cbawlmer, thanks for your comments. I hope you post a lengthier analysis sometime. This movie is second on my ‘must see’ list, right after ROTK.
Concerning Herod – if that characterization was thrown in superfluously, then I agree it sounds anti-homosexual. However, I have heard that Gibson went to a lot of lenght to be historically accurate. Does anyone know of any historical traditions that paint Herod as an effeminate “flamer”? That’s not how I’ve ever pictured him.
I do intend to post a longer analysis of the problems I had with it as a film, and I will contest the “historical accuracy” issue. Sure, he used Aramaic dialogue, but other stuff is less accurate. I meant to get it posted last night, but RL interfered. Sorry!
I realize Herod’s court was probably a party place (he’s the one who had Salome dance and then gave her John the Baptist’s head), but wasn’t Salome his own daughter? If you want to make a point about how raunchy the guy’s court was, couldn’t you show that he wasn’t opposed to watching his daughter do a striptease or some other equally icky idea? But no, this movie shows Herod entering while straightening a long, curly wig on his bald head and makes sure to show a young man reclining on his throne, waiting for him. The implication of homosexuality seems to be the thing above all else that convicts the character as a slimeball.
Keep in mind, what is considered an effeminate “flammer” now, may not have been historically. The egyptians are often depicted that way as well.
Salome was actually his stepdaughter/niece- still pretty icky. I don’t know if Herod swung both ways- wouldn’t be surprised.
I heard that he used the writings of a slightly crazy, Jew-hating 19th-century nun as the basis for much of his film.
I’m not a religious person, but this is just downright eerie.
I just wish they weren’t using such a European-looking guy for this part.
He might have swung both ways; I don’t know. My point was that of all things they could have shown to represent low moral character in a room full of Herod’s drunken hangers-on, they threw that in too. It’s a minor point that irritated me, but was by no means the biggest problem I had with the film. It just made me roll my eyes in annoyance.
I’ve thought about the movie a lot since I saw it and I’ve realized that the main reason the movie bothers me so much is that it had so much potential and a lot of good elements, but they kept making what I felt were wrong turns. I think Gibson was probably so passionate about the subject matter and so determined to get it made that it probably clouded his judgement and objectivity about matters of film technique in a way that material like Braveheart might not have.
Eve, that may be the same visionary nun I mentioned in an earlier post. Gibson didn’t mention the “Jew-hating” part (and I have no info on her).
They are going to digitally make Jim Caviezel’s eyes brown instead of blue in post-production, and they used prosthetics on his nose, but he still makes you look at him among a lot of Middle Eastern extras and supporting actors and say, “Hey, look at the white dude.” If they were going for true historical accuracy, they wouldn’t have had Jesus look like he does in European paintings.
In his Q&A, Gibson mentioned that he had shown the film to Denzel Washington who liked it, but told him, “You know, Jesus was black. We know he was because he called everybody ‘brother’ and he didn’t get a fair trial.” 
I Googled to see if I could find any mention of Herod possibly being homosexual. I didn’t find anything except references to his wife Herodias (who had previously been married to his brother - drawing the criticism of John the Baptist).
Interestingly, I found Herod mentioned in a number of online sermons about homosexuality. About half of those sermons preached tolerance of homosexuality and about half condemned it, but none actually accused Herod himself of being homosexual.
Perhaps Gibson took more liberties with the historical record (such that exists) than I had been led to believe. I’m still anxious to see what he’s done.
That’s discouraging. I’m not religious, but I thought the major “selling point” of this film was that it was going to adhere more closely to biblical and historical texts than other major films had. It’s starting to sound a little too much like “Mel Gibson’s Jesus”. Incorporating his own “meditations” and artistic interpretations created centuries after the fact seriously weakens the defense of “that’s the way it is in the Bible.”
The only remotely contemporary account of Herod that I know of (I don’t doubt there are others, I’m not an expert in this field–I just have a shiny new copy of this one) would be Josephus. The index of my copy of Josephus says that that particular Herod is mentioned in Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of the Jews, and none of the listed passages says anything about homosexuality.
In fact, Book 18 ch. 5 of Antiquities of the Jews says that Herod met Herodias in Rome and proposed to her while she was still married to his brother, and that she agreed to divorce her husband and marry him if he would divorce his wife, which he agreed to do. This suggests to me that there was some mutual attraction going on here, and later, when Herod is banished on suspicion of planning a revolt, she’s treated very generously, but–
Now, this doesn’t mean there were no other tastes involved, or that he was always faithful to Herodias and in love (indeed, the Biblical account would indicate otherwise, although Josephus gives quite a different account of the reason for the execution of John the Baptist), but unless there’s some other source I don’t know about (entirely possible), I don’t see pegging Herod as gay as being based on any historical sources.
(Incidentally, you can find Antiquities of the Jews online at http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/history/antiqjews/ as well as a number of other places, I think. Wars of the Jews is here: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2850
Mel Gibson filmed a resurrection scene as an afterthought?
To be precise she was his stepdaughter, niece, and grandniece. The Herodian dynasty had many uncle-niece marriages; Herodias was the daughter of Aristobulus (one of Herod Antipas’s half brothers) and was betrothed in infancy to her father’s half-brother Philip Beothus (who was roughly the same age) with whom she had Salome. She left him for his much richer and more powerful half-brother (still her uncle) Herod Antipas.
Salome went on to marry her uncle Herod Philip, who was yet another half-brother of Antipas (and one of three sons of Herod the Great who were named Philip). Her sons were the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and great-great-great granchildren of Herod the Great.
Point: while an uncle/niece marriage seems gross to us, it was very commonplace in 1st century Judea. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe uncle-niece marriages were ever condemned in orthodox Judaism, though aunt-nephew marriages [such as the one that spawned Moses] were.)
I’ve never understood the depiction of Herod as a homo in JCS, let alone this one. This was, after all, the man who
1- stole his brother’s wife
2- was so in lust with his stepdaughter that he literally offered her half his kingdom for a nude dance
I don’t think Kyan and Carson would so much as cut Britney Spears in on their book deals if she gave them three lap dances and a private showing of the Paris Hilton tape. Gibson’s always been a homophobe but this is just a pointless knife twist.
I know that Satan is portrayed by a woman in this movie even though he is ALWAYS referred to in the masculine in the Bible.
1- Does the movie explain why this is?
2- How does Satan figure at all? Does this movie depict Jesus’ descent into hell for the three days?
Hey-Braveheart was no picture of accuracy either.
I hated Braveheart.
I’m pretty sure there is nothing in any historical literature accusing Herod Antipas of homosexuality (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
It sounds like a completely unfounded and gratuitous choice on the part of Mel Gibson. Didn’t he also play the death of an effeminate homosexual for laughs in Braveheart?
From what I’ve seen of the trailer, Gibson doesn’t even get the Latin right. He uses anachronistic Ecclesiastical pronunciations instead of the correct Classical ones.
It doesn’t sound like he cared much about historical accuracy to me.
Diogenes, from what I gather, such choices as using Ecclesiastical Latin rather than classical and having the nails through JC’s hands instead of his wrists were based on Mel either consciously or subconsciously deciding to make the movie as a work of traditional Christian art instead of historical accuracy. I read a quote by a priest-consultant which practically admitted as much.
I don’t know how accurate the death of the prince’s boyfriend was in BRAVEHEART but I’ve read the prince was said to have been more interested in guys than he was the Queen & when he mysteriously died after becoming king, the concensus was that she was behind it & good for her.
He deserved to die for being gay? 
DoC, I think the implication is ‘good for her’ because he was an ineffectual King, not because he was gay. I don’t think homosexuality was unknown in the monarchy, but I’m no expert.
Also, I didn’t get the sense that the death of the Prince’s lover was done for laughs. I found it quite shocking (the King abruptly pushed him out of a tower window).
As I see it there is no real need to show it as everyone knows it happens. Whether or not to show it is a question of dramaturgy, i.e. do you want to end to movie on a down (suffering, death, burial etc.) or an up (resurrection).
Gibson apparently thought he could emphasize the essence of the movie better without showing the resurrection, but has since changed his mind. You really have to see the movie to decide which is better, but I really, really hope it was not added because of pressure from financers or distributors as the establishment seems to thin that a movie has to end on an up (Hollywood happy ending).