Passion was a piece of art

[Munch]

@lissener

According to more than one secondary source, the film downplays–if not outright ignores–the FACT that Jesus’s entire following was Jewish, and leaves the impression that all Jews wanted him dead.

I’m not sure how that impression would have been made. At all.

“Roman involvement” was a bit oversimplified. But almost every review I’ve read says that Pilate is portrayed as a feeling, sympathetic soul who is loath to crucify Jesus. Now, I’m prepared to stand corrected on this too. But if Pilate’s portrayal is as the consensus seems to think it is, then Gibson twisted the historical consensus in order to move some “blame” from Pilate’s shoulders to the Jews’.

Not my impression. Pilate was portrayed as spineless politician who would send his own mother up the river if it would save his hide. Whoever gave that review was out for popcorn. Even the guy in our local independent paper who gave “PotC” 1 star commended Gibson on the portrayal of Pilate. Do have a sample review you could link to? I’d like to see how accurate the rest of their impressions were.

Like I said earlier, I went into the movie aware of the controversies, and kept my eyes open for them (wide enough to falsely attribute a larger presence of Caiphas, it seems). However, being Catholic I’m not nearly as sensitive to anti-semetic themes, nor would I be aware of subtleties.

If you do see it, I would suggest that you do so under the impression that the portrayal of Pilate is extremely well done. The consequences of his actions are subtle - which may contribute to your reviewers missing the point.

[Miller]

@lissener

According to more than one secondary source, the film downplays–if not outright ignores–the FACT that Jesus’s entire following was Jewish, and leaves the impression that all Jews wanted him dead. I’m prepared to stand corrected on this, but either they’re in the movie or they’re not. “Roman involvement” was a bit oversimplified. But almost every review I’ve read says that Pilate is portrayed as a feeling, sympathetic soul who is loath to crucify Jesus. Now, I’m prepared to stand corrected on this too. But if Pilate’s portrayal is as the consensus seems to think it is, then Gibson twisted the historical consensus in order to move some “blame” from Pilate’s shoulders to the Jews’.

Whatever your sources are, they’re incorrect to the point that I almost suspect them of lying. There’s no doubt in the movie who is a Jew and who isn’t, not is there any doubt about the ethnicity and religious upbringing of Jesus and his disciples. Within the first ten minutes of the film, one of the other characters refers to Jesus as “Rabbi.” To say that the film portrays all Jews as wanting Jesus dead is blatantly false. At every step of Jesus’s torment, there are Jews, and not just Christ’s followers, who speak out against his treatment. Including, at his trial in the Sanhedrin, members of the priesthood.

Pilate is somewhat sympathetic, but he’s also the one who decides he’d rather kill a man he feels to be innocent than to threaten his own political position. He is not as bloodthirsty as history portrays him, but is instead weak-willed and equivocating. In the context of the movie, it is an excellent character, and one of the standout performances of the film. However, to say that he is sympathetic is not to say that he is blameless. Caiphas is more two dimensional, which is a flaw in the film, but I felt that the intention behind the character was to make him, as an individual, repsonsible for Jesus’s death, and not Jews as a group.

Of all the characters in the film, the only ones who are entirely sympathetic are Jewish, except for Pilate’s wife. Even Judas is portrayed sympathetically. The Romans, on the other hand, are portrayed as gleefully sadisitic, joking with each other as they flay the skin off Jesus’s back, and casting sullen glares at the officer who stops their fun. At their best, they are portrayed as pawns who are aware of the wrongness of their orders, but are unwilling to risk themselves by disobeying them. At their worst, they are sociopaths of the first water, revelling in their ability to harm and humiliate those with less power. Far from being anti-Semetic, the film seems a much stronger argument for being anti-Italic.

Those two instances are the closest I come to positing an interpretation before I’ve seen the movie, but again I limited myself to those because they were very nearly universal consensus in all the material I’ve read.

Funny, I’ve had almost precisely the opposite experience. All of the reviews I’ve seen of the movie have acknowledged that fears about the film’s possible anti-Semetic overtones were overblown.

[lissener]

Not my impression. Pilate was portrayed as spineless politician who would send his own mother up the river if it would save his hide.

My point exactly: Pilate is traditionally known as something of a tyrant; the portrayal of him as spineless (specifically in the face of the rabbis) is conveniently innacurate.

Whoever gave that review was out for popcorn. Even the guy in our local independent paper who gave “PotC” 1 star commended Gibson on the portrayal of Pilate. Do have a sample review you could link to? I’d like to see how accurate the rest of their impressions were.

Sorry; mostly print sources: New Yorker, NYTimes (reviews, articles, and OpEd pieces), etc.

Like I said earlier, I went into the movie aware of the controversies, and kept my eyes open for them (wide enough to falsely attribute a larger presence of Caiphas, it seems). However, being Catholic I’m not nearly as sensitive to anti-semetic themes, nor would I be aware of subtleties.

If you do see it, I would suggest that you do so under the impression that the portrayal of Pilate is extremely well done. The consequences of his actions are subtle - which may contribute to your reviewers missing the point.

I have many times been converted by a film that I expected little from. So negative expectations aside, I’m pretty openminded when it comes to movies. I have frequently found myself in the minority, championing a film that was disliked by a majority of reviewers and audience.

[lissener]

Look, I’ve been very clear about the “sources” for my opinion as stated above. I’m not making any grand statements, I’m simply sharing the expectations I have of the film, based on what material I *have * read, and drawing some speculative conclusions from those sources. I have not tried to hide what I have or have not seen or read, I’m simply describing my reaction to the controversy swirling around the film. And I’ve said more than once that it’s quite possible that my opinions will change when I finally do see the film.

Do you form an expectation for a movie you haven’t seen yet? Good or bad? What do you base those expectatations on? Trailers, ads, reviews, and past experience of the artist involved. Is it not ALLOWED to share the details of those expectations?

As a professional film critic (snort; I’ve been paid a very tiny amount for some very short reviews and directors’ bios), I almost always abstain with sharing such expectations, except perhaps with fellow moviegeeks who have also had experience of the artist and exposure to secondary sources. I cannot think of another instance on this board where I have broken that personal “rule,” but when I did so here I tried to remain clear about the nature of my opinion, what I’ve seen and what I have not seen. I doubt I’ll do so any more frequently in the future, but I have not misrepresented anything here, just shared an opinion.

Mostly, I’ve suggested that the opinion I’ve formed, based, to a certain degree, technically, on hearsay, is open to revision when I’ve seen the film for myself. I apologize for any unclarity in my communication, but I do not apologize for forming an opinion and sharing my expectations, particularly because I thought I was making the qualified nature of those expectations clear.

[Miller]

If that last post was generated by my post, I’m not trying to take you to task for posting without seeing the movie. I’m just pointing out that your secondary sources aren’t giving you an accurate impression of the movie.

[mswas]

What was this line from Matthew that was taken from the subtitles? I have heard about it, but haven’t heard what the actual line was.

Lissener: You seem to be hung up on the “Factual” analysis of history. The basic truth is, we don’t know who Pilate was having only anecdotal evidence of who he was two thousand years after the fact. So we don’t know whether he was a tyrant or whether he was spineless. Consensus does not make fact.

I personally really liked the portrayal of Pilate. I didn’t see him as spineless at all. I did not envy his position in the slightest, I felt incredibly sorry for him. As he said, he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Christ in the film sympathized with him, and I enjoyed the fact that Pilate seemed to identify with Christ more than the Rabbis and there seemed to be something of a rapport between them.

I think to look for historical “facts” is to not understand the story in the slightest. I think this has lead to much bloodshed over the years. It’s not about the “facts” it’s about the “Passion” or emotion. Christ himself was fighting “The Facts” of the empty legalism present among the Pharisees at the time. This is a strong theme in my own spiritual path, I think people want to make their opinions validated more strongly in the eyes of others by presenting their opinion as “Fact” and looking for empty sources to back it up. The truth is that while there is an objective, all of us view it through our own perspective, making anything we ever say about it subjective, so our experience of this story is the objective viewed through the subjective piled upon the subjective upon subjective as many times as it takes the story to reach our ears 2000 years later.

I saw someone say it was not factual because Jesus’ hairstyle was all wrong, as though anyone actually knows what he looks like. Jim Caviezel put forth an image of Christ that was pretty similar to my Americentric view of Christ. In fact when I have a beard, that is what I look like, so of course I would most identify with an image of Christ that looks like me. This is what Jesus looked like in the Last Supper. I thought it was all wrong because Jesus had brown eyes and I have blue eyes. To me the identification with Christ and bringing Christ into our hearts is a spiritual journey, to achieve enlightenment, and one must let go of old ideas of identity to truly see, so to me it doesn’t matter what he actually looked like, I identify with the Christ that seems most familiar, because my relationship with God is simply about Me, and not about any of you at all.

To me, saying that the story is anti-semitic is to not understand it. Trying to change the story to make it more palatable to jews is to change it’s content, as it is about a man who was fighting the jewish establishment of his day, so I can see why this would be offensive, but it is about one’s own relationship with God, it was a story about Mel Gibson’s relationship with God, and to me the irony of the whole issue is that people are angry over the relationship Gibson chose to share with them as though it was a personal attack upon them.

As far as Mel Gibson’s father is concerned, I view my father as being a weak willed broken man for the most part. I do not believe that about myself, in fact it affected me so strongly that I made a decision as a child never to break under any circumstances. So I do not see how his Father’s views, or his desire not to discuss his father’s views have anything to do with it. Nor do I believe his view on homosexuality has anything to do with it. I think homosexuality is rather silly myself, and I’ve had sex with men, and may do it again. In short I think most of the arguments against the film have been ad hominem attacks on Mel Gibson himself.

Jesus was the sacred heart, he spoke for the heart in the first person, something I tend to do as well, it’s the most effective way to describe things that I am describing even though people will oftentimes be confused by what I am trying to say, they then make the assumption that because they can’t understand me that I am being disingenuous or unclear, though many people CAN understand me without difficulty. So I identified with him when he had nothing he could really say to men who asked him to prove his power when they had already established that they believed any power he had was the work of devils.

The attainment of enlightenment, Christ conciousness, Buddha conciousness etc… requires the ability to leave behind every sense of morality that one once held. Sometimes it requires one to fly in the face of every established norm that their society once held. The mystic can be villified, ostracized, deified or crucified for what he does, and s/he must understand that they are doing it only for themselves, any change they make to the macro is simply a benefit.

I do not claim to speak for anyone but myself, I don’t even know if your eye color changes how you see colors, let alone how things seem by the time they filter through your body. This movie touched me very deeply, and I identified with Christ on a personal level as though the movie was about me, and that’s simply how it affected me, the rest of it, historical accuracy etc… is empty legalism as far as I’m concerned. So no one can tell me where it was accurate and where it was not, because I’m not looking for any accuracy except for where it jives with my experience, and where it does not.

Erek

[beajerry]

I am not a Christian, but a great appreciator of religious symbolism and student of mythology.
So I can see where the drama of Christ’s suffering and death can be a ‘moving experience’ spiritually for some people.
For me, the movie was just an epic drama full of good guys and bad.
I felt the drama of the main character’s plight, just as I did that of William Wallace (sorry, the basic story was about the same to me: one about a warrior dying for his political belief in freedom, one about a pacifist sage dying for his spiritual belief).

But beyond the dramatic plot, I still think Gibson dropped the symbolistic ball by focusing on the literal aspect of Jesus’s suffering (yes, he gave a short scene to the resurrection and a few to some teachings, but the Passion, as has been rightly said, is all about the symbols of death AND resurrection but not of the physical body!! And that’s what Mel focused on.).

And, sorry Avalonian, I don’t see how you missed the political intrigue and the part it played in J’s death. There were at least three groups to blame, two political and one a mob. (I don’t agree with the critics, though, that the Jews were portrayed unfairly.)

[beajerry]

Sorry, have to clarify:
The Passion is technically about suffering, not the Ressurection.
But without the Ressurection, it means little.

And again, the symbols are supposed to be spiritual, not stuck in the profane.

Give me a few million dollars and I’ll make a better version.
(Don’t worry, I’ll keep it gory.)

[lissener]

@mswas

. . . Lissener: You seem to be hung up on the “Factual” analysis of history. The basic truth is, we don’t know who Pilate was having only anecdotal evidence of who he was two thousand years after the fact. So we don’t know whether he was a tyrant or whether he was spineless. Consensus does not make fact. . . .

I saw someone say it was not factual because Jesus’ hairstyle was all wrong, as though anyone actually knows what he looks like. . . .

If your single greatest claim is “historical accuracy,” as Gibson’s has been, then yes, analysis of that accuracy is perfectly permissable. Anthropological consensus is, in fact, that semitic men of that time and place had short hair.

Just as you’re doing, Gibson took the lack of total unanimity in the scientific and historical consensus as carte blanche to make up any damn thing he wanted to. If his only excuse for the audience-punishing gore is “historical accuracy,” then it behooves him to consider the consensus, and perhaps come down on one side or the other. But to suggest that any disagreement between experts means “Nobody know ANYTHING, therefore I’ll just make shit up,” and then claim historical accuracy, is insulting bullshit.

[Liberal]

Mswas

A beautiful OP. I could hear your heart. And you’re right, what stands condemned is religion and its nefarious politicians, not Jews. He Himself was a Jew. His apostles were all Jews. The Marys were Jews. Almost all His disciples were Jews. And those in the Sanhedrin who protested His arrest were all Jews.

[Avalonian]

@beajerry

And, sorry Avalonian, I don’t see how you missed the political intrigue and the part it played in J’s death. There were at least three groups to blame, two political and one a mob. (I don’t agree with the critics, though, that the Jews were portrayed unfairly.)

I saw the intrigue… it was mostly subtextual, with a couple notable exceptions. I just didn’t see it as being integral to the message of the film. shrugs

[beajerry]

Jesus speaks about the film.

[mswas]

Lissener as a devoutly religious person who meditates on this daily looking for the spiritual meaning, using it as a vehicle to commune with the divine, I do believe that historical legalism means that the person reading the story missed the point completely. It’s much more abstract than that. It’s a story about Paradox - he was his own father as well as his own son, something that tells us about the origin of creation between the spiritual father, the earthly mother (Latin Mater = Matter) creating an Earthly Son that is the combination of the divine spiritual realms and the earthly physical realms, that all of his existance is contained in a single point (Kether in Qabbalah) yet expands out to create the entire of Life (Sefiroth), therefore the story is more about the “Passions” it elicits within you, as that is your personal experience with the divine, rather than some kind of legalism where someone tries to tell you that their opinion of the material is more “expert” than yours. They are still only getting an impression based upon writings.

How do we know if Pilate was a tyrant or not? Who wrote the material? Did they like Pilate when they wrote it? Was he the type of leader that people feared to write badly about publically? There are all sorts of factors that go into the subjectivity when the person who KNEW Pilate wrote in their writings, then there is the next person in line, let’s say it’s the translator, how was his grasp of the source material? What was his particular slant upon what he was reading? What was the political climate of the time when he read it ? What was his field of study that makes him an expert? Was he even an expert? Was there a monk just copying text he couldn’t read somewhere involved? So on and so forth into the person who wrote the analysis, to you when you formed your opinion and to me when I took in your opinion. So no I don’t think there is any possibility at all for historical accuracy, and that it must be taken as a story, and we must examine as we would any other piece of literature and not try to make it rigid.

beajerry: Personally as the movie moved me in a spiritual way, knocked down many of the walls I’d been confronted with in my quest, answered many of my questions, yes for a spiritualist in that tradition there IS a purpose in the suffering. By watching this movie I was able to get a certain perspective on my own belief. So I think it’s actually YOU missing the point by wishing for a more clinical perspective and a less personal perspective.

Erek

[artemis]

@lissener

My point exactly: Pilate is traditionally known as something of a tyrant; the portrayal of him as spineless (specifically in the face of the rabbis) is conveniently innacurate.

Not at all. While ancient historians give us accounts of Pilate that suggest he was in all likelihood actually a brutal tyrant, in the Gospels he’s indeed shown as being reluctant to order the crucifiction of Christ. On this point, you’re actually criticizing Gibson for being faithful to his source materials (the Gospels).

[beajerry]

mswas, you are right.
I am being too clinical. It’s just a movie after all.
I enjoyed it, as a drama.
My complaint that the spiritual symbols are misused is still valid, but I am complaining about how a movie, a piece of art, is being interpreted, and that’s
wrong.

[mswas]

beajerry: See, I disagree with you that the spiritual symbols are being misused. I think the idea that there is a proper usage has kept mainstream christianity from evolution over the years, and has led to the stagnation that creates men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as well as leading to the Vatican trying to keep down the Gospel of St. Thomas.

Also, I am not trying to get on your case, but you have said that you do not believe in it, only that you are a student of mythology. If you do not believe in it how can you possibly understand it at all?

[Avalonian]

@mswas

Also, I am not trying to get on your case, but you have said that you do not believe in it, only that you are a student of mythology. If you do not believe in it how can you possibly understand it at all?

I’m not beajerry, but I’ll answer for myself. I’m an atheist of long standing, and The Passion did nothing to change that for me. However, I feel that I very clearly understood the point the film was making, because it wasn’t one that only has meaning for Christians. I see it as a fairly universal point – rooted in spirituality but not necessarily a particular system of belief. That may not be exactly what Gibson intended, but that’s what I got.

Do I have to be Christian to understand and even agree with a spiritual message? I don’t see why. “Spiritual” is not limited to “of the Christian faith”… or any systematic faith at all, for that matter.

[mswas]

No I do not think you have to be a Christian. I would not self-classify myself as a Christian, I was brought up in a Christian society by a father who taught me a combination of Christian and Buddhist ideals. I believe one can understand it. However, the impression I got, and I might be wrong is that Beajerry was treating it as an intellectual question, which I do not believe it is, it is experiential, and she did say that she would take the movie as a self-contained piece of art. However, if one has not experienced such then how can one comment upon it, in any other terms than a psychoanalysis of other people’s experience. In terms of experience the movie reflected an abstract emotional experience that I have been through from beginning to end, mirroring it to a high degree of accuracy, so therefore I believe the symbolism in the movie was accurate, and that a claim to the inaccuracy of the symbolism is a misapplication of the process, thinking that there is some CORRECT way to look at it or to apply the symbols. This is the myth of the objective. While there is an objective one cannot speak for it. It’s root word is “Object” or that which is observed or experienced. It is not the observers opinion, any opinion is subjective, no matter how much we’d like to claim that OUR opinion is objective.

Beajerry: If I at any point misunderstood you please let me know, I’m not trying to single you out.

I read an article discussing Mel Gibson’s process in creating this film, and it seems to me that he delved VERY VERY deeply within himself to draw out his own passions regarding the subject. The movie is called The “Passion” of Christ because it is about PASSION not intellectualization.

Erek

[Miller]

@mswas

Also, I am not trying to get on your case, but you have said that you do not believe in it, only that you are a student of mythology. If you do not believe in it how can you possibly understand it at all?

What’s not to understand? Christian theology isn’t terribly difficult to figure out. I daresay that if it were, it would never have caught on and spread the way it did.

[mswas]

I hadn’t appropriately addressed the question about Caiphas, because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Now that I’ve thought about it, I would say that the treatment of Caiphas was more as the spokesman for those that wanted Christ’s death, rather than a spokesman for all jews. However, I can see how one would take this being that he was the High Priest, a symbol of authority for all Judaism. I think looking for some hidden anti-semitism is pretty reaching. I suspect Mel Gibson has had both good and bad dealings with jews as a member of the Hollywood community for so long, and probably regards Jews on a more personal level rather than as some monolithic organism against which he is fighting.

There are issues I have with Judaism and it’s legalism myself, and I’ve had problems with jews on an individual level, and I’ve had incredibly intimate relationships with Jews, I lost my virginity to one, married/divorced an Israeli and live with two of my best friends who are both jews as well as one of my main business partners at the moment is a jew. It is not possible for me to be anti-semitic in the blanket term it is so often mis-applied, even though some of my beliefs are strongly in opposition to what I see as empty legalism. Though I study Kabbalah regularly as a mystical study and find it enlightening.

Erek