30.3.04
Okay, so I went to see "The Passion of the Christ."
Actually, I didn't really know too much about it before I went. I'd heard there was this new film about Jesus, and that it was pretty controversial. And I guess I wanted to see it.
Now, everyone's ranting about how it's a wonderful and realistic depiction of the crucifixion, or how it's trashy and anti-Semitic.
Because to ignore the topic would be to suggest I don't care, I will say this on the subject of anti-Semitism in the film. I believe Mel Gibson when he says it was not his intention to make an anti-Semitic film. I also believe that he had his Catholic blinders on so firmly he was nigh on oblivious to everything else. Through his carelessness, has it become anti-Semitic? I honestly don't know. I know that as a WASP who knows a lot of Jews, it didn't change my opinions of them.
Of course, yeah, I *do* have an opinion about that whole subject I just mentioned. But I don't want to devote more than a paragraph to it, because there are so many opinions flying around right now, I don't think I need to add one more voice. Everything is being said.
And it's being said so loudly that no one is mentioning a very important point.
This film sucked.
It sucked big time.
It sucked more than any film I've ever seen.
And I say this as someone who only learned about most of the controversy after I walked into the cinema. I say this as someone who walked into the cinema wanting to like it.
Somebody needs to pull Mel Gibson aside and tell him that insane amounts of slow motion and melodramatic, yet oddly unoriginal music does not equal great film making. Someone needs to tell him that if he makes all his characters speak in Aramaic and Latin, it will not magically lend him more credibility.
Someone needs to point out to him that establishing character is important, even if the character you're establishing is the Son of God.
This is a film for Catholics with a specific view of the crucifixion. It makes the audience squirm, suffer, and feel generally uncomfortable, but that's it. It's not a film about love. It's a film about guilt.
"Oh, my son," Mary wails, as Jesus endures yet another round of brutality. "When, where, and how will you choose to be delivered of this?"
"How can one man bear the entire burden of sin?" Evil asks, at the beginning. "How can one man carry that much weight?"
But neither question is ever answered. Because Gibson assumes we will see Christ the same way he does. We are assumed to think that Jesus is a good man, a hero with perfect teeth. We are assumed to believe he's on that cross dying for our sins (although quite how that works, I'm not sure.)
Jesus' choice is challenged, but never justified, as we are assumed to have justified it to ourselves already. The questions, like Christ's plea, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?", are perfunctory.
My problem is, the film does not show Jesus coming to terms with his position as the Christ. It shows him believing utterly, without doubt. He acknowledges his position to the Rabbis when they accuse him of blasphemy - something he never does throughout the Bible.
Even in the few idyllic flashbacks we are awarded, Jesus seems too assured. "The only way to the Father is through me," he says to his disciples, "I am the truth, and the light, and the way." Perhaps this is from the Bible, but here, as the only line in a short scene, it only makes him look spiritually superior to his disciples and acutely aware of it. It feels like borderline arrogance, which is not something I ever associated with this story.
We have a single flashback of Jesus actually teaching, and yeah, okay, he talks about love. But it's two-thirds of the way through the film. It feels tacked on. It feels like an excuse to add a little more guilt to the load when Jesus yells out to God to forgive his killers because "they know not what they do."
How can I understand the things this man is dying for when I get *one* *single* *scene* about those things?
How can I believe a man to be morally superior when I rarely see what morals he has, beyond dying for principles that haven't been made clear?
As I said, this is a film for people who know Jesus and have a very specific preconception of him.
Maybe this film was only meant to show the last twelve hours of his life, but I find it emotionally unsatisfying to watch the last twelve hours of someone's life without an understanding of the forces, emotional, spiritual or physical, that brought him to that point.
This film does not stand on its own.
You see a man get captured, beaten, whipped, whipped some more with more vicious looking things, beaten, frog-marched, thrown around, mutilated, killed and then stabbed.
No intellectual questions are raised. It improves no one's understand of why this happened or what it stands for. It doesn't even try to tell us why this happened or what it stands for because, of course, we all already know that.
This is not a film. It is a biased illustration.
It's a fantastic film for people who find comfort in the idea that someone superior to them has come to take care of them and get punished for them, and that all they need to do in return is feel forever guilty and unworthy.
But it's not for me.
Yeah, this is definitely a film about guilt, not love.
Actually, I didn't really know too much about it before I went. I'd heard there was this new film about Jesus, and that it was pretty controversial. And I guess I wanted to see it.
Now, everyone's ranting about how it's a wonderful and realistic depiction of the crucifixion, or how it's trashy and anti-Semitic.
Because to ignore the topic would be to suggest I don't care, I will say this on the subject of anti-Semitism in the film. I believe Mel Gibson when he says it was not his intention to make an anti-Semitic film. I also believe that he had his Catholic blinders on so firmly he was nigh on oblivious to everything else. Through his carelessness, has it become anti-Semitic? I honestly don't know. I know that as a WASP who knows a lot of Jews, it didn't change my opinions of them.
Of course, yeah, I *do* have an opinion about that whole subject I just mentioned. But I don't want to devote more than a paragraph to it, because there are so many opinions flying around right now, I don't think I need to add one more voice. Everything is being said.
And it's being said so loudly that no one is mentioning a very important point.
This film sucked.
It sucked big time.
It sucked more than any film I've ever seen.
And I say this as someone who only learned about most of the controversy after I walked into the cinema. I say this as someone who walked into the cinema wanting to like it.
Somebody needs to pull Mel Gibson aside and tell him that insane amounts of slow motion and melodramatic, yet oddly unoriginal music does not equal great film making. Someone needs to tell him that if he makes all his characters speak in Aramaic and Latin, it will not magically lend him more credibility.
Someone needs to point out to him that establishing character is important, even if the character you're establishing is the Son of God.
This is a film for Catholics with a specific view of the crucifixion. It makes the audience squirm, suffer, and feel generally uncomfortable, but that's it. It's not a film about love. It's a film about guilt.
"Oh, my son," Mary wails, as Jesus endures yet another round of brutality. "When, where, and how will you choose to be delivered of this?"
"How can one man bear the entire burden of sin?" Evil asks, at the beginning. "How can one man carry that much weight?"
But neither question is ever answered. Because Gibson assumes we will see Christ the same way he does. We are assumed to think that Jesus is a good man, a hero with perfect teeth. We are assumed to believe he's on that cross dying for our sins (although quite how that works, I'm not sure.)
Jesus' choice is challenged, but never justified, as we are assumed to have justified it to ourselves already. The questions, like Christ's plea, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?", are perfunctory.
My problem is, the film does not show Jesus coming to terms with his position as the Christ. It shows him believing utterly, without doubt. He acknowledges his position to the Rabbis when they accuse him of blasphemy - something he never does throughout the Bible.
Even in the few idyllic flashbacks we are awarded, Jesus seems too assured. "The only way to the Father is through me," he says to his disciples, "I am the truth, and the light, and the way." Perhaps this is from the Bible, but here, as the only line in a short scene, it only makes him look spiritually superior to his disciples and acutely aware of it. It feels like borderline arrogance, which is not something I ever associated with this story.
We have a single flashback of Jesus actually teaching, and yeah, okay, he talks about love. But it's two-thirds of the way through the film. It feels tacked on. It feels like an excuse to add a little more guilt to the load when Jesus yells out to God to forgive his killers because "they know not what they do."
How can I understand the things this man is dying for when I get *one* *single* *scene* about those things?
How can I believe a man to be morally superior when I rarely see what morals he has, beyond dying for principles that haven't been made clear?
As I said, this is a film for people who know Jesus and have a very specific preconception of him.
Maybe this film was only meant to show the last twelve hours of his life, but I find it emotionally unsatisfying to watch the last twelve hours of someone's life without an understanding of the forces, emotional, spiritual or physical, that brought him to that point.
This film does not stand on its own.
You see a man get captured, beaten, whipped, whipped some more with more vicious looking things, beaten, frog-marched, thrown around, mutilated, killed and then stabbed.
No intellectual questions are raised. It improves no one's understand of why this happened or what it stands for. It doesn't even try to tell us why this happened or what it stands for because, of course, we all already know that.
This is not a film. It is a biased illustration.
It's a fantastic film for people who find comfort in the idea that someone superior to them has come to take care of them and get punished for them, and that all they need to do in return is feel forever guilty and unworthy.
But it's not for me.
Yeah, this is definitely a film about guilt, not love.
