It's rare I have resist the impulse to use one of those "rolling my eyes" emoticons, but good grief.

K

Madge, at the risk of sounding dense, i cannot help but ask...."good grief" what?

Dude, like his beard falls off halfway through the scene, man that was soooo fake!

The whole martyr complex thing. Who said it was only nut-jobs and fundamentalists who were interested in the picture? I can't think of anybody on these forums, regardless of religious bent, who didn't vocalize some degree of interest or enthusiasm for this picture on some level or another.

In fairness, I think there's a certain irony to Charles' implication about the box-office gross considering he himself participated in that gross, but I guess I'm just having difficulty locating your point in your last post. It isn't really an argument for the film's merits, as all you point out is that some people coming out of the theater seemed "moved" and were normal-seeming folks. So what? Indeed, as much could be said about Armaggedon.

The people who weren't impressed have provided reasons for their opinion. It's tiresome to see it responded to with this persecuted attitude and vague media conspiracy theories.

(Tangentially, where are the theories about the significance of the actor being struck by lightning during production (twice if I’m not mistaken)? Is there some reason to believe God might not in fact have taken issue with Gibson’s project and this was his way of expressing displeasure?)



Well, I haven't seen it yet, but generally speaking, I think things like CGI monsters, a weirdly stylized Satan, over-reliance on cliche dramatic musical cues to denote significance, and other such things that viewers have complained of in this thread and elsewhere -- these all strike me as things that would fall under the category of "sugar-coating" of a kind.

Additionally, it could be argued that Gibson favoring his own "vision" over, say, historical accuracy and a degree of realism in everything but the violence, is inconsistent and worth scrutinizing.

And those things could be counterargued as well, but I don't see you doing that.

K

And a few late rebuttals....

Ed, I stand by my belief that it would take superhuman stamina and strength to drag the cross after being skinned alive as badly as Jesus was portrayed by Gibson. Remember, it took two healthy centurions to lift the cross, yet a weakened Christ could still muster the strength to drag it. And that was probably Mel's point, that Jesus was superhuman. Yet that weakens the
idea of Christ's humanity for me (and probably others), since if Jesus could take a flaying that would kill a normal person and get up and display strength twice that of a soldier, His pain probably wasn't as great as an ordinary person's would have been.

Charles, although Pilgrim already did a good job of rebutting the broader anti-Semitism charge, I'll defend my own point more narrowly. While I concede that Gibson showed Pilate to have more of a conscience than the Pharisees, the Jewish Christ was still more noble than the Roman governor. And Pilate's hands were certainly not tied. Tortured by conscience or not, Pilate felt that even though he would suffer an uprising whether he had Jesus executed or not, he still chose to have an innocent killed. (That seems noble to you?) Were the Jewish group of Pharisees shown perhaps in traditional, anti-Semitic stereotypes? Yes, and they were counterbalanced by the Jewish group of disciples. While I'll grant that the offset was only partial (i.e. the Pharisees were more stereotypically Jewish than Jesus' followers), I still don't see how showing good and bad Jews is prejudiced and showing semi-noble and downright brutish Romans is not.

And Charles, apparently you missed my point about the movie being used as an evangelical tool. Unless you walk into it believeing it to be "the gospel truth", you won't walk out of it thinking God will punish you.

Furthermore, you claim that the gore was one of the only two good things about the movie, when it was probably the worst part. Most people who walk out of the picture are struck by the gore, not the Pharisees. And what the gore does is throw the brakes on the narrative drive and present such a ridiculously over-the-top element into the movie that the rest of the film (themes, acting, cinematography, etc.)becomes secondary at best. It seems to me that since you went into the film predisposed to like only the "religious splatter-art film" aspects, you came out with only those same feelings.

And not only was the gore used to the film's detriment, it wasn't even realistic. In most movies, bullets fly without serious injury to the hero. In this movie, whips fly and remove skin and blood, but without serious injury to the hero. In real life, a person would go into shock after such a beating/flaying. In real life, a dead person's blood wouldn't spurt out after their side was punctured because the lack of a beating heart would leave only gravity to trickle the blood out.

They have been having a good discussion of the movie over on Slate, and probably the best critique I've read yet is in Gregg Easterbrook\'s weblog .

Feel free to respond to what I've said, but I probably won't have the time to reply.

May Christ be with you.

Fair enough Madget, two sides to every coin an all that jive i suppose. The jest of my narrative was intended to be "I commend Gibson for making a film that makes people think about Christ". I probably didn't convey that very well previously. But i do stand firm that this film is not a typical film, in that folks aren't really going to it to be entertained, eat popcorn, smooch with the missus, or pick up chiks. To me, atleast, it seems blatantly obvious that the film is more than that, more substantial, more thought provoking, more conversational than just another film. I suppose it's a bad comparison, but the last film that i can recall that elicited such reactions (pro or con) was Blair Witch Project. Like it or hate it, it wasn't just any old ordinary film. I think that holds true for Passion as well.

This paper appears to believe that enough to include just such a bit of editorializing in a news story about a car crash.

A rather slanted bit of writing that should not have made it to print, in my opinion, or at least not in the context in which it was presented. Lisette Velasquez, the reporter who penned the piece, should be embarassed.

I agree with you on the second part, of course, but I don't see anything physically superhuman about Gibson's Jesus (well, except putting the
ear back on that one guy) - as far as lifting the cross goes, while one could describe it as a "superhuman" feat, it is well below what even weak and injured humans have done. The human body has been observed lifting (though not pressing) up to two tons (though of course doing grievous injury to the skeletal and muscular systems) and has survived a fall from about as high as prop planes can fly. Ask any physician - it is imaginable that someone could do all that was depicted in the movie and more, though extemely unlikely.

Ed

To focus on the Jews' influence in doing Jesus in, when they had no power to do Jesus in, is as good a case for being anti-semitic as I can think of, short of saying "the Jews killed Christ." The only good Jews in the film are ones who've turned against their religion, i.e., very few. If that's the way some fundamentalist interprets the NT, then so be it. "But it's in the Bible, in the Bible!" So what, why is it in the Bible?

I like the American Conservative review of the film, which starts off with the question: "Is THE PASSION anti-semitic, or are its critics anti-christian?" Haha, are Nazis anti-semitic or are you anti-Nazi? yeah.

As for my contributing to the gross: I'd have done it regardless of promotion, as I have for so many films that don't have a moralistic army behind them. And I wish more stars in Hollywood would show the conviction Gibson did. That the film is kitsch doesn't mean I'm not glad I saw it nor that there's not something to praise about the effort. Recalling a quote by Godard, he could've made 25 films for what Gibson spent on this one. What kind of films might we see if stars used a small percentage of their wealth to further cinematic art? (Of course, following Gibson's example, we'd be better off if they financed actual artists to make small films rather than attempting it themselves. Unfortunately, bad taste will always get in the way. Spielberg wouldn't even give cash -- what amounted to pocket change -- to Welles to finish one his films.)



Maybe you should think outside the multiplex.

Because I don't want to let you have all the fun posting text and links and whatnot - no doubt you have more to post, as your stance isn't quite clear yet - I'll offer a bit o' material myself. ('Course, mine isn't agenda-driven -- just offering some discussion fodder, because actual discussion is more fun to read than politicking).

Edited text taken without permission from this thread on Fark.com, as posted by Farker LarsThorwald:

"I am struck dumb as to how people can categorically think the film "vilified Jews" ...

First, prior to the trial of Jesus, as depicted in the film, there were several Jewish members of the council who demanded from Caiphas "where are the other members of the council?" and "why haven't you seen fit to have the other members of the council here?" Several members of the council walked out, obviously distraught that Caiphas and his nub of like-minded council-members were railroading Jesus. I immediately thought, "Wow, I never expected that from the reviews."

Second, the most loving and generous people along the road were Jews. Simon's involvement went from one of "Hey, I'll help carry this cross, but don't condemn me, I'm being made to do this" to obvious respect and love for Jesus to the point where he intervened in beatings and demanded that Romans stop their torture. It was a Jewish woamn who wiped Jesus's face and offered him water in the movie. And along the road dozens of Jews cried out for his release or for the soldiers to stop beating him...

... Some Jews were portrayed as awful men. And some Jews were shown as men of true hearts who hated what was being done to Jesus. ...

Some were good, and some were bad. That is the nature of all men."

For the full post (which also deals with the depiction of the Romans) see the original in this thread on Fark.com.