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just read this one and wanted to toss it into the ring. just FYI, this does not represent my views -- i have yet to see the movie, and i am no expert on mel gibson's personal spiritual beliefs. i just present it to stand or fall on its own, period. this is from www.slate.msn.com btw.

Jesus H. Christ
The Passion, Mel Gibson's bloody mess.
By David Edelstein
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004, at 4:28 PM PT

Ever since his star began to rise after the 1979 Australian thriller Mad Max, Mel Gibson hasn't seemed fully alive on screen unless he's being tortured and mutilated. In the Road Warrior and Lethal Weapon films, as well as such one-shots as Conspiracy Theory (1997) and The Patriot (2000), Gibson courted martyrdom, and he achieved it. He won an Oscar for his labors in Braveheart (1995), which ends with its hero managing to scream "FREEEEE-DOM!!" as he's drawn and quartered. Gibson snatched the pulp movie Payback (1999) away from its writer-director, Brian Helgeland, to make the torture of his character even more gruelingly explicit: He added shots of his toes being smashed by an iron hammer. Payback: That's what almost all of Gibson's movies are about (including his 1990 Hamlet.) Even if he begins as a man of peace, Mad Mel ends as a savage revenger.

A devout Catholic—albeit one who believes that Vatican II, which formally absolved the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, is illegitimate—Gibson has said that what moves him most about the Christ story is that Jesus was whipped, scourged, mocked, spat on, had spikes driven through his hands and feet, and was left to die on the cross—and that he didn't think of payback; he thought of forgiveness. But by wallowing in his torture and death for two hours, the director of The Passion of the Christ (Newmarket) suggests that he's thinking of anything but.

Gibson had an ingenious idea for promoting his Passion: as the film that the Jews don't want you to see. Now watch those lines form! Bad reviews won't matter, either, since Gibson has called his critics "the forces of Satan" or, more charitably, the "dupes of Satan." After Gibson's pre-emptive blasts, an attack on his Passion will be interpreted by some as an attack on their religious beliefs instead of on filmmaking that is theologically, morally, and—by the way—artistically suspect.

As you probably know, The Passion of the Christ recounts the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (played by the lean, high-cheekboned Jim Caviezel), with flashbacks to the Last Supper and a few shots of the little-boy Jesus being hugged by his mother, Mary. (The latter are cross-cut with spikes being hammered through his hands.) The lashes of the soldiers (dispatched by the Jewish priesthood) begin about 15 minutes into the film; by the time Jesus is dragged into the presence of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate (the Bulgarian actor Hristo Naumov Shopov), his face has already been smashed to a pulp.

Pilate, whom historians identify as a surpassingly cruel ruler responsible for crucifying many thousands to maintain his authority, is portrayed as a sorrowful, even-tempered man whose wife (Claudia Gerini) shows acts of loving kindness toward Mary (Maia Morgenstern) and Mary Magdalene (Monica Bellucci). Pilate is shocked by the Jews' brutality and by the determination of the priest Caiphas (Mattia Sbragia) to see this so-called blasphemer executed. While Pilate wrinkles his forehead, searching his tender conscience, sundry Jews lean into the camera and hiss or keen through rotted teeth.

I know, it sounds like a Monty Python movie. You're thinking there must be something to The Passion of the Christ besides watching a man tortured to death, right? Actually, no: This is a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie—The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre—that thinks it's an act of faith. For Gibson, Jesus is defined not by his teachings in life—by his message of mercy, social justice, and self-abnegation, some of it rooted in the Jewish Torah, much of it defiantly personal—but by the manner of his execution.

That doesn't exactly put him outside the mainstream: The idea that Jesus died for the sins of mankind is one of the central tenets of Christian faith. But Gibson has chosen those sections of the Gospels (especially the Gospel of Matthew) that reflect the tension between Jews and Christians 50 years after the crucifixion, when the new religion's proselytizers were trying to convert, rather than incite, the Roman authorities. This is the sort of passion play that makes people mad.

Gibson uses every weapon in his cinematic arsenal to drive home the agony of those last dozen hours. While his mother and Mary Magdalene watch, Jesus is lashed until his entire body is covered in bloody crisscrossing canals. When he rises, amazing the Roman soldiers with his stamina, they go for the scourges, which rip and puncture his flesh in slow motion—all while the Romans and the Jews cackle wildly. Carrying his cross, he falls again and again in slow motion on his swollen, battered body while the soundtrack reverberates with heavy, Dolby-ized thuds. It is almost a relief when the spikes are driven into his hands and feet—at least it means that his pain is almost over.

What does this protracted exercise in sadomasochism have to do with Christian faith? I'm asking; I don't know. Gibson's revenge movies end with payback—or, in Braveheart, the promise of payback to come. When Jesus is resurrected, his expression is hard, and, as he moves toward the entrance to his tomb, the camera lingers on a round hole in his hand that goes all the way through. Gibson's Jesus reminded me of the Terminator—he could be the Christianator—heading out into the world to spread the bloody news. Next stop: the Crusades.

David Edelstein is obviously not a Christian!!!

Guy doesn't know what he is talking about. Not all of Mel Gibson's movie start with him at peace and end with him as a revenger.

There was one movie, I think it was called forever young, in which he is put in cryogenic sleep as a military experiment and forgotten about. He is accidentally awoken and he searches to find the woman he loved. A sappy story but I don't recall him being tortured or killing anyone for revenge.

This guy definitely did not see the movie I saw.

As a matter of fact, if you read the Gospels you will realize that the violence in this movie is not as violent as what really happened. You can still recognize the face of Caviel, whereas no one could recognize Christ's face once the soldiers had beaten and scourged him.

Perhaps this guy should read the Bible first and then critic the film.

Matt

eleltea

i don't know my short hand, what is imam?

i think my left hand is shorter because i can scratch my ass easier with my right hand.

this was in my local paper (online edition) today. a group of local clergy (wilmington, NC) went to see the film as a group and then were interviewed about the experience. here's what they had do say about it -- and i have to say, i was expecting a LOT more pro-movie comments from this group.

if you want to read it online, the URL is:
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040226/NEWS/402260320/1015/community04

'Passion'-ate opinions
Local clergy share impressions of film


By Amanda Greene
Staff Writer
[email protected]

The Star-News took a group of ministers, rabbis and parishioners to the first Wilmington showing of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ on Wednesday. They already knew how the movie would end. What they didn't know was how it would make them feel.

The group was: Rabbi Ben Romer from Temple of Israel; Rabbi Robert Waxman from B'Nai Israel Synagogue; the Rev. Mark Opgrand, associate pastor at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church; Father John Regis Alexoudis from St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church; the Rev. Mike from Port City Community Church;the Rev. John Gillespie from St. Mary Parish; and Abdul Ali, a member of Tauheed Islamic Center and his wife, Marsha Graham-Ali, a Christian.

After the film, the group discussed the movie with the Star-News. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

Would you tell your congregations, including the children, to see 'The Passion'?

Father Regis: "No, not the children. It's too gruesome. The congregation, yes."

Rev. Opgrand: "I know people will go whether I recommend it or not. But the question I'm having is am I going to take a group because people have asked if I'm going to. I really have mixed feelings about that. But I think if I take a group and we can go and process it afterwards like we're doing here, then that will help."

Rabbi Romer: "Maybe one of these times we can bring our communities together and process it, so instead of worrying about will there be anti-Semitic backlashes, why don't we all talk about it."

Should this movie have caused such a media frenzy?

Rabbi Romer: "The controversy ended up coming from Gibson and the struggle of the Passion stories. - - - He used all the worst Jewish caricatures you could, and he misuses the Scriptures for his purposes. We don't have any witnesses to the trial so everything was interpretation."

Rev. Gillespie: "I don't think it deserved the hype."

Rabbi Romer: "I'll look at it differently because it's not my story. This isn't an issue of truth. It doesn't have to be historically true. It's faith true. It's our faith story. So did it happen, did it not happen, doesn't matter."

Whom did the movie blame for Christ's death?

Father Regis: "The Scripture where he says 'My life has not been taken from me, but I give it of my own accord,' and the way he put it there, I felt like there was no blame. But the Romans really were the brutalizing ones in the movie."

Rev. Ashcraft: "What I walked away with was not who killed him, but what is this all about?"

Father Regis: "Even on the cross, (Gibson) did bring out the forgiveness. Even in the movie, he's trying to say I'm not trying to blame anyone with this movie. I'm simply stating what Jesus said."

Was the gore gratuitous or did it make a point?

Rev. Opgrand: "That was so much in my face that it was hard for me to believe that I killed Christ. It was those evil guys who did it. Do you think that Gibson was trying to press for more divinity in the gore because no mere mortal could withstand such torture?"

Rabbi Romer: "Mel has a gore factor in all his movies."

The actor who plays Jesus is white. Should he have been a different race?

Mrs. Graham-Ali: "If they made Jesus another color, wouldn't that have made the movie more controversial?"

Mr. Ali: "When you begin to show a picture of the divine in a particular color. When you focus on the physical character and not the message, this is when I see a lot of people miss the message. What was the word? This is what will make us better human beings, when you look at the message. I think that's when we go wrong by putting an image of the divine in a particular embodiment."

Rabbi Romer: "I always use a clear crayon to color in God. I tell my kids, use a clear crayon."

Do you think the Gospel message of love and forgiveness was part of the film?

Rev. Gillespie: "It got sort of drowned out through a lot of the violence. If I had to compare this to a symphony, there was a lot of drums and cymbals, and I couldn't hear the violins."

Father Regis: "In one way he did capture it in some of Jesus' looks. It was overpowered but the message was there when Jesus looked at certain people, the look in his eye, you knew that there was forgiveness there."

Rabbi Waxman: "The soldiers, they were touched. Seems like people he looked at seemed to come over to his side."

Rev. Gillespie: "Did you walk out of that movie like rattled emotionally? Like jumbled inside. That wasn't a spiritual experience."

Mrs. Graham-Ali: "You felt jumbled but I felt a spiritual experience that made me feel closer to Jesus. That he was suffering for my sins. I kept looking at him and thinking, 'You did this for me?' "

Overall, did you enjoy the movie?

Rev. Gillespie: "Joy's not the right word."

Father Regis: "It was overly dramatic, overly gruesome and Hollywood at its best. In the early church, the church fathers made a crucifix that was two-dimensional and not gruesome in any way."

Rev. Opgrand: "There was a huge wince factor in this movie that's so manipulative. But the divinity of Jesus didn't come across. What I was drawn into more was Mary. She was totally believable. What wasn't necessarily biblical about her reactions was totally believable."

Mrs. Graham-Ali: "I saw Jesus suffering for our sins, and it showed to me the good that comes from Christ."

Rev. Ashcraft: "I haven't seen a lot of Jesus movies like that with such a portrayal of the bigger picture. To really capture the portrayal of evil like he did, that Satan was lurking at every turn."

What about the shots that show the action through Jesus' eyes? How did that make you feel?

Rabbi Waxman: "Some people might feel that in a split second they are Jesus. Thinking that what if you were up there on the cross."

Mr. Ali: "In this period of time today, it seems as though people are looking for something and are questioning themselves. Who am I; what am I; what is my purpose? I think a lot of people will come out to view that, just trying to find themselves."

Rev. Opgrand: "Maybe the value (of the movie) is for people to dig deeper, then."

What were you thinking during the flogging and crucifixion scenes?

Rev. Ashcraft: "I wanted it to be over," he said. "But I wanted to stay with it, too. The magnitude of my sin, of what God sees, forced me to stay long enough to absorb it all."

Father Regis: "I wanted to walk out at that point."

Mrs. Graham-Ali: "One man who was sitting beside me, when they were hitting Jesus, it was like they were hurting him."