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02/25/2004 Archived Entry: "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST"

Posted by steve @ 11:09 PM EST [Link]

FOUR STARS: I almost always dislike any movie that Roger Ebert likes so I'm even nervous pointing out that he's given The Passion of the Christ four stars.

David Ansen, a critic I respect, finds in Newsweek that Gibson has gone too far. "The relentless gore is self-defeating," he writes. "Instead of being moved by Christ's suffering or awed by his sacrifice, I felt abused by a filmmaker intent on punishing an audience, for who knows what sins."

This is a completely valid response to the film, and I quote Ansen because I suspect he speaks for many audience members, who will enter the theater in a devout or spiritual mood and emerge deeply disturbed. You must be prepared for whippings, flayings, beatings, the crunch of bones, the agony of screams, the cruelty of the sadistic centurions, the rivulets of blood that crisscross every inch of Jesus' body. Some will leave before the end.

This is not a Passion like any other ever filmed. Perhaps that is the best reason for it. I grew up on those pious Hollywood biblical epics of the 1950s, which looked like holy cards brought to life. I remember my grin when Time magazine noted that Jeffrey Hunter, starring as Christ in "King of Kings" (1961), had shaved his armpits. (Not Hunter's fault; the film's Crucifixion scene had to be re-shot because preview audiences objected to Jesus' hairy chest.)

If it does nothing else, Gibson's film will break the tradition of turning Jesus and his disciples into neat, clean, well-barbered middle-class businessmen. They were poor men in a poor land. I debated Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" with commentator Michael Medved before an audience from a Christian college, and was told by an audience member that the characters were filthy and needed haircuts.

Ebert also argues that the movie is not anti-Semitic and it doesn't really touch upon Christ's teachings, not surprising he notes, because the movie addresses only a limited time frame in His life.

At any rate, I'll be seeing this movie either tomorrow night or during the weekend sometime.

Replies: 1 Comment

The problem with all those "sanitary" versions of Christ's "passion" (meaning suffering) is exactly that they didn't convey the intense suffering He really endured. Isaiah 52:14 prophesies, "His visage was marred more than any man's and his form more than the sons of men." He was mercilessly tortured "more than any man". This is the first film EVER that has attempted to actually capture what really happened to our Savior. It's not called "The Ministry of Christ" or "The Life of Christ". It's called "The Passion of the Christ". The word Passion comes from the Latin for suffering. That is the focus of the film. Therefore, all criticism that "it hardly touches on His teaching" and "it's too violent" and "it hardly shows the Resurrection" is true but, again, those weren't the point of the movie - His Passion/suffering was.

Posted by Keith @ 02/27/2004 03:00 AM EST