Mel Gibson's The Passion

It will be interesting to see this version compared to the sanitized versions of the 60's like King of Kings ( I was a teenage Jesus ) & The Greatest Story Ever Told ( Look there's Pat Boone, Look there's Sidney Poiter, Look there's Sal Mineo etc)

I think Mel needs to give his dad shock therapy for some of the inanities & moronic statements that have emanted from his mouth.

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Updated On: 2/20/04 at 09:03 PM

Amen, Erik. Literally. The whole story of Jesus is always worth revisiting, because this man was a true radical, in every sense of the word. But context is everything. To appreciate the danger he placed himself in, taking on the Roman hierarchy (and going against much of his own religious upbringing), you need to see the impact of his preaching and teaching, incrementally. The Passion really is about the eleventh hour political machinery that manipulated a hasty execution, not the man Himself.

But what's also odd is wild-eyed Mel's obsession with the violence done to Jesus. Ask any born-again person: Jesus himself asked the world to remember his ressurection, not his death. Mel seems to have made the opposite, a movie that frankly suggests a kind of pandering to the video game bloodthirst in the world. What's the life of Jesus about, if not TRANSCENDING such violence? There's not much in his teachings that suggest He'd be pleased with close-ups of nails going through his palms. His "special effects" aimed a little higher than that, didn't they?

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We're all into speculation, but I still say, The Passion is the easy part. It's actually lazy to focus on it. Ask any writer -- landing on the violence is quick-fix melodrama, the black and white issues that procude visceral responses. What about the grays? The story of Jesus is full of grays. Yes, people leave screenings "shaken" -- but isn't it easy to use the filmmaker's bag of tricks get people to shake, showing blood and viscera in the dirt? I think it would take a complex, shaded -- dare I say artistic? -- vision of the life of Jesus to make a film that teaches us more about Him and HIS vision other than Crucifixion Hurts.

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I wonder if Mel saw Dereck Jarman's SEBASTIANE.

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I'm wondering how Mel Gibson handles the gay elements of Christ's Passion. Matthew's Gospel has that naked man in the Garden of Gethsemane. What in Heaven's name was going on behind the bushes when Jesus and his disciples were praying there? And why does Matthew make such an obvious point about it? Why, oh why, does John (the Evangelist) constantly refer to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved"?

Please folks, I'm not implying that anything improper was going on here. It's just that to a gay mentality, these references have a different meaning to our straight counterparts.

How will Mel handle them in his film?

And considering how much criticism of this film that I've already read, I can assume that much of the story of Christ's life is told in flashback as the film progresses--even His infancy.

Let me jusst say that the Jews weren't responsible for the death of Christ. It was a Roman governor who pronounced the sentence. However, Mel's arm makes a cameo appearance in the film. It is Mel who is wielding the hammer which nails Christ to the cross. Folks WE are the ones who are reesponsible for the Passion and Death of Jesus. He died for our sins and that includes the sins of every religious and ethnic group.

Regardless of our religious beliefs, perhaps we should all take advantage of the Lent to think about our sinful natures and to do a little research about the beliefs of other denominations so that we can have a better understanding of what spirituality is like in today's world.

As Auntie Mame said: "Knowledge is power!" Let's grow in our knowledge of other religions this Lent.

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As I said, if it was interpreted exactly from the Bible, it would be perfect to have those people that believe that it is all anti-semitism to read it. And everyone knows that we cannot take the Bible so literally in real life.

So...I hope that will controversy will hopefully die down a bit with the release.

I'm so curious to see how much it's going to make in the first week.

Oh sure. When you consider the atrocities that have been committed in honor of the New Testament over two millenia, a
Mel Gibson movie is a mere trifle.

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so i take it from your statement borstalboy that no movies should ever be made about religious subjects? why stop at movies? heck let's include books, articles, songs, plays, etc. are there any other topics that you'd like to ban, mein fuhrer?

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Jesus H. Christ! (oops!) All's I'm sayin' is that I just don't think Mel Gibson is one of the great theological thinkers of our time, kay? AND I think he is--like many celebrities--hyper-concerned about his image and career. It is my belief that he was out to make money and (more importantly)self-aggrandize himself. Of course I don't think religion should be BANNED from popular entertainment, liebchen, (I love the religious works of Bergman, Fellini, Pasolini, et al.) but when someone like Madonna or Mel Gibson is on (and on and on)about their respective beliefs, I get a little queasy. If Madonna had a cosmic choice between another huge album hit like the days of yore and Kabbalism, I think we all know what choice she would make.
Expose your boob at the Super Bowl or nail an actor to a cross, it's going to get them talking about you, you, you.

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I am riveted to your posts on this Borstalboy. I think you have nailed (pardon the word) Mel's queasiness-inducing MO. He made world-weary, cynical shoot-em-ups for years, and then,like the Steve Martin character in "Grand Canyon" (remember that?), opted to Help the World after a personal epiphany that he was a f--k up. Now, suddenly, he has God On His Side, and all is right with the world--unless you disagree with his take on history. Not religion--history, for that is where the controversy lies. He was just so self-righteous with Sawyer, sneering at anyone who'd doubt that his 35 million dollar Mea Culpa erases all thought of his being a chain-smoking, gun-toting (and firing) bad boy all those years.

I'm personally put off by people who shove their conversions under our (ticket-buying) noses, and profess to know The Truth more than anyone else. And I'm sorry, telling Diane that he knows the Holy Spirit had a hand in his film is beyond presumptuous. Belleview is full of people who feel that kind of "influence." (Check out a few of the characters in "Assassins," while we're looking for Divine whisperings in the ears of movers and shakers.)

I stand with Max Von Sydow in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, when he says to Barbara Hersey, "...If Jesus came back, and saw everything being done in His name, he'd never stop throwing up."

And as I wrote to a dear friend on this board, I personally prefer to find God in the works of Anne Tyler. I don't think the bloodiest R-rated depiction of His son's death is necessarily the best advertisement for His Love.

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Updated On: 2/21/04 at 02:43 PM

I see all your points, Papa. I just quibble about one issue, which sticks in my craw. Look at the number of Gibson films that hardly turned out to be a testament to the human spirit. Some of his films in the 90s really bugged me, in particular "Pay Back," which is as nasty and mean-spirited and gratuitously violent as they come. Personally, it's hard to swallow his "vision" thing now, after he so arbitrarily segregated his quest for filthy lucre from his spiritual life. I'm in the minority, I enjoyed "Signs." But before that, we saw a lot of ugly stuff. In a way, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Maybe "The Passion" is the solution. We'll see.

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You're right, Papa "Point Blank" is a near-classic in comparison or otherwise. I was in high school when that came out--I forgot it was the source! Even further off-topic: I'm a huge Coburn fan, loved the "Flint" movies (even) in my youth, and think it's great he finally won an Oscar before he checked out. (Nolte's dad in that dark but riveting "Affliction.")

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BB and Augie, very good posts, I agree with what you originally said. I don't want to get started on the religious aspects of the film and whatever Gibson believes in. I've learned not to debate certain topics, especially on line!

All I want to say is that he brilliantly created enough hype on this film to insure plenty of dough in his pocket.

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