I knew he enjoyed his wine and in those days there was no Surgeon General warning about over-indulgence. I wonder if he blew smoke rings and used them as halos?
Martinis too, shaken. 'Christ. Jesus Christ'. There's another one of the Gospels, by his very devoted disciple, Sherman O'Mounts. Apparently He took the whole 'water-into-wine' and 'all-you-can-eat-fish-n-loaves' show to Vegas for a spell. Banned from ALL the gaming tables though.........
OK, I am making light of this issue - going for the cheap laugh.
BUT, I have found three words of relevence........
CRAZY
BUG and
F@CK.
Mix them how you want....................
Gibson's father = Raving Loon
Gibson's paranoia about Jews controlling Hollywood is as well known as his extra marital affairs. He has claimed that his new devotion to the fundamentalist Catholic faith has helped him live with his past transgressions. He has a chapel on his property where traditional Catholic services are held in the original Latin. We can suspect what he really feels about the Jewish faith and will have to speculate what he feels about the Muslim faith or any other faith for that matter. His father's views certainly don't help -- the "facts" the opinion (!) is based on is a screwy as the theory we didn't travel to the moon. I'm sure he doesn't care what interpretation his film provokes and I've only seen a rough cut before the sub-titles were added. I believe the release on Wednesday will have subtitles.
I'm sure there will be subtitles. Viewers who understand both Latin and Aramaic will be few and far between, I'd imagine...
I thought it foolhardy to release the film without subtitles, According to the presales of tickets, the film will make money. I wonder if Jesus Christ is waiting in the wings to overturn the money tables. Or perhaps Gibson will donate the money? Doesn't sound like he will give it to the Catholic church.
Not the Catholic Church most believers attend, but maybe it will support his own little church...
Is he trying to emulate St. Francis? He'll have to go a lot further than making a movie.
Somehow Mel's approach strikes me as a bit more thuggish than that of St. Francis...
The latest news is that Mel and the distributor started the controversy to sell the film. I believe that could easily be true. I'm just interested to see what he does with the profit.
Ebert and Roeper gave the film two thumbs up and it sound to me like it was more for the cinematography than anything else. They mentioned it stuck to the Biblical account, was extremely violent but although they stated it wasn't anti-Semetic (as I always concurred with), they did offer that Pontius Pilate was portrayed as more conflicted than in the historical accounts. The cinematography, incidentally, is by Caleb Deschanel
who is one of the ten best in the history of cinema.
This is the final version after focus groups gave it their approval and has been edited according the their concensus. This doesn't sound like a personal vision to me.
D'artagnan wrote:Somehow Mel's approach strikes me as a bit more thuggish than that of St. Francis...
More like Dominic Guzman, perhaps?
Anyway, who here besides me thought of running off copies of indulgences and selling them to theatre goers for $5.00 a pop?
$5.00? By the time you get into a theater and through the snack bar, it's more like $15.00 to $20.00! Anyway, the film is sub-titled and it wasn't stated whether that was because of the "focus group's" opinions (whoever they were) or the distributor insisting it was box office poison to offer the film withouth sub-titles. One reviewer compared the Satan image introduced into the film under "artistic license" as Gollum-like.
Was Gibson ever really going to release the film without titles? Hard to believe, since virtually no one (in the world) would understand much of it. Ecce homo, maybe...
Now that the film is finally coming out, the controversy is hitting the local press. I noticed a headline in one of our papers, suggesting that a local rabbi is concerned. Again, of course, no one here has yet seen the film. I'm a little tired of the whole issue...
I have seen the film and did not agree with Ebert and Roeper except for the cinematography and the scoring. Cazievel looks like the typical pretty boy Christ only with a lot of fake blood dripping and smeared across his body like a Jackson Pollock painting. It will likely bring in at least 40 M at its opening (due mostly to devout Christians anxious to see someone else's vision of the Crucifixion, especially someone as popular as Gibson) -- one theater with twenty screens in Dallas is showing it through the weekend on all twenty screens! The net profit will pay for half of Gibson's investment and perhaps he figured on just
making his money back. This will exonerate him from making a profit on the marketing of this film, although he still has the option of donating it to charity. Or does he want to make another film about a martyr considering he's been so talented at playing the part himself?
Incidentally, historic studies of ethnic linage show that Jesus was most likely round faced, clean shaven with brown eyes. I understand they did have Cazievel wear contact lenses.
I thought the Pope had given it his seal of approval..."It is how it was", or some such.
Is Mel Brooks an anti Semite? I don't know.
There was an official follow-up to the Pope's so-called endorsement, and it sounded like it never happened as was first reported.
That was debunked by a Papal aide.
Mel Brooks was criticized for the "glorification" of the Nazis in "The Producers" a farcial comedy which contained satire making the Nazi's actually look more foolish that they were in reality.
I don't believe the film is any more anti-Semetic than the Bible but then look at how many devout Christian clerics believe the Jews will all go to Hell.
There is an ongoing investigation of how much of the controversy was initiated by the Gibson camp to sell the film.
Little bit about the 'inspiration' for this version of events...
Quote:The mystical visions of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) are the basis of some of the more stunning, non-biblical scenes in Gibson's movie - from Jesus' confrontation with Satan in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the explicit details of his scourging by Roman guards, to a crucifixion scene in which his arm is pulled out of its socket, according to a reading of her work.
Gibson has said that he based his film in part on the visions of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich recorded in "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ." "There it is," Crosson says. "Read the book. You could put a camera in front of it. She is the script for the film."
The bedridden visionary, who is said to have borne the stigmata and the wounds of the Crown of Thorns, is a particular source of contention for Gibson because of her depictions of Jews as bloodthirsty and venal. In "The Dolorous Passion," for instance, she "sees" Jewish priests passing out bribes to get people to offer false testimony against Jesus and even tipping the Roman executioners. She also describes seeing Jesus' Cross being built in the courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem. (Some of those details were found in an early script, but it could not be determined whether they made it into the final cut of Gibson's film.)
Quote:Gibson, who carries a relic of Emmerich in the form of a faded piece of cloth from her habit, vehemently rejects characterizations of the nun as anti-Semitic.
