Um… Richard Donner directed the “Lethal Weapon” movies. Shane Black wrote them. Mel Gibson was an actor in them. He didn’t have any particular creative control, unless you have some source of information I don’t. The scene you refer to was written by someone else and directed by someone else. If your ire is anything other than baseless, it should be directed at Richard Donner or Shane Black. Gibson was simply doing what the script told him to do.
I didn’t think “Chicken Run” was simmering with repressed rage, at least not from his character. I thought “Pochantas,” while not a master of historical accuracy, was not overtly angry. But perhaps you meant to exclude his voice-over work.
“Forever Young” was simply a love story with a time-travel twist. What was the raging moment in it? “Bird on a Wire” was a romantic comedy pairing him with Goldie Hawn. I think it’s rather astonsihing to claim the movie was filled with a fury subtext. So, to, with “What Women Want,” a romantic comedy with Helen Hunt.
Would you care to take a second look at this critique of yours?
Bricker
It’s not exactly an opinion I can justify with innumerable cites because it’s “just a feeling I get.” The Lethal Weapon series, Payback, and perhaps Air America, Ransom and the Road Warrior all have incredibly mean-spirited scenes above and beyond what is reasonable for dramatic effect. I’m aware that he didn’t write or direct any of these, but the parts were written for him (at least in the first 2), and he certainly seemed comfortable in the role (not to mention the influence that he has on the set and script). I also remember hearing about him cornering Tom Cruise at a Hollywood party, telling him off quite vociferously about the ridiculousness of Scientology. He’s also obsessed with The Three Stooges which, imo, is sadistic even for slapstick. My use of superlatives in describing the subtext of anger was a bit much but there is a good deal of it.
This thread illustrates perfectly the core of the problem with Mel’s film:
A metaphorical life (the symbology of Christ’s crucifixion) cannot be portrayed
in literal terms without fatal loss of meaning.
For example:
Many, many people were crucified and probably in much more horrific ways than Mel’s film shows. So to try and portray Christ as being “especially crucified”, i.e. having suffered and died ‘more’ (than others), is silly. Mel apparently is focused on this literal translation, as are most Fundies.
Thus it loses the point.
The symbols in Christ’s death have great meaning, in context with his teachings. On their own, they are just (as has been appropriately said) a “snuff film”.
The symbols of virgins in heaven have great meaning, in context with Islamic teachings. On their own, they are a suicide bomber’s ignorant death.
You cannot make the sacred profane. If you think you can, then head on up to the North Pole and start looking for Santa.
Let us know, Mel, when you find him.
What beajerry said. Braveheart, for Bricker, which I loved but which I always have trouble recommending because of the straight-up violence in it. Gibson directed that movie.
As for the theology, the original idea of Christianity was this: you don’t have any obligation to show how good you are to anyone else, as long as your deeds are good. This movie is rather diametrically the opposite of that thesis.
So besides that, I have to say, tracer, you’re a sick f*ck. And, apparently, a good man (woman?).
I disagree with beajerry that the film paid short shift to the teachings of Jesus. The brutality of the film is so effective, and important, because it throws those teachings into sharp relief. It is one thing to know that Jesus preached compassion to your enemies. But to cut away from him being hideously tortured to him preaching forgiveness highlights the importance of that teaching in a way no other treatment of this material has ever been able to do for me.
Certainly, the film puts more emphasis on the suffering than on the compassion, but I don’t think this is necessarily a flaw. I think Gibson was trying to correct what he perceived as an imbalance in the perception of Jesus, which in the modern day has focused more on what he preached, and not enough (in Gibson’s opinion, at least) on what he was willing to suffer through for the message he was trying to communicate.
So, what, should Mel have simply lied about it? Pretended it was really all the evil ROmans start to finish?
Ah, so the existence of any facts contrary to your viewpoint only proves you right. Sure. :rolleyes:
Why not? Jesus’ death was for our sakes. It is fitting that we slew him in the most vicious manner we could find. Jesus trusted in God, the self that was and would be again.
It was not the order of God that created these events, but the choices of those who participated. Mary was not forced to be there. She chose to. Jesus chose to do what he thought was right, knowing the consequences would be dire; but also, that it was the will of God.
We don’t know why God chose that moment. Maybe He had asked a hundred women in the course of history, and all had refused his offer - what person in their right mind would take the Lord up on it? Perhaps if Mary had refused, the movie “the Green Mile” would be a bit more literal. But if it had been any other moment, you would still ask the same question. If ti had been any more peaceful, people would wonder how a being like God could have so little sense of metaphor, perhaps thinking that God should have made it more meaningful.
Smiling Bandit…I appreciate your debate over the issues. But when you consider what the Gospels wrote 60 or more years after Christs’ crucifixion as fact, then I have no response.
All of us can go on and on trying to explain how pure unmitigated sadism resulting in the death of Christ frees the rest of us from our sins…but other than just believing this at face value does not make sense to many of us.
It’s not a matter of wether they’re historical fact, it’s a matter of understanding what someone else’s religon preaches. If you want to accuse Mel Gibson of anti-Semitism on the basis of this movie, then you must also accuse the entire Roman Catholic church of anti-Semetism, because this film is nothing more than a largely accurate portrayal of their beliefs.
However, neither do you have to be a Christian to understand the theology on which it is based. I, for example, do not believe that Christ died for our sins, or that he was the Son of God, or that there is such a thing as this God person in the first place. This was not an impediment to my enjoyment of the film, or my ability to understand the message it was trying to communicate. As I’ve said before in one of the many other threads on this subject, you do not need to believe in the Force to enjoy Star Wars, nor do you need to believe in God to enjoy The Passion of the Christ.
I agree with the OP, in fact the first thing I said when I left the theatre was “this is one sick twisted film”.
What the hell did Mel Gibson intend to leave his viewers with? Feelings of inspiration? Hell I wasn’t inspired by watching Jesus being beaten and bloody for two hours. And its not supposed to be a “documentary” (hence the inclusion of Satan), to which I ask, what exactly was this film supposed to accomplish?
Hell if Gibson edited The Passion down to 30 minutes or so and actually wrote a REAL epic with the re-edited version tacked onto the end, THEN I might respect and be moved by this film.
But shit, I know all about Jesus and his background and this movie failed to give me any reason for caring about him on screen. Moments like him falling down as a child helped me feel a small connection, but really we’re just watching some guy falling down in slow motion like 27 times before he finally gets snuffed.
As an artistic endeavor, the Passion might have succeeded in some of its intentions. But I got nothing out of it, nothing made me emotionally-invested in what was happening, which is nothing more than a brutal beatdown of a prophet that (for a reason not explained in the film) everyone wants to tear limb from limb.
Trash. And yes, its sadistic. Ironically I’m a big fan of seeing guts splatter on the silver screen, but because of its poor construction and overly-repetitious sadism, the Passion failed to elict any measurable emotional response from me whatsoever. Except of course, disgust at the way the subject matter was handled. Why did it have to be the last 12 hours? The last week would’ve added much needed substance to this dreck.
The previews were enough to turn my stomach so I won’t be seeing “The Passion of the Christ.” I’m a christian, too so I suppose that makes me wimpy. FTR, I didn’t see “Schindler’s List” either, which was supposedly a wonderful movie. I just didn’t feel like spending an evening being depressed by the utter wretchedness of the human soul. I’d rather watch “When Harry Met Sally” than to enter into another funk that followed me for weeks after I saw “The Elephant Man.”
Why can’t people just be nice to each other? Or at the very least, not be sadistic bastards.
Carry on. I’ll be looking for another sandbox to sink my head into.
Not exactly. The RCC had something called Vatican II which explicitly dealt with the subject of Passion Plays.
What is accurate in the film for the RCC are things like the stations of the cross and the focus on Mary. But the RCC has ADMITTED and accepted culpability in taking part in Anti-semetism, and has decidedly taken real moves to overcome this history. So you CANNOT make the connection between the movie and the RCC in the way you are: one can be antisemetic without the other being so. Gibson rejects the beliefs of most modern Catholics.
I’m not criticizing the movie because of what other people think. In fact, I have no fear of anyone in the U.S., as it has been said, will mistake Seinfeld for Caiphas. I don’t think anyone will be stirred to anti-semetic violence, at least in the west. But neither is anyone going to be driven to racist violence by watching Disney’s “Coal Black and the Sebbin Dwarves.” That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have racist overtones that are worth thinking seriously about.
It is absolutely undeniable that this film goes well outside of the Gospel narritive to put Caiphas, his groupies, and his pet Satan-infested mob behind all the major events: approvingly looking on at a torture they set in motion. The Romans are indeed the thugs swinging the lash, but without any intent: they are equal opportunity sadist hire-a-grunts, devices, not the money-mastering hook nosed schemers that drive events.
This film would not raise any confusion if it was played for a 15th century anti-semetic audience as a Passion Play (aside from blowing their minds at seeing motion pictures). The fact that the cultural context has changed is more than enough to make it decent and worthy nonetheless. But it’s not enough to blithlely ignore what’s there.
And I indeed think the claim that the film is devoid of troubling anti-semetic elements, overtones, symbols, and images is a little scary to hear. The idea that Jesus was a Jew, or that everyone is responsible for Jesus’ need to sacrifice, are, in my mind, disingenous ways of chaning the subject. Anti-semetism was never purely about race, but about otherness. Martin Luther knew that Jesus and the disciples were Jewish. It was not in pure obliviousness of that fact that his anti-Semetism existed, and it is ridiculous to think that the blood-libel was always understood in a way that would so obviously make it nonsense (i.e. that it simply transivitely applied to all racial Jews, including Jesus). Just because we are all responsible for Christ’s suffering doesn’t mean that Christ can’t also have enemies.
And indeed I still feel that the “love and forgive even your enemies” is in part marred by the utter cartoonishness of the bad guys. They are not presented as imperfect humans marred by a sin that brings them to commit terrible injustice: a drama of the tragedy of human sin, but instead meaingless unredeemable Hollywood monsters. Spending so much cinematic energy demonizing (in many cases litterally) your enemies and then turning around and claiming that your message is to love and forgive them seems, at the least, a little artistically disingenous, even if it’s not narritively disingenous within the context of the film. It’s the equivalent of running a dog dirty political campaign and then piously hemming and hawing about “changing the tone.”
This is indeed apparently what happened. Gibson said that his main goal was to tell the story mostly with powerful images, which he certainly managed in some incredible filmic shots, and I agree that it could stand alone without them, though it would certainly be less accessible to some.
That’s not even remotely comparable. There is no room for doubt that Coal Black was intended to be racist. This was not at all the intent of The Passion. Yes, some people can interpret some of the stuff in here as racist, wether they’re some pig-ignorant Denver congregation, or the Simon Wiesenthal Center. But I think Gibson did everything within his ability to defuse such interpretations, short of flashing “Don’t hate Jews” on the screen every five minutes. (Which, at least, would have served a more useful purpose than those fucking anti-piracy dots, while only being slightly more distracting.)
Fair enough, but I maintain that that alteration makes the film less anti-Semetic than it would have if he had maintained more fidelity to the source material. I also didn’t see how the description of the mob as being “Satan-infested” fits with what was up on screen. He was lurking around at the fringes of it at points, but I hardly saw that as meaning that the mob was under some sort of demonic influence. I thought they were just supposed to be a mob, no different from the ones that burned down Constantinople, or Los Angeles, or any other city in any other time you’d care to name.
Which makes them still worse than Caiphais, who at least had a reasonable motive for his actions beyond sadism. Also, “hook-nosed”? You’re really reaching to find evidence of anti-Semitism, here. This here is a picture of Mattia Sbragia, who played Caiphas. And this here is a picture of Francisco de Vito, who played Peter. You tell me which one of these actors has a hook nosed, and what that’s meant to prove about the depiction of Jews in this movie.
I’m not ignoring it, I’m just not seeing it.
Well, BOO!, then.
I disagree. They are perfect rebuttals to the idea that the Jews killed Jesus. I don’t expect them to work on most bigots, because bigotry is by its nature irrational.
I would say that is the underlying source of all racism. Anti-Semitism is in no way unique in this regard.
Sure, no argument to any of that. But how does this prove that The Passion of the Christ is anti-Semetic?
I felt it re-enforced it by not excusing the evil of the characters. It’s easier to say, “Well, he was like that because he was beaten as a child, so it’s not his fault.” When there is no excuse for one person’s evil, and you forgive none-the-less, I think it makes the forgiveness that much more incredible. And, the fact of the matter is, not every villain in the world has depth. A lot of people are irredeemable monsters for no better reason than they like it, and they can get away with it.
Can you point to any where in the film where Christ’s enemies were literally demonized? The only instances of that I saw were those who were tormenting Judas, which may or may not have been products of his own guilty conscience. (although I believe one of the child-demons who was tormenting him was the same one we saw later in Satan’s “Madonna” schtick, so maybe they were literal demons)
As for it being disingenuous, well, see my above comments. The greater the evil, the more marvelous is the forgiveness. I thought the film worked perfectly in this regard.
I didn’t mean to compare it along those lines, but was simply reaching around for an example of how certain images and ideas can still be the same even if the context changes. I have no idea what Gibson’s intentions were, but what I know of them is that he wanted to be true to traditionalist interpretation of the Passion story, which is certainly admirable. But in doing so, he ignores the warnings the RCC has made about the Passion story, and intentionally or not, recycles iconography, plot elements, that are a part of anti-semetic symbolic history. And the most painful thing is that most of it seems totally unecessary to the film. It certainly doesn’t jump off the screen, but neither is it a fantasy. It lies in a murky area in between.
The alterations make the Jewish leaders more directly culpable and involved. For centuries, this has been a basic point of contention, and the film goes out of its way to excuse Pilate and place the Jewish authorities at the center of the action.
My point has always been that it is both better and worse: better because it makes the faithful Jews with one exception look easily manipulated and cowardly instead of purely bloodthirsty, and even remembers Simon as being a good guy as opposed to being one just pressed into service, and worse because it definitively comes down as hard as possible on the side of Jewish culpability in a way some truly anti-semetic re-tellings don’t even do.
That’s what makes it odd and interesting. Imagine a famous story in which a Star bellied sneech was murdered in front of his star bellied sneech family by a bunch of non-star bellied sneeches, which then has long history of being used as grounds to persecute NSBSes, who steadfastly refuse to paint stars on their bellies in honor of the original SBS’s example. For centuries, people argue over whether the story is accurate historically: whether the non-star bellied sneeches could really have plausibly done what was claimed. The outcome of this debate has serious implications both because there is a concept of group responsibility, and also a pure tribalism.
Fast forward to an era where group culpability is no longer in favor, no longer as much a reflexive part of the culture. A film is made in which the story is retold: but though it makes no case for non-star bellied sneeches today bearing any responsibility, it comes down as hard as possible as and portaying the original NSBS characters as vicious and vile and conspiring, elaborating even beyond the original story with scenes based on the visions of an anti-NSBS nun. If the film were made centuries ago, it’s definative answer on what sort of people the enemies of the original SBS were, and how involved they were with his murder, would be a powerful an unambiguous point for the anti-NSBS side. In today’s context, NSBS might just happen to be the bad guys of this particular story.
That’s why the film is so odd: why the Simon center is wrong, and why I think you’re wrong too.
Or, they were Satan’s mob. Symbols again. Just as Gibson recreated in a way certian famous images, Satan gliding among the Jews, his people, is not a new vision either. It’s nowhere in the Gospels, but it was once a feature of anti-semetism. Not everyone recalls those things, and that’s why it’s not as provocative or dangerous or worth protesting. But it’s certianly more than cloud gazing.
But they aren’t rebuttals to the idea that the Jews killed Jesus at all: they change the subject of the question. Peter let Jesus die, all of humanity forced Jesus to sacrifice, but that’s not the same thing as being the actual ones who are evil enough to do the actual business of plotting Christ’s death and then continually refusing to acknowledge the meaning or specialness of that death. It’s not the same thing at all as being the villans and later being unrepentant about it. Just because everyone is responsible for the sin Jesus needed to take on doesn’t mean that there isn’t a difference between the faithful and repentant and the enemies and unrepentant.
I don’t know: white people can’t generally convert into black people. I’d say that’s something of a unique difference when it comes to a history of evangelism once premised on propaganda and threats of force.
But the point of that was that Anti-Semetism did not operate wholly on the grounds you thought it did, which is why the “we’re all responsible” idea does not, in fact, rebutt all the bigotry at all. Luther thought were all responsible too. He knew that Jesus was a Jew. Neither of those things made him think any less that the faithful Jews weren’t still than enemies of Christ, carrying on a tradition that Christ was supposed to have declared corrupt, killing his sacrifice in their hearts.
Do you not understand the significance of the Temple being destroyed at the end of the film? Christianity exists in inherent tension with Judiasm as belief systems, because Christianity asserts that the Jewish understanding of their own Scriptures is flawed, their ideals of messiah misguided, and their most sacred practices unecessary or even dangerous.
Do you think it would bother Catholics much if a movie were made in which Jesus didn’t die on the Cross after all, many basic Catholic traditions were misguided, their leaders were corrupt and vindictive, and the movie ends with God crushing the Vatican?
Being believable human beings is not the same thing as being “excused.”
And I think it makes a cartoon act for a cartoon bad guy.
I’ve yet to meet or hear about a real-life villan that doesn’t have depth. Even the worst of them: people only think they lack depth because they are ignorant of history: all they know is the cartoon. The depth doesn’t make them any less evil. But it makes them evil in a way that is human, that has enough of humanity in them so that we can see our own failings in them and know better. I felt no connection to the Roman solider or Caiphas, or the mob, and hence none of the responsibility I was supposed to be feeling for their actions. They were props. Jesus might as well have been forgiving a tidal wave or a hive of bees.
