Betty Bowers reviews Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ

Nobody here can know what was in Gibson's mind and how much of written history influenced him. He's gone far beyond what is written in the Gospel using many sources and many contrasting theological views (by his own admission). He's even stated that this is his interpretation so take it for what you will. I know he expected the bad reviews even if he feigns innocence. He has used his mind as a lethal weapon and whatever he hoped to shoot down as far as how each of us feels about the Gospel, it has plopped onto the ground like a dead vulture for me.

"Titanic" is a classic???!!!???
Perhaps in the minds of the polyester clad frito munching hordes who love Wal-Mart, but certainly not to anyone with taste!

It doesn't matter. I don't like Gone with the Wind but it is a classic. So is Titanic. And just because you don't like it doesn't make it not true.

"Titantic" is hardly a classic -- classics are films that withstand the test of time for at least thirty years. You're pronouncement of it as a classic already is laughable. I don't dictate what is and isn't a classic. Film historians with more knowledge of cinema than I have determine that. Otherwise, "Weekend at Bernie's" would be called a classic.

Actually I like "Titanic" as entertainment but I don't find its popular appeal is anything more than Cameron's talent for creating well made films which have something for everyone. Seeing the film again on the smaller screen diminished its power considerably so that one starts concentrating on the psuedo-Dickens storyline and then it falters and fails as a great movie. A good movie, yes. A great movie, no. Of course these are all opinions. Don't go pouting that someone doesn't want to buy one's opinion. It's the name of the game.

Gone with a Wind isn't even a good movie. It is a boring long winded movie about a woman who needs to get hit upside the head with a broom.

As much as I don't regard "Gone With the Wind" as highly as some critics and the general public, I'm not sure about the critical assessment that it's about a woman who needs to get hit upside the head with a broom. Wasn't that "The Wizard of Oz?"

True. That witch got a house though. And there was flying monkys. Mean little rascals.

That is a Classic.

I notice that many of the criticisms of Gibson and his film in this thread are:

a. Vague allegations without specific example,
b. Attempts to guess his attitude or intentions,
c. Motives attributed to him for which citations are not given and which are almost certainly false.

I wish that the participants in this discussion who wish to criticize him or the film would give specific examples from the film to support their viewpoint, and would stop putting words in Gibson's mouth without appropriate citations to his actual words. Otherwise it's just easy character assassination.

The kind of thing I'd like to see here would be along the lines of "this scene shows x, but the Bible <citation> says that what occured was y." Or, "In an interview with <magazine name>, Gibson said, '...'"

Cite any examples, Brandon. All of it is opinion and part of that is an opinion of Gibson himself. Many examples from the film are given. Are you reading the same thread?

Wow, this turd is really getting a lot of reaction. Please, people, calm down. It's just a . . . well, a piece of ****. Satan squatted, squeezed out a turd, and they put a marquee on it. That's all it is.

I had to laugh at Jay Leno when he got to the questions about lighting striking one of the crew members and almost hitting Jim Cazieval as Jesus. "I would have said, that's it, I'm outta here!"

If this movie contained graphic sex scenes commensurate to the violence in it, it would have received an XXX rating. This is violence for violence's sake. Religion doesn't come from violence. This is the most vicious sociopathic violence ever in a movie, and that people should have such a strong association with torture in their religious is sickening. That people would drag their kids to see this movie is child abuse; children wouldn't have been tolerated if the movie contained the least amount of sex.

Christianity has always been anti-nature, anti-women, and anti-sex. But it always has tolerated violence. That the religion started off this way is no surprise.

This religion, during its history has caused intolerance, war, unimmaginable brutality and torture, subjugation of women, slavery, destruction of nature, and untold misery for people.

The great Portuguese explorer, Vasco Da Gama shortly after first reaching India burned every tourist alive on a ship near India, and murdered other citizens, chopped them to pieces and presented them in a basket to the Caliph of India to shock him into surrendering his kingdom. Apparrantly, the Caliph hadn't imagined that such sociopathy was possible. This was after the Caliph had graciously invited them to dinner and receicved them as guests. It was his first introduction to Christianity.

And Chritianity's obscession with violence continues with this movie. Thank you, Mel
Gibson.

There was no "Caliph of Indian" and Da Gama's "boorish" behavior had nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with imperialism.

Thanks, Aquiunk. you beat me to it!

Andrew Sullivan, the conservative pundit's reaction to the film:

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: Well, I went last night to see the movie everyone is talking about. I'm writing this not long after leaving the theater so these are my raw and immediate impressions - not a fully considered review. I was of course deeply moved in parts. If you are a person of the Christian faith, it is impossible not to be moved by a rendition of the passion of the Savior that is not a travesty. The very story itself, embedded in the soul and the memory, stirs the emotions and prayers and meditations of a lifetime. To see it rendered in a believable setting in languages that, however inaccurate, give you an impression of being there, is arresting. It brings this simple but awe-inspiring story to life in a way very difficult to approximate in the written or spoken word. You can see why Passion plays were once performed. The Gospels do end in extraordinary drama, pathos, plot, agony. Portraying them vividly may, we can hope, bring some people to read the Gospels and even to explore further what the redemptive message of Jesus really is.

PURE PORNOGRAPHY: At the same time, the movie was to me deeply disturbing. In a word, it is pornography. By pornography, I mean the reduction of all human thought and feeling and personhood to mere flesh. The center-piece of the movie is an absolutely disgusting and despicable piece of sadism that has no real basis in any of the Gospels. It shows a man being flayed alive - slowly, methodically and with increasing savagery. We first of all witness the use of sticks, then whips, then multiple whips with barbed glass or metal. We see flesh being torn out of a man's body. Just so that we can appreciate the pain, we see the whip first tear chunks out of a wooden table. Then we see pieces of human skin flying through the air. We see Jesus come back for more. We see blood spattering on the torturers' faces. We see muscled thugs exhausted from shredding every inch of this man's body. And then they turn him over and do it all again. It goes on for ever. And then we see his mother wiping up masses and masses of blood. It is an absolutely unforgivable, vile, disgusting scene. No human being could sruvive it. Yet for Gibson, it is the h'ors d'oeuvre for his porn movie. The whole movie is some kind of sick combination of the theology of Opus Dei and the film-making of Quentin Tarantino. There is nothing in the Gospels that indicates this level of extreme, endless savagery and there is no theological reason for it. It doesn't even evoke emotion in the audience. It is designed to prompt the crudest human pity and emotional blackmail - which it obviously does. But then it seems to me designed to evoke a sick kind of fascination. Of over two hours, about half the movie is simple wordless sadism on a level and with a relentlessness that I have never witnessed in a movie before. And you have to ask yourself: why? The suffering of Christ is bad and gruesome enough without exaggerating it to this insane degree. Theologically, the point is not that Jesus suffered more than any human being ever has on a physical level. It is that his suffering was profound and voluntary and the culmination of a life and a teaching that Gibson essentially omits. One more example. Toward the end, unsatisfied with showing a man flayed alive, nailed gruesomely to a cross, one eye shut from being smashed in, blood covering his entire body, Gibson has a large crow perch on the neighboring cross and peck another man's eyes out. Why? Because the porn needed yet another money shot.

GUTTING THE MESSAGE: Moreover, the suffering is rendered almost hollow by a dramatic void. Gibson has provided no context so that we can understand better who Jesus is - just a series of cartoon flashbacks. We cannot empathize with Mary fully or with Peter or John - because they too are mere props for the violence. The central message of Jesus - of love and compassion and forgiveness - is reduced to sound-bites. Occasionally, such as when the message of the sermon on the mount is juxtaposed with the crucifixion, the effect is almost profound - because there has been an actual connection between who Jesus was and what happened to him. But this is the exception to the rule. Watching the movie, you can see how a truly powerful rendition could have been made - by tripling the flashbacks and context, by providing a biography of Jesus, by showing us why he endured what he endured. Instead, all that context, all that meaning, has been removed for endless sickening gratuitous violence.

PILATE, THE SAINT: Is it anti-Semitic? The question has to be placed in the context of the Gospels and it is hard to reproduce the story without risking such inferences. But in my view, Gibson goes much further than what might be forgivable. The first scene in which Caiphas appears has him relaying to Judas how much money he has agreed to hand over in return for Jesus. The Jew - fussing over money again! There are a few actors in those scenes who look like classic hook-nosed Jews of Nazi imagery, hissing and plotting and fulminating against the Christ. For good measure, Gibson has the Jewish priestly elite beat Jesus up as well, before they hand him over to the Romans; and he has Jesus telling Pilate that he is not responsible - the Jewish elite is. Pilate and his wife are portrayed as saints forced by politics and the Jewish elders to kill a man they know is innocent. Again, this reflects part of the Gospels, but Gibson goes further. He presents Pilate's wife as actually finding Mary, providing towels to wipe up Jesus' blood, arguing for Jesus' release. Yes, the Roman torturers are obviously evil; yes, a few Jews dissent; and, of course, all the disciples are Jewish. I wouldn't say that this movie is motivated by anti-Semitism. It's motivated by psychotic sadism. But Gibson does nothing to mitigate the dangerous anti-Semitic elements of the story and goes some way toward exaggerating and highlighting them. To my mind, that is categorically unforgivable. Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity. Far from expiating it, this movie clearly enjoys taunting those Catholics as well as Jews who are determined to confront that legacy. In that sense alone, it is a deeply immoral work of art.

The bit with the Marys wiping up the blood was so far from the realm of historicity I ejaculated out loud "You must be joking!" No second temple period Jew would have had anything to do with blood, especially on the Sabbath!
The other extreme example of gore for its own sake was the Longinus scene. I've placed chest tubes in people with severe thoracic trauma, and that amount of blood expressed from someone who has already lost a great deal of their blood volume is just impossible. It also leads to doubts about the "resurrection," since if he can expell so much blood under pressure, he isn't dead!

Oh, but Jesus is supposed by many to be superhuman but resigned himself to be put to death in order to save humanity from their sins. I don't know how many people really believe it worked but it doesn't look like it was very effective to me. Mel on his cross certainly doesn't make it.

How do you know it is impossible? Has it been done before?

People said it was impossible to make a plane. It was impossible to have a car. It was impossible to do major surgery without the use of blood transfusion. It is impossible for little Timmy to walk because he was hit so hard during football he will never walk again. Impossible is used so much that it has lost all meaning. Exactly how do you know that it was impossible for it to occur?

Yes, I'm reading this thread. There are numerous instances of guessing his motives with no evidence, citationless accusations, irrelevant (to this film) accusations, almost certainly false accusations, and general comments about his character with no evidence.






















You know, then, why this woman had a heart attack? The only factor determining likelihood of heart attacks is age, regardless of cardiovascular health?