THE PASSION

A quick note on the fact that the original meaning of "passion" is suffering.

The Passion of the Christ produced a storm of controversy before it came out and also after. In this sense it parallels much of what happened to The Last Temptation of Christ, which was defended by the left condemning the people who criticized it without seeing it. Virtually the same thing happened to The Passion with the right defending it against people who hadn't seen it.

Several positions have been taken about the film, which can be summarized as follows:

The question of the historical accuracy of the film.
The question of the guilt of the Jews in the death of Christ.
The introduction of materials not in the bible (i.e. the androgynous devil, the appearance of the devil with the crowd demanding Jesus' crucifixion.
The question of social impact of the film vs. "Its just a movie".
 Have such questions been asked about other Christ films? For example: 1. What can be said, in terms of historical accuracy about the Crucifixion in terms of what was carried and where the nails went. No really. No one criticized Scorcese, Ray or Stevens about this, and worse, the criticism against Gibson's film for having put the nails in the hands rather than the wrists is now thought to be incorrect. Current thinking is the nails did go in the hands.

2. Is the guilt of the Jews raised in other films (yes, in fact it is a major theme to watch for)

3. Are there other films with an androgynous devil (yes - at least vocally in The Last Temptation of Christ; and the devil switches gender in Simon in the Desert. The devil also appears in the crowd in The Greatest Story Ever Told)

4. Does the picture explain all the socio-cultural background of the times? Does any film? If someone wants to write a film that does that, feel free. There is a question if this is a valid criticism.

5. Are all films criticized for the potential social impact they might have? Hardly. So what makes people raise this criticism about certain films and not others. What causes some people to worry about this with some films and claim "It is only a movie" with others. In a postmodern sense does this tell us more about the person being inconsistent than it does about the films itself?

As we have pointed out before that it is more important in independent productions to ask questions about the director - auteur of the film. Passsolini was a self-proclaimed Marxist, atheist/Catholic/mystic homosexual. Clearly some of his intellectual interests shape the film.

Similarly the Roman Catholic background of Scorcese influences the choices he made in what he chose to depict. So it is also the case that this must be looked at in the case of Mel Gibson in terms of his film (and conversely, of any other independent director). Failure to do this might make someone question the analyst's motives in the analysis.

In this Mel Gibson's religious background is a fundamentalist Roman Catholic one that tends toward strict interpretation of the Bible and also tends to ignore or minimize the Vatican Councils I and II, which in many ways liberalized the Catholic church, dropping for example, Latin as the liturgical language, and saying in the nostra aetate ("In our times") (among other things saying that Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God and decries all displays of anti-Semitism made at any time by anyone. Previously there was a question raised by a verse in Matthew 27:25 known as the blood curse. "Then answered all the people, and said "His blood be on us and on our children" (King James version).

As a result there was and is considerable concern that the film might revert to a form of anti-Semitism popular in the Middle Ages and blossoming again during WWII. We can ask, how many other ethnic and religious groups have been exposed to similar hate propaganda in films and yet no huge response followed.

Part of the marketing of the film dealt with its "authenticity" in that Jesus speaks Aramaic. This of course is related to the question of historical accuracy - in this case of information outside the Bible.

One question also raised was whether the purpose of the film might be to introduce emotion back to icons, which had become so common as to have no emotional power any more. Does the film do that?

A book, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by a nun 19th century (1774-1824) mystic named Sister Anna Katharina Emmerich who was said to be a stigmatic served as a source for the film as well. She was a woman who had visions, which were written down by German poet author Clemens Brentano serves as a source for Gibson's film along with the gospels. This is not the first Christ film to make use of a novel either. The Greatest Story Ever Told is based on a novel by Fulton Ousler. The difficulty here is that Stevens (the director of The Greatest Story Ever Told) did not claim accuracy of the story. Emmerich's visions were largely of the passion and she saw such things as the Jews push Jesus off a bridge. This occurs nowhere in the gospels. She was beatified (a step toward sainthood) on Oct. 3, 2004 by Pope John Paul II

AFTER THE FILM

Historical accuracy has never been a strong point in biblical films as we have seen. In fact, in some ways it isn't a strong point in the Bible. Worse still, as revisionist historians are prone to telling us, history is in the eye of the beholder.

Nonetheless, Gibson's insistence that this is a historically accurate film, there are a number of glaring historical errors. For example the official language of the Roman Empire in the East was Greek not Latin. Somewhat annoying to others was Gibson's web site for the film, which sold such things as a neck chain with a nail.

A serious criticism leveled against the film was that it cannot be accurate because Gibson bases the book on all four gospels - and these are contradictory (of course it is possible to just use the parts that aren't contradictory) but it leads to a questioning of not just the film, but the Bible itself, which is anathema to many religious people.

The Film Itself

In almost all the material written about the film, little is concerned with the film's structure and visual appearance. By far the major stress is on the question of its anti-Semitism.

What is the impact of using "ancient languages" in the film? Does it lend realism? The physical suffering of Christ is a major component of the Passion. What effect does Gibson's focus on this have? Does it intensify an emotional response to something that might have become somewhat "intellectual" rather than "emotional" or is it a turn off? What would either of these responses indicate about the viewer? Can we say for sure?

Is this a typical film or is Gibson trying to create an experience?

It has been argued that Jesus couldn't carry the whole cross. Can this be taken as symbolic of his divine status?