loki09789 said:
Just got done watching History Channel's History vs. Hollywood about the Passion of the Christ
They get a panel of topic experts and try and determine the chosen movie is more history or hollywood. They have done movies like Braveheart, Patton, Last Samurai...
The general agreement was that Gibson's movie was more hollywood than history - not because it was corporate or a money machine - but because the panel of theologians, movie critics understood that the gospels were primarily about inspiration than historical accuracy and Gibson was attempting to be as true to the gospels as possible. Also, he was upholding a tradition of earlier passion movies that used the euro-handsome hero images of Christ and others instead of the ethnically accurate images of Semetics of the time as well as movie devices like cross images, tomb structure and so on that audiences would recognize from earlier movies.
The use of language was mentioned as a great way to make the movie feel more intimate and bring the audience into the time. Some might not like reading subtitles so it might backfire and create a detachment for those not comfortable with subtitles.
The general idea was that, it would be a great age appropriate conversation starter or revealer for those who had questions about the gospels of Christ of any kind.
Paul M.
I cut and pasted here a post from a different discussion group. I found it to be rawther interesting related to the current thread.
Film: The Passion of the Christ
February 29, 2004
Reporter : Peter Thompson
Peter's verdict: violent and heavy going
Director: Mel Gibson
Genre: drama
As a non-believer, I've always been mystified by the story of the martyrdom of Christ. It seems to me that an omnipotent God could have found a better way to save us from ourselves than sacrificing his son. I don't mean any disrespect to Christians — we're all free to say and think what we like within generally accepted limits, at least here in Australia. The problem with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is that it's almost impossible to see it clearly outside the inflated controversy that surrounds it. Indeed, Gibson himself has thrown down the gauntlet by suggesting any criticism of his film is
the work of dark forces. More of that in a minute, but first, the loaded question of anti-Semitism which has dominated so much of the discussion in recent months.
If you go looking for hatred of Jews in the film, you won't find it. The Jewish leaders scream for Christ's blood but even they are ultimately shocked by the depth of his suffering and there are many sympathetic Jewish figures. Although he's played by the non-Jewish Jim Caviezel, Christ's own Jewishness is acknowledged. And Gibson has explicitly distanced himself from anti-Semitism in his interview with the American journalist Diane SawyerÂ…
MEL GIBSON: "To be racist in any form, to be anti-Semitic, is a sin! It's been condemned by one Papal Council after another. There are encyclicals on it. To be anti-Semitic is to be un-Christian and I'm not."
But no matter how sincere these protestations are, it's hard to see how The Passion of the Christ can help to bring Jews and Christians, or anyone else, closer together. Any attempt at balance in Gibson's film is almost totally submerged under its unremitting, almost indescribable violence. It crowds out every other impression and yet it's precisely what he intendedÂ…
MEL GIBSON: "I wanted it to be shocking and I also wanted it to be extreme. I wanted it to push the viewer over the edge. And it does that. I think it pushes one over the edge. So they see the enormity, the enormity of that sacrifice, to see that someone could endure that and still come back with love."
We can't show you just how extreme that violence gets but I don't think it's unfair to predict that audiences will be initially nauseated and ultimately numbed by what they see. Gibson's defence is that, as the Pope may or may not have said, it is as it was. And this raises possibly the film's biggest conundrum. On the one hand, Gibson claims his film to be historically accurateÂ…
DIANE SAWYER: "Do you have a literal belief of The Bible, every sentence of it?"
MEL GIBSON: "Yes, you either accept the whole thing or you don't accept it at all."
And yet he also confirms what would seem to be patently obvious: it's his own, often poetic, elaboration on what's found in the four New Testament GospelsÂ…
MEL GIBSON: "It really is my vision. Boy! I'm not taking myself out of the equation here. I'm a proud bugger! I did this! But I did it with God's help. I mean, this is my vision of what happened, according to the Gospels, and what I wanted to show, the aspects of it I wanted to show."
The other controversy, largely fuelled by Gibson himself, is that dark forces marshalled themselves against the making of the film and are now working to undermine its message.
MEL GIBSON: "For me, I think evil is something, when it comes to you, it's not necessarily going to come with a sign saying 'I'm evil' — it will usually come in an enticing form."
DIANE SAWYER: "And you said at one point 'the big dark force doesn't want us to make this film'. What was the force?"
MEL GIBSON: "It's the thing you can't see. See, I'm a believer, by the way. So if you believe, you believe that there are big realms of good and evil and they're slugging it out."
It reminds you of the fevered gossip surrounding the making of The Exorcist, a film I greatly admire, all those years ago. But apparently there were no Satanic manifestations on the set of The Passion of the Christ. Gibson is, like the rest of us, free to hold to his beliefs. But it's a bit rich to claim victim status in any debate over the film.
Spending a large slice of the personal fortune he's made as one of the most popular movie stars of all time, and an Oscar-winning producer, he's made exactly the film he wanted to make. It's a film of prodigious energy and overwhelming emotional intensity. But as passionately as he believes in the literal truth of the story he's telling, he also believes he has enemies.
DIANE SAWYER: "Is the world full of conspiracies to you?"
MEL GIBSON: "See, it's gotten a bad name, conspiracy. Ha ha. It's only logical to assume conspiracies are everywhere because that's what people do. They conspire! If you can't get the message, get the man. So I think that's what we're engaged in here. We're engaged in character assassination."
But a last word on what he believes is the true message of his filmÂ…
MEL GIBSON: "Jesus Christ was crucified for all men of all creeds for all time and he died for all of us."
Hopefully, Mel Gibson has been reassured by the unanimous support he's received from the churches and by the large audiences flocking to see The Passion of the Christ. Personally, I found it heavy going but, even as a non-believer, I'm convinced there is enormous value in the Christian tradition.
One only has to listen to Handel's Messiah, for example, to be overwhelmed by its inspirational power. And whatever the failings of the churches over the centuries, many devout Christians have proven themselves extraordinarily courageous people.
But, like Islam and unlike many other religions, Christianity is also a proselytising faith; it actively seeks converts. In the service of that faith, Mel Gibson has produced not a thoughtful treatise on the nature of the divine like Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ but a blood-soaked battering ram.
