The Passion of the Christ

2 Reviews for The Passion of the Christ

By Richard Leonard, S.J.
Copyright America Press Inc. 2004.

The Rev. Fr Richard Leonard, S.J., is the Director of the Australian Catholic Film Office.

"The Passion of the Christ." Starring James Caviezel and Monica Bellucci. Directed, produced and screenplay by Mel Gibson. Rated MA 15+, 129 mins.

No one can doubt the personal devotion and faith Mel Gibson has brought to "The Passion of the Christ." He has put his money where his soul is. Gibson is in a long line of distinguished directors like the Cecil DeMille, George Stevens, Martin Scorsese and Pier Paolo Pasolini who brought their particular passions to bear on that of Jesus.

Every portrayal of Jesus in the cinema provides an insight into the historical events recorded in the Gospels. If it didn't we would not recognise the story. But every passion play, and that's the genre of these films, is also a commentary on the here and now.

During the roaring twenties De Mille in "King of Kings" gave the world an epic and spectacular Jesus. In the 1960's Steven's "The Greatest Story Ever Told" bombed at the box office because he bought nothing fresh to the story or images. Pasolini's "The Gospel According to Matthew" had as much to do with Marx as Matthew, and by the 1980's Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" had Jesus dream about what life would be like with a wife and kids.

To realise their insights into the Jesus story on screen, all these directors, bar Pasolini, and now including Gibson, commit a fundamental and serious sin. They collapse the four canonical Gospels into one, as though they are identical stories about Jesus. Then they take whatever they want from this biblical smorgasbord. Unlike the church in its liturgical traditions in Holy Week, "The Passion of the Christ" liberally jumps between all the narratives with no regard for any particular Gospel.

The Second Vatican Council in its decree "On Divine Revelation" and the Pontifical Biblical Commission have warned that this process does a disservice to the integrity each of the texts, and can do harm to the portrait of Jesus it paints.

What we have in the Gospels are four highly stylised, inspired portraits of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. The differences between these accounts are especially evident when they turn to the passion of Jesus.

In Mark Jesus suffers grievously and feels abandoned on the cross. Matthew sees Jesus as the rejected Messiah of Israel and is noted for its anti-Jewish tone. Luke has Jesus reach out to Gentiles and sinners, even on the cross, and then reconcile himself to his death. John's Jesus is poised, controlled and majestic as he enters into his suffering and death.

Each of these inspired narratives comes out of a particular historical context and community which contributed to the final work we have today. But "The Passion of the Christ" rolls them all into one. It takes the suffering of Mark, the blame-game of Matthew and the compassion of Luke and, very broadly indeed, follows the events and characters recorded by John. "The Passion of the Christ" interprets and selects material from its Gospel sources in a way that does not honour the original meaning or intention of the Gospels, and cannot be seen as the "historically accurate" account of the first Good Friday, which the director has claimed it to be.

There are just too many of these errors to list, but three will do. "The Passion of the Christ" continues the calumny against Mary Magdalene by casting her as the woman taken in adultery in John 8. The film argues that all three versions of his last words recorded over the four Gospels were said by Jesus from the cross. Worst of all it changes the tearing of the veil of the temple into a fully-fledged earthquake that physically breaks up the temple floor.

The second sin Gibson and his colleagues commit with the passion story is the insertion of extraneous material they inflict on the already homogenised narrative that they have created. In Gibson's case this material is key to understanding his film and why he made in the first place.

We know that Gibson was drawn to make this film after a spiritual awakening. His is on record as saying that one of the texts that affected him most deeply on this laudable journey was "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Written in 1824 by the German mystic Catherine Emmerich, this book records her private revelations and visions about the suffering and death of Jesus.

In many instances Emmerich's work varies significantly in detail and tone from any of the Gospels and unfortunately Gibson has incorporated a number of scenes from this book into his film: a confrontation after the arrest between a chained Jesus and Judas; a much larger role for Pilate's wife; a tender meeting between Jesus and his mother; a raven picking out the eyes of the bad thief; and a waterfall of blood pouring over the Roman Centurion as he pierces Jesus' side.

As befits Catholic spirituality of the time, Emmerich was obsessed with the details of how Jesus suffered, and for how long. So is Gibson. I never thought the scourging at the pillar would end. This particular episode is unrelentingly violent.

In Australia the film has received an MA 15+ rating for the graphic violence it portrays. In the USA it got an R rating for the same reason. Overall, this film is obscenely brutal.

This further complicates a Catholic response to the film. We cannot, rightly, condemn other films for their graphic violence and then condone such a portrayal because it happens to suit our theological tastes. It is regrettable that Gibson did not see that gratuitous and graphic violence diminishes the filmmaker, the film watcher, and the peaceful world Jesus wants us to build in his name.

Catherine Emmerich was also a European Catholic of her time and her work is particularly anti-Semitic in tone. On this score she may be entitled to an historical defence, but it underlines why the church teaches that private revelations are just that, and that they need to be tested against the faith of the whole church over time.

One can see why this film has been targeted as being anti-Semitic. There are some stereotypically gratuitous portraits of "the Jews," especially in the scene where the betrayal money is handed over to Judas, and later as he tries to hand it back. Worst of all, by far, however, is the exaggerated and dominant role it gives to Caiaphas, the chief priest. "The Passion of the Christ" makes clear that some on the Jewish Council were against the condemnation of Jesus and, along with Simon of Cyrene, there were some women in the crowd who were sympathetic to him on the road to Calvary. But the real baddies in Gibson's film are Caiaphas and the other councillors who lead the Jewish crowd to bay for Jesus' blood.

Gibson takes this to the point of the absurd. In his portrait of Pilate, he gives us a vacillating and thoughtful man upon whom Caiaphas has extraordinary influence. We know from Jewish and Roman sources of the time that Pilate was a ruthless Procurator, and that his harsh and cruel reign led to a rebellion by the Jews. Pilate had no problem executing anyone who got in the way of his murderous rule, and Jesus would have been one more local dissident to deal with.

Where the film is most unhelpful in regard to Jewish/Christian relations is in a scene it uses from Matthew 27 where the people call out "May his blood be upon us and upon our children" (Matt 27:25). Much to our Christian shame, for which the Pope asked forgiveness of the Jewish people in the Year 2000, this verse has been invoked over the centuries as a support for the most appalling anti-Semitic actions. Gibson has made an odd concession to this charge in the final cut of the film. He has left Matthew 27:25 in but only has the line delivered in Aramaic, with no subtitle. What's going here? Why not drop it altogether?

It would have been better if Gibson had taken the words of Pope John Paul II to heart. "Erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated [in the Christian world] for too long, engendering feelings of hostility toward these people. They contributed to the lulling of consciences, so that the way for persecution swept across Europe…the spiritual resistance of many was not what humanity rightfully expected from the disciples of Christ. [The] examination of the past in view of the purification of memory, is particularly appropriate for clearly showing that anti-Semitism has no justification and is absolutely reprehensible." The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, theologically, that through our sinfulness we all carry responsibility for the death of Jesus.

Furthermore, this film could have avoided the anti-Semitic charge altogether by presenting Jesus and his mother as the devout Jews they were. Instead we get a continuation of the usual cinematic portrait of the holy card Jesus and Mary: white, handsome and seemingly all-knowing about the events that are about to unfold.

Talking about the pope brings me to a critical point. Mel Gibson is regularly described as a "Roman Catholic" or a "Traditional Catholic". He's not. He has repeatedly and publicly rejected the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This council is not an optional extra for "Roman" Catholics who love their tradition, and so, by his own admission, and that of Roger Cardinal Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, the diocese where Gibson lives, he has placed himself outside our community, and is, in fact, a schismatic.

Therefore, no matter how sincere his personal faith may be, his is not the traditional faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore we must concede that he is not obliged to follow the church's teachings about fidelity to the Gospels and Jewish Christian relations. Accordingly, we should not feel obliged to defend him, or his particular theological positions. On these questions he has chosen to go it alone.

It is also true that this film imports all other manner of dialogue and scenes from unknown sources that serve only to subject the audience to a prolonged vision of blood, gore, cruelty and torture. Rather than being moved, I was repulsed by it and wondered what was going in the mind of the filmmaker.

"The Passion of the Christ" is, in a very few parts, a deeply moving portrait of the climax of the greatest story ever told, but it's a highly evangelical work. The title says it all. This film is not interested in the passion of the historical Jesus but the passion of "the Christ", the anointed one, or Messiah, the only Son of God. This is key to understanding what it all means.

Gibson's film waves its cinematic finger at the secular Western audience and says, "If only you knew how great and how long God has suffered and died for you, you would abandon your wicked ways." Maybe.

As important as the Christian call to conversion might be, the more imaginative presentations of Jesus' passion that touch me most deeply are the ones that are told in the context of the whole of Jesus' life and ministry, have a less hectoring tone, are more faithful to the Gospel sources, and shows us, for longer than one resuscitating minute at the end, that Jesus' resurrection demonstrates why God had the last word on his Son's faithful and self-sacrificing love of us, and how it leads all people everywhere to know that that they have the hope of eternal life.

Mel O'Drama
The Passion of the Christ

By Richard Blake, S.J.
America for Mar. 15, 2004.
Copyright America Press Inc. 2004.

The Rev. Richard A. Blake, S.J., is professor of fine arts and co-director of the film studies program at Boston College.

Why am I writing this? More to the point, why are you reading it? The answer is simple. Everybody has to say something about it, and many of you feel you have to see it. Even before seeing the film—and making it clear that I had not yet seen it—I was badgered into making statements on it on the basis of trailers, stills, notices in the press, Mel Gibson’s varied television appearances and comments that other people are thought to have made about it. The pressure for secular and religious media to produce something, anything, borders on frenzy, as apparently does the public’s curiosity about it.

The Passion of the Christ has been branded as “controversial” or, more pointedly, anti-Semitic. How could we know? Surely, reviewers should address such an important issue, but how would a responsible reviewer say anything without having seen the finished product? The dialogue that has taken place over the past few weeks has little relationship to the film. At best, the film has provided the occasion for some deeply entrenched religious issues to rise to the surface and receive serious reflection. At worst, it has provided the occasion for name-calling and the stirring of some old animosities and suspicions.

Whether Mel Gibson and his colleagues at Icon Films formulated a deliberate strategy for prerelease publicity, I will not speculate. What they did, by devious design or by dumb luck, generated more free media time than Private Ryan, Harry Potter and Frodo combined. Some early scripts circulated among experts for comment stirred memories of Passion plays and the role they may have played in depicting Jews as “Christ-killers” and in keeping alive the anti-Semitism that has plagued Europe for centuries. Some evangelical Christian groups felt the film, when it appeared, would be an invaluable tool for outreach. Gibson himself never hides his traditionalist (and schismatic) brand of Catholicism, and it was but one short step to dig up several unfortunate statements his father had made and conclude that the younger Mr. Gibson might subscribe to them as well.

Even the Pope became involved with a cryptic comment that he may or may not have made and that provided fuel for both sides. For fans, it stood as a papal endorsement of the spiritual value and historical accuracy of the film. For critics it provided another indication of the anti-Jewish sentiment that remains in the Roman Catholic Church. Both interpretations of “It is as it was” seem a stretch, and neither comes from any relationship to the film.

The mix of sources for these comments proved incendiary. Evangelicals, with their concentration on the person of Jesus coupled with their aggressive conversion programs, generally leave some sectors of the Jewish community very uncomfortable, especially when some expressions of the message imply that acceptance of Jesus as Lord is a condition for salvation. In addition, the evangelical emphasis on the literal meaning of Bible texts leaves many mainline Protestants and most Catholics a bit edgy as well.

So the lines were drawn along the question of whether a historically accurate recreation of the Passion without contexts is possible given the sketchy material provided in the Gospels—or if it is, can it be theologically misleading by submerging the fuller and more complex understanding of Redemption? Catholics, too, have their own little in-house family feuds, left over from the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Those of the old right feel that the cross has been historicized, deconstructed and symbolized into oblivion, with Gibson bringing it back to center stage. Those of the new left who would rather place all their theological eggs in one basket—an Easter basket—find Gibson offering a noxious return to old-time guilt-trip theology.

As a result, statements made by one group were met with counterstatements from another who felt their deepest religious sensibilities challenged. The media have fallen into line by providing a pulpit for everyone with an opinion. Some of this exchange has been quite constructive, but a lot of it is silly. And almost none of the buzz, I repeat, has anything to do with the film, which had been seen only by a select few, who, again by luck or design, were impelled to make the strongest statements about it based on their own agenda rather than on the merits of the film. While various advocacy groups were fencing over what they thought the final product contained, the film was kept under tight wraps, according to the standard Hollywood practice. In effect, the selective pre-release distribution through sneak previews excluded those who might tell the public something about what the film actually says.