Quote:Mel Gibson finally copped to the obvious while talking to Diane Sawyer last week.
"This is my version of what happened, according to the Gospels and what I wanted to show -- the aspects of it I wanted to show," said the filmmaker behind "The Passion of the Christ," which opens Wednesday after months of controversy and anticipation.
Little bit of license there, I can't recall the Gospels having Satan taking a constitutional stroll around Jerusalem (complete with some of cast members of 'Buffy'). I won't be seeing it.
Christians whether they like the film or not are almost bound to say they love the film. To those who accept that the historical Jesus was a prophet among many prophets but that there was no supernatural goings on it will come off as largely mythology mixed with some overwrought emotionally violent dramatics. I just came away believing it was cranked up version of what has been gone before. Artistically, I still very much like the depiction in "Ben Hur" and what happened to the characters at the end of that film are far more enduring and heartfelt. This is Mel's High Mass but I'm wondering what he was high on (okay, I know, he was high on rapture as he puffed away on his pack of cigarettes directing the film with that incredibly silly looking beret perched on his head).
I'm going for the Latin and Aramaic!
Subtitles...we don't need no steeenkin' subtitles!
You know I love film as an artistic medium but it can be the bottom of the barrel art form and by and large popular entertainment. If I want some serious dramatic art exposure, I go to a play or an opera. For every great movie there are hundreds of bad movies. Consider it unfortunate but I will spend time watching what are not considered the best films by the more astute critics. Ebert has lost me of late as he (and Roeper) sometimes give what I consider as drek a good review. I only post his reviews for members help in going to the movies but I suppose I should start posting the reviews from The Newyorker?
Going to La Boheme tomorrow night (Student tickets: Bad night, good show!)
I'd watch twenty or more performances of "La Boheme" (saw the Baz Luhrman in LA recently) over sitting through the spurting and spraying of fake blood passed off as "artistic license." I guess Mel does have a license to overkill.
Is he going to make one about the vision of Mohammad?
...or Buddhah?
Yea, hobitbob -- I just saw the Baz Luhrman version on stage (I owned the video of the Australian original performance) of "La Boeheme." It could watch that many times over and enjoy it one-hundred fold over Mel's opus and learn more about life as well. There is an intent of a "lesson" from Mel's own mouth. His historical error of Pontius Pilate's role is enough to repel me and the introduction of Satan is cinematic fun but breaks the flow of the picture and gives it a fantastical complexion that doesn't fit into the raw reality he's trying to convey.
The Passion of the Christ
Marquis Films Ltd.
Jim Caviezel portrays Jesus Christ during the last 12 hours of his life in The Passion of the Christ.
?'The Passion of the Christ'
* * *
DIRECTOR: Mel Gibson.
CAST: Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci.
RATING: R, for graphic violence.
Great ***** Good ****
Fair *** Bad ** Bomb *
Bill Muller
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 24, 2004 12:00 AM
Maybe it's better if we just learn about Jesus in Sunday school.
Left in the hands of Mel Gibson and his The Passion of the Christ, the basic message of Christianity - love your brother - is obscured under torrents of blood to the point of benumbing the audience.
From the time Jesus (Jim Caviezel) is captured to the time he is crucified, this film is one long, savage beat-down. Given the movie's relentlessly graphic violence, it's a tribute to director Gibson's clout that he avoided an NC-17 rating (The Passion is rated R for graphic violence).
The basic lesson is that Hollywood is here to entertain, not educate. If you want to learn about Christ, your local pastor or priest probably is a better bet.
As a teaching tool for children, The Passion - in Latin and Aramaic with subtitles - is virtually useless. It's not only that kids shouldn't see this movie. Many adults shouldn't see it, unless they feel like spending a lot of time with their hands over their eyes.
While it's not unreasonable to include a certain amount of blood and violence in the Passion story, Gibson goes overboard, including a gruesome and prolonged flogging scene, as well as a repetitive sequence in which Christ is battered to the ground while dragging the cross, then slowly climbs to his feet.
If you can see past the violence, there are some inspired moments, including an eerie opening involving Jesus being tempted by Satan, and a scene in which Jesus's mother recalls him tripping as a child, juxtaposed with his struggles to reach Calvary.
The suffering of Judas - who betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver - is well-handled, as are the disciple Peter's denials of Christ while Jesus is being hauled away to the Romans. While Jesus' mother, Mary, is not given many lines, Romanian actress Maia Morgenstern makes good use of her eyes and facial expressions to convey emotion.
As a conversion tool, The Passion of the Christ is lacking. Many of the faithful who fill theaters this week will walk away glowing, considering this represents one of the most prominent dramatizations of Christianity's most important event.
For non-believers or fence sitters, The Passion could seem cryptic and unnecessarily visceral. Those who haven't been to Bible study recently will probably miss some of the more subtle points, though all the basic milestones are there.
As for worries of anti-Semitism, those who go into the film looking for bias will probably find it, but there's nothing obvious. While the Jewish high priests come off as fairly bloodthirsty, the Romans don't fare well, either. Governor Pontius Pilate's conscience-stricken waffling seems a bit far-fetched, given his bloodstained historical legacy.
While Gibson clearly has credibility problems, mostly tied to his adherence to ultra-conservative Catholic views and his Holocaust-denying dad, it's his preoccupation with violence that does him in here.
Think about Gibson's movies for second. Just the body count from the Lethal Weapon films would fill a small cemetery, not to mention all the heads that went a flyin' in Braveheart. Hard to catch the hidden meanings when you're wading through blood and guts.
Luckily for Gibson, with The Passion already sold out to church congregations nationwide, he's preaching to the choir.
The Passion of the Christ
By Kirk Honeycutt
Bottom line: This graphic depiction of the crucifixion of Christ misses any spiritual meaning to this seismic event.
Opens
Wednesday, Feb. 25
"The Passion of the Christ" is the work of a Christian traditonalist. In depicting the last dozen hours in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, Mel Gibson, who directs a script he wrote with Benedict FItzgerald, takes the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as literal truth. There is no allowance for metaphor or myth, no hint of contemporary interpretation. This is not "The Last Temptation of Christ," Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel that speculates on the torments and self-doubts of Jesus. This movie is an act of faith.
And that is a two-edged sword. People will see what they want to see in a movie shorn of any point of view not in literal accord with the gospels. True believers will bear witness to holy writ. Others -- nonbelievers or even less literal-minded Christians -- will be troubled by the film's staunch adherence to a story line and characters that have been used by bigots to fuel hatred for centuries.
As the film arrives swathed in controversy over its near-pornographic violence and concerns about its potential to incite anti-Semitism, the opening weekend's boxoffice should surpass its reported $25 million cost. That combination of controversy, curiosity and conviction could continue the movie's good fortune for weeks to come.
The problem with focusing narrowly on the "passion" of Christ -- meaning the suffering and ultimate redemption in the final moments of Jesus' life -- instead of his ministry, in which he preached love of God and mankind, is that the context for these events is lost. The Crucifixion was not only the culmination of several years of religious teachings but the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to die for the sins of mankind.
True, many viewers know this "back story." Pity anyone though who comes to this movie without a knowledge of the New Testament. For them, a handful of brief flashbacks to earlier days will fail to do the trick. Yet even a Bible student might wonder why Gibson would choose to downplay the self-sacrifice and love that went into Jesus' submission to torture and death. The spiritual significance of the Crucifixion gets swamped in an orgy of violence visited upon Jesus' body. Indeed, it's doubtful any human being could remain conscious for his own execution were he to endure the level of physical abuse graphically depicted here.
This, then, is a medieval Passion Play with much better effects. Flesh is flayed in grotesque detail. Body fluids spurt in exquisite patterns. Slow motion captures any action or glance Gibson deems significant.
All the characters are portrayed in the extreme. Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) is a weak and frightened political operative in a lonely outpost of the Roman Empire. His soldiers are half-witted sadists and buffoons. King Herod (Luca De Dominicis) is a foppish decadent. The Jews are a bloodthirsty rabble easily manipulated by the high priest Caiphas (Mattia Sbragia) and other Pharisees, jealous of their political power and social control. (Gibson has removed a line, reportedly in an earlier version, in which one Jew shouts, "May his blood be on us.")
The two Marys, the mother of Jesus (Maia Morgenstern) and Mary Magdalene (Monica Bellucci), are reduced to tearful onlookers. And, hard to imagine, the key figure here, Jesus himself (a game, blood-crusted Jim Caviezel), is such a punching bag for most of the movie that the filmmakers lose sight of his message. In early scenes and the flashback, Caviezel has the look and gravity to portray the warm and compassionate rabbi that Jesus was. But we get only these snippets of his humanity. (One bizarre flashback focuses solely on his former occupation, that of a carpenter.) More troubling is Gibson's decision to make Jesus into a victim of political intrigue, thus denying him his martyrdom.
Why do so many disciples follow this man? What does his promise of eternal life mean in the context of these events? Gibson's intense concentration on the scourging and whipping of the physical body virtually denies any metaphysical significance to the most famous half-day in history.
Technically, the film is a beauty. After a false start with music more befitting a horror film, John Debney's score acquires a chorus and builds brilliantly to the climax. Inspired by Caravaggio, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and costume designer Maurizio Millenotti hew to a strict earthen palette of grays, browns, white, beige and burgundy. The play of shadow and light, especially the use of torches in interior scenes, presents stunning tableaus. Francesco Frigeri's sets on the Cinecitta Studios lot and the use of the 2,000-year-old city of Matera beautifully capture the Middle Eastern world of that epoch without calling attention to the design itself.
Gibson's insistence that his actors learn the language of the period works very well. Using Aramaic for Jewish characters and street Latin for Romans, the movie puts us at a necessary remove to witness the biblical story. If only Gibson had chosen to highlight spiritual truth rather than physical realism.
Those two reviews are my sentiments almost exactly. The choir I am sure will visit the movie in throngs. If Gibson thought he would play the role of the great convertor, he's done no better than that Sunday knock on the door by the Seventh Day Adventists.
It's "The Greatest Story Ever Sold" -- get your redhot bling bling tie-ins to the movie. The topper -- spikes on chains in all price ranges. Denby of "The New Yorker" has panned the film for its unrelenting and sadistic violence. When it comes down to it, it's really a figment of Mel's imagination as their are so few lines in the Bible actually describing his (sic) Crucifixion and a few scant clues from archaeological findings. Of course, we don't expect Mel to pay much attention to real history or science.
As Mel has pronounced that his dissenters are the voices of Satan, he's got it covered that so far the major respected film critics are panning the film. On Rotten Tomatoes the rave reviews are by Joe Schmoo of the Timbuktu Review ilk. All except Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert who I believe have just dived over the edge of the cliff of good taste.
I've already read the NY Times review and I just say that all of the reviewers found virtually the same faults with the film, some going so far as brining up sadomasichism.
I guess Satan as a cross between Gollum and Death in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" (a far more compelling and profound film) is now personified by the movie critic.
How many true believers will be able to sit until the triumphant end which could not help but to revert back to the typical Hollywood bravura complete with a military fanfare? One critics said it best...
...and now I bring you The Crusades!
But he could just as well have said the inquisitions.
Gibson's moribund performance in "Signs" was the downside of the movie, well except for having to show the aliens in glimpses too obviously reminiscent of "The War of the Worlds."
hobitbob -- others, too, have suggested that 'Passion' is something of an emotional autobiopic for Gibson. And that word 'sadomasochism' has cropped up in a couple of reviews. As I'm not into blood and spilled guts, I doubt I'll subject myself to this movie.
Got a woman at my work who announced she's taking her 10 year old son and 8 year old daughter to see it this weekend. I suggested she see it first and then decide if her kids ought to see it..... " But" she said " How could it be bad? It's about Jesus."
um. yeah.
Joe
Is she wanting to put her kids off Christianity for good? You have to applaud responsible parenting.
