“Tacked on.” Heh.
Sorry… believe it or not, that was unintentional.
I believe I read somewhere that the “Pieta” shot was the original ending and that Gibson went back and shot the resurrection scene after audiences thought it was too much of a downer.
I agree that it was a beautiful shot and should have been the ending. the resurrection seemed too brief and anti-climactic to me. I mean, if you’re going to show the resurrection, show the resurrection. That should be the money shot if you’re going to do it. This just seemed like a cheesy, tacked on set-up for Passion 2: Return of the Christ.
Fair enough. But gratuity surely is more a subject measure of what is effective than it is a matter of fact, so “ridiculous” is a bit far. Plenty of people thought it was unecessary both theologically and cinematically, and certainly it is a focus chosen by the director, not by the source materials. It’s a move that has justification as a device to drive home a point: whether that device was well executed or not, and hence whether the violence was gratuitous or not, is most certainly debatable.
Personally, I found the scouring at first powerful and horrfying as intended, but eventually just tedious and cartoonish. A lot of onscreen portrayals of torture and suffering were more effective for showing less, and for obvious reasons: explicit and extended exposure to trauma tends to lead to eventual apathy.
I find that for a lot of people who liked the length of it, they also describe themselves as seeing it as a sort of self-flagelation: something they it is their duty to endure as punishment for their sins bringing about Christ’s suffering. They descriebd the movie as if it were a means to an end, rather than a movie. It for better or worse, it doesn’t have that context for me, and has to stand on its own.
But of course, different people have a lot of quirks. I’ve seen a lot of physical suffering and bloody people in my time, some of whom suffered far worse physically than Jesus for a lot longer, so Jesus suffering, like all suffering, has the power to move me, but it doesn’t have any special access or position. I’ve also never been exposed to the religious traditions that put a special emphasis on the physical suffering of Jesus over the psychological and spiritual trauma, which have always seemed both more important and more authentic to the text and early Christian theology anyway.
I think it’s more complicated than that. I don’t think anyone could find a justification for anti-semetism in anything that we’d agree with.
But the film does seem to, without any real cinematic or theological need, thumb its nose at some pretty obvious sensitivities. It goes out of its way to make the case that Jewish leaders drove the actions that sent Christ to his death, but also goes out of its way to show the unchristianized Jews as less monolithic. In that, it is both better and worse than the Gospels when it comes to it’s portrayal of Judiasm and unrepentant Jews in general.
I think the Simon Weisenthal center is out of its mind taking such a strong stance against the movie. But I also think that there are definately troubling elements that people seem almost pre-prepared to scoff at anyone raising.
This is my first post since actually seeing the movie. It has the same sentiments as many things already posted, but here goes:
BTW, since I think prejudice is important for this one, here are mine: I’m a gay atheist and I can’t stand Mel Gibson (as he comes across in interviews). That said, I thought the movie had some major flaws, but generally I liked it. There were a few moments that were brilliant, some that were ludicrous, and most were somewhere in between.
I did NOT see the horrible anti-Semitism that the movie has been accused of, and believe me, I looked. True, Caiphas and the Sanhedrin [sans Nicodemus] are portrayed as villains, and true, some of the actors had more stereotypically Jewish features than others, BUT in the Bible Caiphas and the Sanhedrin were portrayed as villains, and some individuals happen to have more stereotypically Jewish features than others (besides which, swarthy skin and hooked noses aren’t limited to Jews but are found throughout the Meditteranean, Middle East, Africa and other cultures).
As for the gore, the movie has at least as much blood as you’ve heard (i.e. on par with Tarantino), but personally I felt it’s necessary. Mad Mel is making this for an audience that has become largely desensitized to cinematic violence and who have seen more murders, rapes, and beatings than they could even estimate, and he’s deliberately going overboard in order to resensitize them. He WANTS the audience to see, hear, and above all feel every humiliation, lash, caning, every piece of torn flesh, the nail and the thorns- it’s the point of the movie. (Also, the point of the movie was the Passion of Christ, not the entire life [which would be hard to film in 2 hours]- I was actually surprised by how much of his ministry was included.
My favorite scenes were those with Mary. Her gasp and memory of him falling as a child intercut with him falling on the road to Golgotha worked beautifully, and the “table” scene gave a nice look on the humanity of Jesus. Her bloodstained kiss at Golgotha and plea to “let me die with you” isn’t Scriptural but certainly worked from a dramatic perspective.
My least favorite moments:
-Big Gay Herod (for reasons I’ve already commented on in detail)
-Satan- to me, at least, she added nothing (and androgynous my bum, she was clearly dressed in women’s clothing and even posed as an anti-madonna) and the bits with the maggot booger (“because I’m soooo evil…”) and the albino python at the beginning was almost funny (“to begin the Ultimate Suffering, please step on the snake now… to hear this in Aramaic, press two…”)
-the Little People- if there’s an ugly dwarf in Europe who didn’t work in 2003 it ain’t Mel’s fault. The little morph-a-muffins (children who are really demons) chasing Judas were almost funny. I know he was going for grotesque (possibly an homage to Flannery O’Connor, who had a similar love for the grotesque- the screenwriter was Benedict Fitzgerald who knew Flannery as a child, whose parents were good friends of the O’Connors, and whose first screenplay was an adaptation of Flannery’s novel Wise Blood*) but it came across as silly (plus, even when I was a Christian I failed to see how Judas is a villain- he had to betray Christ for the prophecies to be fulfilled- it was his destiny.
-The destruction of the Temple (or at least the serious damage to the Temple). When I was a Christian, one of my favorite passages in the Bible was the ripping of the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple- very powerful and rich in symbolism- God is no longer the province of priests but is now among you, no longer separate but everywhere [it wasn’t until much later that I wondered "how, if only the priests could go near the Holy of Holies, would the Gospel writers have known if the curtain ripped? I doubt the priests would have told them]). However, Mel tacks on an Irwin Allen montage that while viscerally satisfying just doesn’t work.
There are other things that I like and that I didn’t like about it. I wouldn’t call it a moving or religious experience but I can see how it would have been were I religious. I think the violence is not only explicable but necessary (except perhaps for the scene where he’s dropped over the side of the bridge- that I thought was overkill) and other than Pilate the Romans come off incomparably worse than the Jews (and while Pilate is depicted against his historical characterization, that’s from the Gospels and not from Gibson). The most sympathetic character in the movie is actually a Jew- Simon of Cyrene, who unwillingly has to shoulder the load of the cross but by Golgotha has defended Jesus both physically and verbally).
I wouldn’t have a problem recommending it to any non-squeamish friends. There were kids in the theater, which majorly irked me (also because it was a late showing), but again- not Gibson’s fault. The movie’s not on my top 10 list, but it’s a worthy addition to the catalog of Christ on Film and, in my opinion, much maligned by its detractors whose real problem is with the Gospels, not this film. (I wonder if a similar fuss will be raised next year when Al Pacino stars as Shylock in a new production of Merchant of Venice .)
I’m a Christian, so it’s probably not surprising that I liked the movie. [I was surprised that I didn’t react as emotionally to the film as some people that I know have.]
What bothered me a lot was Mel fiddling with what the Biblical accounts say happened [please bear with me for argument’s sake] to make a “better” film:
-
Taking all of Peter’s denials, which took place over several hours, and squishing them into 90 seconds apart.
-
As those who have seen or read “The Robe” will recall, Christ’s robe was saved and the Roman soldiers gambled for it. In Mel’s film, the robe is torn from his body.
I also thought it inflammatory of Mel to have his Christ say what’s recorded in John 19:11 to Pilate (namely that those who had delivered him to Pilate had committed the “greater sin”). It’s translated in the film’s subtitles as having a ‘greater part of the blame’.
Given that Mel knows that people view his dad is an anti-semitic nutbar and are looking for evidence that he is too, I think that leaving aside all questions of blame would have been better. It raises a question of “Were the Jews or the Gentiles more at fault?” and detracts from what should be the main message of the film (from Mel’s standpoint).
Hey Latin boffins…
Was Christ speaking Latin to Pilate during one of the film’s scenes. I thought so, but I am not sure…
(I doubt that Christ would have spoken Latin.)
PS…I also could have done without the two demonic Jewish street urchins… and I’m a “fundie” as described earlier in this thread. 
My review: One big stinking pile of crap.
My thesis: Mel alters the Gospel story of the passion with historical inaccuracies in order to suit his ultra-conservative pre-Vatican II theology and ecclesiology which in itself is based on principles which are historically inaccurate.
My case:
The World View:[ol][li]Mel belongs to a break-away schismatic sect of Catholicism which rejects the reforms of Vatican II (1962). For him, Pope John Paul II isn’t Catholic enough. His is the conservative Catholicism of the 1950’s. The theology of Jesus Christ is that “he suffered and died to redeem (literally, ‘pay off’ the debt of) our sins.” []Because the suffering and death is redemptive for all humanity, it is often portrayed as being the most horrific and terrible suffering that anyone has ever borne. []This Catholicism of the 50’s was often rife with anti-Semitism. []The rejection of the reforms of Vatican II was centered on the changes in the liturgy which allowed the use of the vernacular (the argument of the Traditionalists being that Latin has always been the language of the Church). [/ol] [/li]
And what’s wrong with this worldview? Well, the inaccuracies. [ol][li]While the seeds of ‘redemption theology’ can be found in the NT, it is not the only theology of the cross, or salvation, or the reason for the incarnation. But for Mel, redemption theology is a monolith which tolerates no other speculation. []WRT the suffering of Jesus, one can easily point out how other humans have been tortured and suffered physically at the hands of others more so than Jesus. []One can easily point out how anti-Semitism is not only not justified by the New Testament, but is contradictory to the gospel message. []And the argument against the use of the vernacular based on Latin’s exalted place in history falls apart in the face of the historical evidence that for the first three centuries of the Church, Greek was the language of liturgy and that Latin was only adopted in Rome for the sake of uneducated Romans who didn’t know Greek.[/ol] [/li]
“OK,” you might say, “Mel has the right to his own beliefs and to portray them artistically as he wants.” And I would agree with you if it weren’t for this: over and over again, Mel keeps publicly portraying the film as accurate, the way it happened, with the original languages faithfully reproduced, with the pain and suffering as it was. Really now?
And so, with this in mind, let’s see how this plays out in the movie:
The title: “The Passion of the Christ.” [ul][li]When the monolithic Christology of the 50’s finally cracked, there was a wave of new interest in the field. Many scholars turned to the scientific historical methods of form criticism to try to find ‘the historical Jesus’ as opposed to ‘the Christ of faith.’ Note how the title is all about ‘Christ’ rather than ‘Jesus.’ And it is not surprising that Mel chose to just focus on the passion – the rest of Jesus’ life and his teachings have no salvific value compared to the suffering and death.[/ul][/li]
In The Garden of Gethsemene: Scripture has it that Jesus was in such deep emotional pain that he sweated blood (or he sweated like he was bleeding, depends how you translate it). Not sure why Mel had Jesus limping, though. Through this, Mel has the devil show up and tell us how to theologize about what’s going to happen. This part isn’t in any of the Gospels, but it’s now in the Gospel according to Mel. The devil tells us that Jesus is going to bear the sins of all people – an impossibly heavy burden for any man. This is the formulation of redemption theology of the Traditionalists.
The scourging and crucifixion: Here’s where we get the sufferings of Jesus exaggerated in the Gospel of Mel, because, remember: Jesus’ suffering is more than anyone has ever or ever will experience.
All these following scenes found in the movie are not in the Gospels: [ul][li]Jesus’ arresting officers throw him off a bridge for some bungee jumping, only the bungee is chains. []Jesus is beaten to a mess by the priests. []Then he is flayed to within an inch of his life by the Romans such that an officer coming onto the scene had to put an end to it or else they would have killed him. []After the first round of scourging, Jesus heroically stands up almost daring them to continue. []Jesus falls several times on the way to Golgotha, during which he is repeatedly whipped and beaten by the Romans, and then by the crowd. []They have to dislocate an arm to make his hand reach the pre-drilled nail hole. [/ul][/li]
Add to the above these questionable elements: [ul][li]The two thieves are forced to carry only their cross beams. Jesus is forced to carry a fully constructed cross (close ups of which looked faked – very fiberglassy). []The extreme nose cam. That’s right, we see a nostril the size of a SUV fill half the screen with the bloodied and shut eye in the background. You really can’t get into a person’s suffering unless you do it nearly microscopically.[/ul][/li]The ‘original’ languages: [ul][li]Yes, Jesus and company spoke Aramaic. Whether the Aramaic that was spoken in the movie was accurate is anyone’s guess. The language is nearly dead, and even modern analogues will not tell you how it was pronounced two thousand years ago. I mean, how can you say that you’re using an original language when it’s really just a best guess? What kind of historical accuracy are you pretending to?[/li][li]WRT the Latin. Oh. My. God. It was atrocious. We have a very good idea how classical Latin sounded. We also know how medieval and modern ecclesiastical Latin sounds. The Latin that was spoken was a mish mash of medieval, modern ecclesiastical, and Italian sounding-it-out. Not one lick of the Latin of Caesar. And speaking of Caesar, let’s use him as an example. When the Aramaic speaking priests mentioned him, they said KEYE-sar. That is exactly how you say Caesar in the classical Latin of the time (German’s ‘Kaiser’ is a direct descendent). However, whenever the Romans said it, it came out CHEH-ser. [/li][li]English subtitles: When Pilate is asking his wife whether she recognized the truth when she hears it, she said in Latin, “{unrecognizable} audio.” I know “audio” means, “I hear”. The English subtitle read, “I do.” Hmmm.[/li][li]Counting in Latin: When the scourging started, I started counting to see if there would be the traditional forty lashes (there was only 32, then they broke out the cat-o-nine-tails for innumerable more lashes). This part was not subtitled. A Roman was counting off the number of lashes in Latin. At one point, the count was off, but then got back on track. [/li][li]Multi-lingualism: Before the Roman occupation, all of the Middle East was under Hellenistic (Greek speaking and culture) rule. The Jews learned Greek. When the Romans took over, they learned Greek (Greek culture was way ahead of Roman). And so, everyone spoke Greek. That’s what Pilate and the priests would have used. (The entire NT was written in Greek.) And yet in Mel’s Gospel, Pilate speaks Aramaic. Nice trick for a Roman governor sent to watch over a backwater of the empire. Then, the part in which I audibly gasped: When Pilate spoke to Jesus privately, Jesus switched over to Latin!! Yes, that’s right, Jesus is fluent in Latin. Go figure.[/li][li]The conclusion: Mel’s claim of wanting authenticity by using the original languages is one big load of crap. Authenticity was systematically thrown out the window. And so, here’s where my original thesis comes in: The reason why Mel used ‘original languages’ was so that Jesus would not be using English at the Last Supper. Remember, Mel’s religion sees the vernacular in the Mass as an evil. It represents everything wrong with Vatican II, and the use of Latin at Mass is the battle cry of the Traditionalist. Mel would never direct a Jesus to say in English, “This is my body.” It’d kill him.[/ul][/li]
Sources: [ul][li]Mel keeps on equivocating on the source of the movie. You’ll hear him say that it’s faithful to the Gospels. And not add anything else. Then, in a different interview, he’ll mention the visions of that nun as a source. [/li][li]Hidden Source: Stations of the Cross: Another source seems to be The Stations of the Cross. In the Stations, we have Veronica’s Veil, Falling Three Times, and Meeting His Mother Along the Way – none of which are in the Gospels. And speaking of the Stations, one particular station is Symon of Cyrene being pressed into carrying the cross for Jesus (which is in the Gospels). If you’ve ever prayed the Stations, you know that each Station comes with a spiritual meditation. The meditation for Simon of Cyrene is always a hoot to listen to because there really isn’t that much spiritual enlightenment that can be found in someone being forced into doing something good. These meditations wind up doing spiritual gymnastics to find a lesson in that station. And look at Mel’s Gospel… instead of just showing that Simon was forced to carry the cross, he fictionalized the account to show dramatic development in the character. This was totally superfluous to the story, and yet, Mel is attached to his source, namely, making Simon into a station with a lesson. The Stations fits my thesis that we’re being subjected to 50’s Catholicism. The Stations was the premiere prayer for getting into the passion. Despite the fact that the Stations are partially apocryphal, and Mel is supposedly going for Gospel accuracy and realism, he still includes them.[/li][li](Another Hidden Source: Jesus Christ Superstar: Yes, as has been mentioned before, we find that Mel’s Herod is the same as Rice-Weber’s Herod, just without the music. Unbelievable.)[/ul][/li]Anti-Semitism: I am not going to make the case that Mel is overtly anti-Semitic. And yes, we see the heavy hand of inaccuracy in order to blunt that criticism (the priests who objected to the trial, the enlightenment of Simon of Cyrene, etc…). But there certainly are things about the movie which are at best, ignorant, and at worst, insensitive. [ul][li]Casting: Notice how Mel got Italians to play the Romans and went out of his way to find people that looked ethnically Middle Eastern to play the Jews? Why didn’t he do that for Jesus? The 1950’s presented an iconic Christ who looked Northern European. The images that were daring and made Jesus looked ‘Jewish’ settled for Southern European (a Northern European with a tan). And that’s what we have with Mel’s Jesus, a European Jesus. (Notice the black hair coloring of Judas, James, John, Peter, Mary, and Mary… Jesus’ is brown.)[/li][li]The Sundering of the Temple: You would think that the Gospel writer who told us that the curtain in the Temple was torn in two would mention that the entire Temple was torn in two. Yet Mel chose to tear up the Temple in complete defiance of the Gospel and history. Yes, the Christian insistence that the New Covenant of Christ is better and can supplant the Old Covenant of Moses is offensive to Jewish sensibilities. But tearing up the Temple is over-the-top insensitive, especially when you alter history just to do it.[/ul][/li]
That concludes my thesis. Here are a few eye-rollers…
[ul][li]The raven. W. T. F.?[/li][li]Judas and the demons. Yes, a Gospel writer says that Satan ‘entered’ Judas when he decided to go and betray Jesus. But there was nothing about horror movie hauntings with demons in child form.[/ul][/li]
And now, some brief cinematographical comments.
Bad:
[ul][li]Not only over doing slow-mo, but continuously switching back and forth between slow-mo and real time. This will wind up making the movie look dated, like the freeze frame shots of 70’s movies.[/li][li]The devil’s lament when Jesus dies. Not only lame looking, but, shouldn’t the lament come when Jesus resurrects? (Maybe again proving the thesis that death is more important in Mel’s Gospel than Jesus’ life or after-life.)[/li][li]The more morally good you are, the better teeth you have.[/li][li]Again, the extreme nose cam.[/ul][/li]
Good:
[ul][li]The pieta. Perfectly done.[/li][li]God’s tear. Poignant.[/ul][/li]
Peace.
Me: Graduate degree in Roman Catholic Theology.
Someone in this thread asked what were the Romans saying while scourging Jesus.
Besides counting off the first round of whippings (up to 32 - the next round of flaying wasn’t counted), you had stuff like:
Get back to work.
What are you doing?
Cut it out.
Go. Let’s go.
Hah hah hah.
Nothing to do with plot or famous Gospel lines.
Pax.
In an interview at one of Gibson’s closed audience showings, said that one of the reasons he had his cast speak Aramaic was… “If I was doing a film about very fierce, horrible, nasty Vikings coming to invade a town, and had them on their ship with their awful weapons, and they came pouring off the ship ready to slaughter – to have them speak English wouldn’t be menacing enough.”
So it wasn’t just about authenticity and didn’t claim to be, but also an artistic choice.
moriah:
(1) The moments of the film in which Gibson extrapolates possible details fall under something called artistic license. Every film, even one foisted as dogmatically as this one, is allowed these drama enhancers; it’s part of what separates “film” from “documentary.” Besides, I’ve never once heard Gibson claim that Jesus’ “bungee jump,” for example, or Satan’s presence in the garden, was the “historical fact” he feels so strongly about. Rather, he defends those controversial quotes he used concerning the Jews that aren’t generally regarded as politically correct today.
(2)
You seem to imply here that one of the progressive steps taken by Vatican II was a rejection of this last theology (?!) Vatican II did things like ending the requirement of Mass in Latin- it didn’t advise us to distance ourselves from one of the most fundamental precepts of the Catholic faith!
It sounds like your review is more about Mel’s world view and your offense to it than it is about the movie. There are plenty of historical inaccuracies, but they are relatively inconsequential because it’s a movie.
For example, your complaint that the movie title emphasizes “the Christ” rather than “Jesus” and the movie confines itself (mostly) to the events of the Passion … well, you say that as if it’s a bad thing. That’s the choice the director made.
From your review, it looks like you took your extreme dislike for Mel and his theology (which you took a lot of space to describe and debunk) and projected it onto the movie.
From my post: “And I would agree with you if it weren’t for this: over and over again, Mel keeps publicly portraying the film as accurate, the way it happened, with the original languages faithfully reproduced, with the pain and suffering as it was.”
You don’t know how many conversations I’ve been in where people told me how accurate the film was in portraying the Gospels, and how real it was.
I don’t begrudge artistic license. I liked The Last Temptation of Christ as a fictionalized account of the life of Christ. The same with Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. I hated Jesus of Nazareth because it claimed to be a portrayal of the Gospels, and yet, that too, thumbed its nose at the Gospel texts and modern biblical scholarship.
Mel plays coy with the fact that his movie is a fictionalization. He touts the authenticity, which it isn’t.
My screed about his theology was to show the hows and whys of the fictionalized part.
Twas Mel who projected his theology into the movie and then tried to sell us that it was all about the Gospel and the way it was.
Peace.
Extrapolation is one thing. Gratuity and spin while claiming to be accurate and authentic is another.
I did not mean to imply that VII repudiates redemption theology. However, there is a recognition in the RCC that scripture itself contains various theologies of salvation (soteriologies). Some of these soteriologies are formulated without even a reference to the cross. VII allows all these various soteriologies to co-exist. That would be anathema for Mel’s church.
Peace.
WOW, just wow, thank you for that. I liked the movie as entertainment, but need to be able to explain its innacuracies to public high school students that think it’s a documentary.
I think you’re playing with semantics now; I pointed out the only areas Gibson maintained (correctly) as straight from the Gospel. He equates that, according to his faith, with historical fact- that doesn’t mean you or anyone else has to.
You’re offering an aesthetic judgement that’s grounded in theological disagreement, which to my way of thinking is fundamentally flawed.
For your’ll information:
THE DOLOROUS PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST by Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich (not a saint). It is here that the ‘artistic’ liberties Mel took are from.
Eh. So he made up stuff in his portrayal of a made up story. There are bigger sins. I don’t see how that impacts the quality of the movie, which ought to be judged on its own merits and not as part of the hype surrounding its release.
That is my absolute favourite part of the story, too (I haven’t seen the film, but I was exposed to a lot of the Gospels as a child). The curtain is torn, and we (because of Jesus) have access to God directly, not through some priest. That’s the part of the story that moves me.
As for how the gospel writers would have known about it–in Acts it says that some of the priests converted to Christianity over the next few years. I always figured that some of them were there or had friends who were there, and they told John or whoever about it later.
I’m not going to see the movie, mostly because I just don’t need the intense depiction of torture. I’d be like the ten-year-old kid mentioned earlier in the thread. (Dear God, I hope someone helps that kid–seeing something like that could traumatise him pretty badly.) I’m a Christian, but I feel like my relationship with God will be improved by other things right now. This thread has brought up a lot of different things for me to think about, though–amazing how so many ideas can be sparked by one movie or film. I guess that’s the best thing about this movie, if it makes people think.
In Judiasm, even in those days, you could talk to God directly through prayer, and were supposed to. Read Jeremiah and Hosea for more on this.
And it would certianly sound a little weird to Gibson to have someone think that one has access to God directly, without the intercession of priests and saints.
I’ve been avoiding this thread for the past couple of weeks–not because I feared any plot spoilers (heh), but because I wanted to avoid any overly negative (or positive) expectations for the film before I went in to see it.
In general, I liked it. The two criticisms that I couldn’t avoid hearing beforehand–i.e., the charges of anti-Semitism and the excessive violence–didn’t really hold up. The anti-Semitism charge seems especially far from the mark, since the blame seems to be placed squarely on Caiaphas’s shoulders, not the entire crowd. None of the actors playing Jewish characters were blonde Caucasians, either. Pilate was probably rendered too sympathetic, or at least too passive, in his condemnation of Christ, but that doesn’t make the movie anti-Semitic so much as just historically inaccurate.
The violence level was very intense, and can’t be considered recommended viewing for any children…but it wasn’t as OTT as has been argued. However, I will admit that much of my own understanding of the Passion is drawn from art history (from which I’ve probably learned more about Catholicism than I did from my Irish Catholic family). I’ve studied so many bloody paintings of the Crucifixion that Gibson’s portrayal didn’t shock me that much. I agree with Lissla Lissar that many of the scenes were like tableaux–they reminded me of Renaissance paintings and sculptures, as in the Crucifixion scene and, above all, the closing scene of the Lamentation, with Mary Magdalene at Christ’s feet and Mary holding the dead body (I agree with other posters that Gibson should have kept this as the ending; the Resurrection scene felt too tacked on). Also, the blood dripping down Christ’s arms as he hanged there on the cross reminded me of many, many Crucifixion paintings.
That being said, the Flagellation scene is very difficult to watch, but if you can get through that, the rest of the film is much easier viewing. Oddly, the crucifixion didn’t seem nearly as painful as the flagellation, though maybe it’s easier to convey the immediate suffering from lacerated flesh than it is from the slow and agonizing death on the cross.
Things I liked:
[ul]
[li]Peter(always my favorite disciple), both in his defense of Christ (cutting of the ear of the soldier in the Garden) and in his desperate and heart-breaking denial of Christ. []Pilate–though he in no way resembled the historical Pilate, his character was the most complex of any of the other characters, except for Peter and Judas (whose roles aren’t quite as extensive as Pilate’s). []The flashbacks, as told through little reminders–Pilate’s water bowl evoking Christ washing the apostles’ feet, etc.[]Mary’s suffering. The most powerful moment in the entire film was Mary rushing to Christ’s side as he fell on the Way of the Cross, cut in with a flashback to Christ’s childhood, with Mary running to comfort the Christ Child when he tripped while playing. Nothing canonical about the childhood scene AFAIK, but for me that scene really drove home a sense of Mary’s grief, and that of any mother helplessly seeing her child suffer or die. Indeed, this was the only moment during which I got choked up, and I never cry during movies.[]The Stations of the Cross. moriah’s right that Gibson derives the Carrying of the Cross almost entirely from the traditional, and not always Biblical, Stations of the Cross. However, I rather liked this aspect, and was particularly but pleasantly surprised to see Veronica included. This again may have something to do with my art history background–a painting cycle of the Passion would simply have to include Christ falling, meeting Veronica, etc. It did bug me that he fell more than three times, but I got over it.[]The international cast. The only actor I was familiar with was Monica Bellucci, and so for the most part the potential celebrity of the actors didn’t get in the way of their characters. I may have had a different opinion, however, if I was Italian.[/ul]Things I didn’t like (as much): [ul][]Herod as a transvestite. Mercifully brief appearance, but it annoyed me nonetheless. Gibson just had to let some of his homophobia slip in at some point, didn’t he? It didn’t make any sense to portray Herod that way. []The slo-mo effects were cheesy–from Caiaphas tossing the bag of silver coins to Judas to the repeated fallings on the Way of the Cross. Gibson really over-did this effect. []Most of the characters were two-dimensional–let’s be honest, it’s hard to get that much depth out of a character as resolutely good as Jesus has to be. Conversely, Caiaphas was resolutely evil, and the Roman soldiers for the most part were just mindless brutes. The officer who presided over the flagellation struck me as probably the most chilling Roman figure–impassively ordering lashes, without any twinge of emotion–neither gloating nor cringing. I imagine that more of the soldiers would have been like that kind of character, almost like a bureaucrat whose sensibility has been completely dulled through repetitive tasks.[]Satan–neither particularly liked or dislike this character, but she/he/it seemed kind of superfluous, I thought. I was impressed with how androgynous the actress appeared–so much so that I kept wondering if I’d heard correctly that it was a woman. However, mainly a creepy presence that didn’t add much to the film. The cry from Hell at the moment of Christ’s death was a bit silly.[]The temple torn asunder–as has been amply discussed in this thread, a complete fabrication with no precedents in any canonical sources that I’m aware of. More of a nitpick than a real complaint: In one of the flashbacks, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as the woman taken in adultery (the one the crowd wanted to stone to death). Although the Magdalene is a composite of several, probably different, women, she is not usually identified with the woman taken in adultery. A more traditional identification would be with the woman who anointed Christ’s feet with oil and washed them with her hair (who isn’t identified by name in the Gospels, either, but whom tradition has conflated with Mary of Bethany and called “Mary Magdalene”).[/ul][/li]
All in all, not a perfect film, but not that bad either. It has the potential to be very moving, though this depends on the audience’s familiarity with the Passion (I noticed that several characters weren’t identified in the dialogue, and I recognized them only because of their appearance in paintings of the Passion and Crucifixion–particularly John and Mary Magdalene).
If you take it as a historically accurate portrait, it’s seriously flawed–and Gibson is primarily at fault for promoting it as how the Passion “really” happened. If you consider it as an artwork, which is how I did, it compared pretty well with past renderings of Christ’s sufferings and death.
Still, the best rendering of the Passion IMHO is Giotto’s frescoes at the Arenal Chapel in Padua.