to the protestors around the theater than the directors.
FTR, I don’t think it was anti-semetic. It didn’t go after all Jews from all eras, just Caiphus and his retinue, and anyway, I can’t really see how you could make a movie about Jesus’s crucifixion without including the Jewish leaders. Mel Gibson might not be the best storyteller in the world, but he doesn’t strike me as either a nutcase or a Jew-baiter.
It’s not a matter of believing it – I think Gibson has acknowledged Emmerich’s visions as a primary source. In fact, if I remember an interview correctly, he said a copy of the manuscript literally fell on his head at one point, and he saw it as a sign… or something.
I guarantee you Anna Emmerich didn’t come up with that stuff herself, either. It all has precedent in 1500s literature, like Christi Leiden in einer Vision Geschaut, Ludolfus of Saxony, et al. The dislocated limbs, the cross falling after he’s already been nailed to it, the getting whipped until he’s bloody from head-to-toe, the Veronica business, the number of soldiers who whip Christ and what kind of whips they use, etc, are all old old motifs. Those old Christians thought long and hard about all the nasty details possible. Other than the use of film, I doubt there’s a drop of anything in this movie that was invented after 1465.
Even the lame part implying that Jesus invented the chair??
Well now our famous Jew-hater is making a TV mini-series about the holocaust.
I imagine some of the “Mel hates Jews” crowd won’t be satisfied until Mel voluntarily nails himself to a cross.
I really liked this movie. However, some aspects of it were really off-putting:
I agree with Friar Ted - while the film was gory, the depiction of the crucifixion and surrounding events in that way was probably closer to the mark of what actually happened and we’re just used to overly-sanitised versions from earlier Jesus movies.
The scene referred to in an earlier post where Jesus falls and Mary has the flashback to when he fell as a child absolutely slayed me. I’m thankful I saw the film in a near-empty cinema with nobody sitting anywhere near me because I was just howling in that bit.
That is the exact scene I was thinking of and the whole “Mommy’s here” feeling behind it.
I sobbed.
I’m sure that all the violence is much more realistic than what is usually shown in movies, but why would that change my aversion to it? I agree with much of Jesus’ teachings, but I’m not Christian. Maybe if I were, I would feel differently about watching PotC, but I don’t see the appeal of watching someone being tortured.
Unless it’s Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day; that was a little sexy. I’m a bad, bad person. slinks away
Apropos of nothing, this is my most sucessful thread ever. Yay!