Mel Gibson's The Passion, sparking concern from the ADL.

au1929 wrote:

Scrat
I doubt that it is just a movie to them. Dare I call it religious propaganda.

You already have. Do you believe that is particularly bad? Are there any other, competing types of propoganda out there? Is the religious variety in any way worse in your view?

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georgeob1 wrote:

No doubt about it. Gibson has descended from the lofty aesthetical and artistic standards of Hollywood to create a film that can exploit perverse fascinations with violence. Nothing so violent has ever before been seen in a film or videogame.

Well, I guess I don't need to go see the film and make up my own mind about its merits then, do I?

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George
Yes, if it incites religious intolerance. The same intolerance that is responsible for murder, massacres, pogroms, inquisitions, holocausts and, etc., thru the ages.

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'Passion' critics retract reviews

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au1929 wrote:

Scrat
It's just a movie.
Is it? Than why are church groups buying thousands of tickets and distributing them to their members. I doubt that it is just a movie to them. Dare I call it religious propaganda.

Schools showed thousands of children "Amastad". That was no more and no less "propaganda". Of course, from all accounts so far, "The Passion" is historically accurate. Amastad was not, yet school children were tested for their knowledge of the "facts" portrayed in that movie that were clearly not historical fact. If you want to worry about propaganda, worry about teaching lies to school children because we prefer them to reality. That you are surprised that church groups would want to see a film about Jesus is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Why you seem to think that's evidence of something we should worry about, I neither know nor care.

It's just a movie.

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The Bible is not a history book and "The Passion" is not historically accurate.

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How do you know?

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au1929 wrote:

George
Yes, if it incites religious intolerance. The same intolerance that is responsible for murder, massacres, pogroms, inquisitions, holocausts and, etc., thru the ages.

Intolerance takes many forms and exists everywhere. The holocaust was the act of an avowedly atheistic political system. Communist totalitarianism in the 20th century destroyed more lives than any other scourge from any quarter.

The Zionists who created Israel ended up practicing the same forms of intolerance on their Palestinian victims as those that motivated their flight from Europe. Certainly a cruel historical irony that they didn't intend, but true nonetheless.

Intolerance and injustice are the acts of human beings. Don't blame God or religion for that.

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By reading history.

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Lightwizard wrote:

The Bible is not a history book and "The Passion" is not historically accurate.

Neither are most of the history books you and we have read.

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I disagree that the film is summarily anti-Semitic except for the soft treatment of Pontius Pilate and the cut aways to the Jews in the crowd making them look dark and evil. Granted there are the Jews who help and seem compassionate but they are image bites that falter and fade away quickly. I have to agree here with georgeob1 on the fact that there has been intolerance throughout history and not always with a religious base. We don't have a comprehensive body count on what lives were taken in the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance from religious persecution but I would easily believe it was comparable. The point is these lives were taken by those who supposedly followed the teachings of Christ.

It's no doubt that the film will have a respectable gross and we'll have to see in a few weeks what the drop off of box office brings. The film will have to hit 100M Mel sees his cost covered and that depends on how much is spent on promotion, especially TV ads.

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The historical descriptions of Pontius Pilate are in accord that he was not as portrayed on the screen. The evidence about Crucifixion does not included railroad spikes driven through the palms.

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I'm with LW. How can the bible be a history book, when it was written so many years after the "fact?" Ever see what happens when several people see the same crime as witnesses? People's memory aren't all that good, nor that dependable - even when people claim it's the "word of god."

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I don't recall this movie being touted as a history lesson so much as Mel Gibson's interpretation of events that are written about in the bible.

Why are so many up in arms about that? As Scrat said, it's just a movie.

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Lightwizard wrote:

I disagree that the film is summarily anti-Semitic except for the soft treatment of Pontius Pilate and the cut aways to the Jews in the crowd making them look dark and evil. Granted there are the Jews who help and seem compassionate but they are image bites that falter and fade away quickly. I have to agree here with georgeob1 on the fact that there has been intolerance throughout history and not always with a religious base. We don't have a comprehensive body count on what lives were taken in the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance from religious persecution but I would easily believe it was comparable. The point is these lives were taken by those who supposedly followed the teachings of Christ.

It's no doubt that the film will have a respectable gross and we'll have to see in a few weeks what the drop off of box office brings. The film will have to hit 100M Mel sees his cost covered and that depends on how much is spent on promotion, especially TV ads.

These seem like reasonable, informed comments LW. Well done.

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It's Mel's Bible lesson who now imagines that he knows exactly what happened. If he didn't, he would be dishonest committing it to film.

It's just a movie that scrat seems to be unable to divorce himself from making comments on when he has not seen it.

It's an average movie when compared to the best and box office will, as usual, mean nothing as to the quality of the film. How many are going to see it for the brutality and blood? We'll never know -- it's a given that Christians will flock to the cinema but the horrible fact there is they are dragging along young children. Even Mel has warned it is not for children. It should have been NC17 if he really believed that parents wouldn't take young children. He can't get past the Hollywood fakery in the movie to claim it is anything but a commercial movie -- he was against the sub-titles as he did want it to be taken as a (fine) art film. It's pop entertainment if you can call two hours of an unglorified fixation on maiming and blood entertainment or even a religious experience.

None of the film critics who panned the movie are backing away from their reviews.

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Gee, scrat, don't make me retract anything I've said you didn't agree with Laughing

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George
The holocaust was caused [killing of the Jews] by the centuries of venom preached by the Catholic Church against the Jews and the Jewish religion. The holocaust was certainly not the first mass killing of Jews and if some have their way will not be the last. I should remind you that overtime the passion plays were put on in Europe it was murder the Jew time. IMO the Catholic church was indirectly or maybe directly responsible for the Holocaust and the Anti-Semitism that exists to this day.
Is the film Anti-Semitic in itself I suppose not? Will it incite anti-Semitism? Based on what has happened in the past, I would say yes.

As for Israel that is an entirely different subject. However, IMO it is traceable directly to the treatment the Jews endured at the hands of Christian Europe. Would there ever have been the crying need for Israel if it was live and let live in Europe.

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Lightwizard wrote:

Gee, scrat, don't make me retract anything I've said you didn't agree with

I think to Gibson it was a work of devotion, a "giving back" to the God he believes has given him so much. I would hope that would not make the movie a bad thing or less valuable in anyone's eyes.

And I don't think I need to see the movie to comment on the vitriol being spewed about it by many who likewise have not. (I never liked Clinton but I've spoken up when people wrote things that were just patently untrue about him.) This isn't about me being an advocate for the movie; it's about me being an advocate for reason and fairness.

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I don't really believe that was Mel's soul motivation. There's Mel's ego to consider -- his false magnanimity.

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Mel Gibson's The Passion, sparking concern from the ADL.

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