2 Reviews for
The Passion of the Christ
By Richard Leonard, S.J.
Copyright America Press Inc. 2004.
The Rev. Fr Richard Leonard, S.J., is the Director of the Australian Catholic Film
Office.
"The Passion of the Christ." Starring James Caviezel and Monica Bellucci. Directed,
produced and screenplay by Mel Gibson. Rated MA 15+, 129 mins.
No one can doubt the personal devotion and faith Mel Gibson has brought to "The
Passion of the Christ." He has put his money where his soul is. Gibson is in a long line of
distinguished directors like the Cecil DeMille, George Stevens, Martin Scorsese and Pier
Paolo Pasolini who brought their particular passions to bear on that of Jesus.
Every portrayal of Jesus in the cinema provides an insight into the historical events
recorded in the Gospels. If it didn't we would not recognise the story. But every passion
play, and that's the genre of these films, is also a commentary on the here and now.
During the roaring twenties De Mille in "King of Kings" gave the world an epic and
spectacular Jesus. In the 1960's Steven's "The Greatest Story Ever Told" bombed at the
box office because he bought nothing fresh to the story or images. Pasolini's "The Gospel
According to Matthew" had as much to do with Marx as Matthew, and by the 1980's
Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" had Jesus dream about what life would be
like with a wife and kids.
To realise their insights into the Jesus story on screen, all these directors, bar Pasolini,
and now including Gibson, commit a fundamental and serious sin. They collapse the four
canonical Gospels into one, as though they are identical stories about Jesus. Then they
take whatever they want from this biblical smorgasbord. Unlike the church in its
liturgical traditions in Holy Week, "The Passion of the Christ" liberally jumps between
all the narratives with no regard for any particular Gospel.
The Second Vatican Council in its decree "On Divine Revelation" and the Pontifical
Biblical Commission have warned that this process does a disservice to the integrity each
of the texts, and can do harm to the portrait of Jesus it paints.
What we have in the Gospels are four highly stylised, inspired portraits of Jesus' life,
death and resurrection. The differences between these accounts are especially evident
when they turn to the passion of Jesus.
In Mark Jesus suffers grievously and feels abandoned on the cross. Matthew sees Jesus as
the rejected Messiah of Israel and is noted for its anti-Jewish tone. Luke has Jesus reach
out to Gentiles and sinners, even on the cross, and then reconcile himself to his death.
John's Jesus is poised, controlled and majestic as he enters into his suffering and death.
Each of these inspired narratives comes out of a particular historical context and
community which contributed to the final work we have today. But "The Passion of the
Christ" rolls them all into one. It takes the suffering of Mark, the blame-game of Matthew
and the compassion of Luke and, very broadly indeed, follows the events and characters
recorded by John. "The Passion of the Christ" interprets and selects material from its
Gospel sources in a way that does not honour the original meaning or intention of the
Gospels, and cannot be seen as the "historically accurate" account of the first Good
Friday, which the director has claimed it to be.
There are just too many of these errors to list, but three will do. "The Passion of the
Christ" continues the calumny against Mary Magdalene by casting her as the woman
taken in adultery in John 8. The film argues that all three versions of his last words
recorded over the four Gospels were said by Jesus from the cross. Worst of all it changes
the tearing of the veil of the temple into a fully-fledged earthquake that physically breaks
up the temple floor.
The second sin Gibson and his colleagues commit with the passion story is the insertion
of extraneous material they inflict on the already homogenised narrative that they have
created. In Gibson's case this material is key to understanding his film and why he made
in the first place.
We know that Gibson was drawn to make this film after a spiritual awakening. His is on
record as saying that one of the texts that affected him most deeply on this laudable
journey was "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Written in
1824 by the German mystic Catherine Emmerich, this book records her private
revelations and visions about the suffering and death of Jesus.
In many instances Emmerich's work varies significantly in detail and tone from any of
the Gospels and unfortunately Gibson has incorporated a number of scenes from this
book into his film: a confrontation after the arrest between a chained Jesus and Judas; a
much larger role for Pilate's wife; a tender meeting between Jesus and his mother; a raven
picking out the eyes of the bad thief; and a waterfall of blood pouring over the Roman
Centurion as he pierces Jesus' side.
As befits Catholic spirituality of the time, Emmerich was obsessed with the details of
how Jesus suffered, and for how long. So is Gibson. I never thought the scourging at the
pillar would end. This particular episode is unrelentingly violent.
In Australia the film has received an MA 15+ rating for the graphic violence it portrays.
In the USA it got an R rating for the same reason. Overall, this film is obscenely brutal.
This further complicates a Catholic response to the film. We cannot, rightly, condemn
other films for their graphic violence and then condone such a portrayal because it
happens to suit our theological tastes. It is regrettable that Gibson did not see that
gratuitous and graphic violence diminishes the filmmaker, the film watcher, and the
peaceful world Jesus wants us to build in his name.
Catherine Emmerich was also a European Catholic of her time and her work is
particularly anti-Semitic in tone. On this score she may be entitled to an historical
defence, but it underlines why the church teaches that private revelations are just that, and
that they need to be tested against the faith of the whole church over time.
One can see why this film has been targeted as being anti-Semitic. There are some
stereotypically gratuitous portraits of "the Jews," especially in the scene where the
betrayal money is handed over to Judas, and later as he tries to hand it back. Worst of all,
by far, however, is the exaggerated and dominant role it gives to Caiaphas, the chief
priest. "The Passion of the Christ" makes clear that some on the Jewish Council were
against the condemnation of Jesus and, along with Simon of Cyrene, there were some
women in the crowd who were sympathetic to him on the road to Calvary. But the real
baddies in Gibson's film are Caiaphas and the other councillors who lead the Jewish
crowd to bay for Jesus' blood.
Gibson takes this to the point of the absurd. In his portrait of Pilate, he gives us a
vacillating and thoughtful man upon whom Caiaphas has extraordinary influence. We
know from Jewish and Roman sources of the time that Pilate was a ruthless Procurator,
and that his harsh and cruel reign led to a rebellion by the Jews. Pilate had no problem
executing anyone who got in the way of his murderous rule, and Jesus would have been
one more local dissident to deal with.
Where the film is most unhelpful in regard to Jewish/Christian relations is in a scene it
uses from Matthew 27 where the people call out "May his blood be upon us and upon our
children" (Matt 27:25). Much to our Christian shame, for which the Pope asked
forgiveness of the Jewish people in the Year 2000, this verse has been invoked over the
centuries as a support for the most appalling anti-Semitic actions. Gibson has made an
odd concession to this charge in the final cut of the film. He has left Matthew 27:25 in
but only has the line delivered in Aramaic, with no subtitle. What's going here? Why not
drop it altogether?
It would have been better if Gibson had taken the words of Pope John Paul II to heart.
"Erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people
and their alleged culpability have circulated [in the Christian world] for too long,
engendering feelings of hostility toward these people. They contributed to the lulling of
consciences, so that the way for persecution swept across Europe…the spiritual resistance
of many was not what humanity rightfully expected from the disciples of Christ. [The]
examination of the past in view of the purification of memory, is particularly appropriate
for clearly showing that anti-Semitism has no justification and is absolutely
reprehensible." The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, theologically, that through
our sinfulness we all carry responsibility for the death of Jesus.
Furthermore, this film could have avoided the anti-Semitic charge altogether by
presenting Jesus and his mother as the devout Jews they were. Instead we get a
continuation of the usual cinematic portrait of the holy card Jesus and Mary: white,
handsome and seemingly all-knowing about the events that are about to unfold.
Talking about the pope brings me to a critical point. Mel Gibson is regularly described as
a "Roman Catholic" or a "Traditional Catholic". He's not. He has repeatedly and publicly
rejected the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This council is not an optional
extra for "Roman" Catholics who love their tradition, and so, by his own admission, and
that of Roger Cardinal Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, the diocese where
Gibson lives, he has placed himself outside our community, and is, in fact, a schismatic.
Therefore, no matter how sincere his personal faith may be, his is not the traditional faith
of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore we must concede that he is not obliged to
follow the church's teachings about fidelity to the Gospels and Jewish Christian relations.
Accordingly, we should not feel obliged to defend him, or his particular theological
positions. On these questions he has chosen to go it alone.
It is also true that this film imports all other manner of dialogue and scenes from
unknown sources that serve only to subject the audience to a prolonged vision of blood,
gore, cruelty and torture. Rather than being moved, I was repulsed by it and wondered
what was going in the mind of the filmmaker.
"The Passion of the Christ" is, in a very few parts, a deeply moving portrait of the climax
of the greatest story ever told, but it's a highly evangelical work. The title says it all. This
film is not interested in the passion of the historical Jesus but the passion of "the Christ",
the anointed one, or Messiah, the only Son of God. This is key to understanding what it
all means.
Gibson's film waves its cinematic finger at the secular Western audience and says, "If
only you knew how great and how long God has suffered and died for you, you would
abandon your wicked ways." Maybe.
As important as the Christian call to conversion might be, the more imaginative
presentations of Jesus' passion that touch me most deeply are the ones that are told in the
context of the whole of Jesus' life and ministry, have a less hectoring tone, are more
faithful to the Gospel sources, and shows us, for longer than one resuscitating minute at
the end, that Jesus' resurrection demonstrates why God had the last word on his Son's
faithful and self-sacrificing love of us, and how it leads all people everywhere to know
that that they have the hope of eternal life.
Mel O'Drama
The Passion of the Christ
By Richard Blake, S.J.
America for Mar. 15, 2004.
Copyright America Press Inc. 2004.
The Rev. Richard A. Blake, S.J., is professor of fine arts and co-director of the film
studies program at Boston College.
Why am I writing this? More to the point, why are you reading it? The answer is simple.
Everybody has to say something about it, and many of you feel you have to see it. Even
before seeing the film—and making it clear that I had not yet seen it—I was badgered
into making statements on it on the basis of trailers, stills, notices in the press, Mel
Gibson’s varied television appearances and comments that other people are thought to
have made about it. The pressure for secular and religious media to produce something,
anything, borders on frenzy, as apparently does the public’s curiosity about it.
The Passion of the Christ has been branded as “controversial” or, more pointedly, antiSemitic. How could we know? Surely, reviewers should address such an important issue,
but how would a responsible reviewer say anything without having seen the finished
product? The dialogue that has taken place over the past few weeks has little relationship
to the film. At best, the film has provided the occasion for some deeply entrenched
religious issues to rise to the surface and receive serious reflection. At worst, it has
provided the occasion for name-calling and the stirring of some old animosities and
suspicions.
Whether Mel Gibson and his colleagues at Icon Films formulated a deliberate strategy for
prerelease publicity, I will not speculate. What they did, by devious design or by dumb
luck, generated more free media time than Private Ryan, Harry Potter and Frodo
combined. Some early scripts circulated among experts for comment stirred memories of
Passion plays and the role they may have played in depicting Jews as “Christ-killers” and
in keeping alive the anti-Semitism that has plagued Europe for centuries. Some
evangelical Christian groups felt the film, when it appeared, would be an invaluable tool
for outreach. Gibson himself never hides his traditionalist (and schismatic) brand of
Catholicism, and it was but one short step to dig up several unfortunate statements his
father had made and conclude that the younger Mr. Gibson might subscribe to them as
well.
Even the Pope became involved with a cryptic comment that he may or may not have
made and that provided fuel for both sides. For fans, it stood as a papal endorsement of
the spiritual value and historical accuracy of the film. For critics it provided another
indication of the anti-Jewish sentiment that remains in the Roman Catholic Church. Both
interpretations of “It is as it was” seem a stretch, and neither comes from any relationship
to the film.
The mix of sources for these comments proved incendiary. Evangelicals, with their
concentration on the person of Jesus coupled with their aggressive conversion programs,
generally leave some sectors of the Jewish community very uncomfortable, especially
when some expressions of the message imply that acceptance of Jesus as Lord is a
condition for salvation. In addition, the evangelical emphasis on the literal meaning of
Bible texts leaves many mainline Protestants and most Catholics a bit edgy as well.
So the lines were drawn along the question of whether a historically accurate recreation
of the Passion without contexts is possible given the sketchy material provided in the
Gospels—or if it is, can it be theologically misleading by submerging the fuller and more
complex understanding of Redemption? Catholics, too, have their own little in-house
family feuds, left over from the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Those of the old
right feel that the cross has been historicized, deconstructed and symbolized into oblivion,
with Gibson bringing it back to center stage. Those of the new left who would rather
place all their theological eggs in one basket—an Easter basket—find Gibson offering a
noxious return to old-time guilt-trip theology.
As a result, statements made by one group were met with counterstatements from another
who felt their deepest religious sensibilities challenged. The media have fallen into line
by providing a pulpit for everyone with an opinion. Some of this exchange has been quite
constructive, but a lot of it is silly. And almost none of the buzz, I repeat, has anything to
do with the film, which had been seen only by a select few, who, again by luck or design,
were impelled to make the strongest statements about it based on their own agenda rather
than on the merits of the film. While various advocacy groups were fencing over what
they thought the final product contained, the film was kept under tight wraps, according
to the standard Hollywood practice. In effect, the selective pre-release distribution
through sneak previews excluded those who might tell the public something about what
the film actually says.
Finally, a series of press screenings was arranged two days before the release to the
general public on Ash Wednesday. Discussing the film on its own merits seems
anticlimactic after the long barrage of hype, but it’s what readers have a right to expect
from this column.
For starters, remember this is a commercial film, not a papal encyclical. Icon Films wants
you to buy a $10 ticket, not give up candy for Lent.
“The Passion of the Christ” limits its narrative to the interval between the Agony in the
Garden and burial, with a very brief coda for the Resurrection. It is a Passion Play and
presumes to be nothing else. It offers a few brief flashbacks: the Last Supper, the rescue
of the woman caught in adultery and a few snippets of preaching. It also offers two
whimsical episodes of the home life of Jesus (James Caviezel) and Mary (Maia
Morgenstern), one when Mary tends to the five-year-old Jesus after he scrapes his knee
and another when she prepares lunch for him in the carpenter shop and they indulge in a
genteel water fight. Both imaginary non-scriptural episodes nicely recall the loving
relationship between Mother and Son. Gibson does not hesitate to embellish the truth for
dramatic purposes, which he does deftly in these episodes, but these scenes raise
questions for those who believe the film is a literal translation of divinely dictated
narrative.
Dramatically, the film needs more of these. The character of Jesus seems disengaged
from his world. Even though most viewers will be familiar with the outline of the story
before the Passion and can be expected to fill in some of the background, the film still
needs some traction with its environment. In “The Passion” Jesus becomes a pure victim
of forces determined to destroy him for reasons that remain murky. I wanted a conflict to
help me sympathize with a tragic hero rather than a pathetic punching bag. The
complexity of political life in first-century Palestine and competing factions, civil and
religious, undoubtedly rivaled those of the Middle East today. Too much exposition
would have distracted from the narrative, of course, but by excluding all such historical
background, Gibson has left us with a spectacle of bad people doing bad things to an
innocent victim for no apparent reason.
Spectacle is an important word. The energy that might have gone into character
development went instead into special effects of a most brutal kind. Gibson shows an
almost sadomasochistic fascination with physical pain. (In his 1995 film “Braveheart,”
Gibson had himself disemboweled in the final scene.) Jesus is whipped across the back
and legs once with canes, then after a short break, a second time with the metal-tipped
scourge. And after that ordeal, the Romans loosen one wrist, flip him over and flail his
frontside with equal vigor. By the time it’s over, the make-up artists give his skin the
texture of spaghetti marinara. From the opening sequence, blows from fists and whips
whistle and crack, like the sound effects now so familiar from martial-arts films. Yes,
Roman execution was a brutal, bloody business, but presenting it in such graphic detail
passes dangerously close to a pornography of violence. Clinical detail cheapens both
eroticism and suffering.
Dwelling at such length on torture has a paradoxical effect of slowing the action down.
Undoubtedly, Gibson wanted to force audiences to see and experience the prolonged
agony. The strategy misfires. Constant and prolonged lingering on painful events
designed by special-effects units not only desensitizes the audience. It also makes the
pace drag. The first blow is shocking; the tenth is tedious. If a director slows the action
down to allow an audience to contemplate something beautiful, as Japanese filmmakers
frequently do, the result adds to the pleasure, and we’re content to let the narrative lag for
a few moments. Gibson, however, asks us to gaze at horrible atrocities, and unless one
has a morbid fascination with physical suffering, one only becomes anxious to move on.
Sadly, audiences have become numbed to movie pain through constant repetition. Gibson
knows this quite well and pushed the limits of graphic torture, but after 20 minutes or so,
the pain loses its meaning.
One very lovely and very Catholic touch is Gibson’s use of Mary. She appears as a
witness to events, reflecting the vicarious suffering through exhaustion rather than
hysterics. At the end, in her close-up as she holds the corpse of her son in a recreation of
Michelangelo’s most famous Pietà, she gazes directly at the audience, as though accusing
each of us of complicity in the atrocities we have been watching over the past two hours.
Now that the film has reached the public, I doubt that much will change in people’s
perception of the events on the screen. Evangelicals and traditionalists will be deeply
moved by the vividness of the Passion and will continue to market posters and study
guides about it to further their outreach. Mainstream Protestants and Vatican II Catholics
will be dismayed by the absence of theological reflection and historical contexts. AntiSemites may be disappointed that their prejudices are supported far less by the film than
they had been led to believe, but they will probably find something to support their
stupidity. Those sectors of the Jewish community who tend to feel some trepidation about
Christian belief that the execution of Jesus lies at the core of their faith will find little
consolation: the film portrays all Romans as brutal thugs (except the indecisive but
sympathetic Pontius Pilate) and some few Jewish leaders as schemers in a web of
political intrigue it never bothers to explain. In other words, the baggage audiences bring
into the theater they will have to carry out.
My guess is that after the first weekends on thousands of screens, ticket sales will drop
off quickly. Evangelical churches have purchased blocks of tickets, and the curious will
feel they “have” to see it, simply because the media blitz has told them they have to. So
much for the first week. It is, after all, a well-intentioned but tedious movie, whose
morbid fascination with pain and subtitled dialogue will do little to attract mainstream
audiences over the long haul. My hope is that the dialogue among Jews and Christians,
evangelical and mainline churches, Catholic progressives and restorationists will continue
long after “The Passion of the Christ” becomes a videotape mainstay for churchsponsored study groups or (in a heavily edited version) a perennial Holy Week offering
for network television.