Mel
Gibson’s The Passion
Stephen
Simon
[Editor’s
note: Mr. Simon viewed the film on opening day in Los Angeles.]
Today,
I saw THE PASSION. I want to say right up front that I was
raised Jewish and now consider myself a deeply spiritual person
with no formal religious affiliation, so I recognize and acknowledge
that I am not the target audience for this film, which has
been described by many as “the best Evangelical sales
tool in history.” My responses to the film are obviously
colored by my own perspective. I also want to note here that
I greatly respect Mel Gibson as a director (the film is beautifully
mounted and acted) and I also respect him for having the courage
of his convictions and for literally “putting his money
where his mouth and heart are.” He financed the entire
$25 million cost of the film himself and has been unabashed
in his advocacy of his — and the film’s —
conservative, Roman Catholic viewpoint. I deeply admire that
kind of commitment to one’s faith. This film, unlike
most movies, makes it almost impossible not to respond in
a very personal way to its philosophy and that’s one
reason why I believe that it will be looked upon as such a
cultural milestone. Again, Gibson deserves much credit for
bringing all of this into the public arena for discussion.
All
that being said, I must also say that the entire film seemed
like the dying gasp of an old ultra-religious paradigm that
is slowly fading into oblivion. I had the distinct feeling
that I was watching the symbolic conclusion to 2000 years
of human history that, in the West, has been dominated by
the Catholic Church. If, in fact, that turns out in the future
to have been true, then Gibson has indeed ushered out this
chapter of history in a blaze of... gory. The physical suffering
of Jesus is the total focus of the film. The violence is as
gruesomely depicted as you have heard, perhaps more so, and
is simply unrelenting in its vivid and graphic detail. It
is shocking to me that the film is rated R, rather than NC-17
which I think it should be. To allow — let alone bring
— children of any age into this film could be considered
a form of child abuse and even attempted brainwashing. Watching
children in the audience reminded me of the scene in “Clockwork
Orange” in which the main character is forced to watch
violence with his eyelids forced open. There, it was to sensitize
a violent man to violence. Here, I fear that the effect will
be the opposite and much more traumatic.
So,
please, do NOT go see this film without being prepared for
the grotesque nature of the violence and PLEASE — no
one under 17. Please also be aware that the film was shot
with the characters speaking Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin, so
the movie is subtitled in English.
On
her ABC interview show with Mel Gibson on February 16, Diane
Sawyer noted that, to Gibson and his Roman Catholic believers,
the “Passion” in the title of the film is not defined
as one might think but rather as being synonymous with “suffering.”
What
a perfect metaphor.
More
than anything, the film is a relentless ode to “suffering.”
From a film making standpoint, Gibson makes no effort whatsoever
to either illuminate anything about the LIFE of Jesus or explain
WHY there was so much animosity towards him. The entire film
is about the DEATH of Jesus and Gibson literally assaults
us with never-ending images of the physical suffering of Jesus
with the seeming intent to make us feel so indebted to Jesus
for his sacrifice that we feel awful about being human beings.
As an audience member, I felt like the human equivalent of
what a dog must feel if its nose is brutally pushed into the
carpet when it is being trained while it is simultaneously
being called a “bad dog. Bad dog!”
Using
the physical suffering of Jesus as the linchpin for the film
puts brutality at the core of the film’s Christianity
and that attitude is inconsistent with both the beautiful
humanity of Jesus’ vision and the philosophy of modern
Christianity. In fact, I have spoken to many Christians who
are uneasy about the film, not to mention the numbers of people
of the Jewish faith who fear its ramifications. The whole
Protestant movement grew partially out of a dissatisfaction
with the way the Catholic Church created a middleman, so to
speak, out of priests and insisted that the only way believers
could experience God was through the interpretations of those
priests. Many Christians now fear that their faith will be
misinterpreted by those who do not make a distinction between
Gibson’s form of Roman Catholicism and modern Christianity.
As
to film’s alleged anti-Semitism, I would note that the
film has a very sympathetic and detailed depiction of Pontius
Pilate and clearly makes the point that Pilate did not want
to execute Jesus; however, Gibson’s film does absolutely
nothing to explain why the Jewish priests were so intent on
Jesus’ crucifixion. That glaring omission, coupled with
the mob’s insatiable thirst for Jesus’ crucifixion
(also unexplained), feel as though they were directed with
absolutely no SENSITIVITY whatsoever toward the potentially
galvanizing effect of the film on those who may come to the
theater already harboring anti-Semitic feelings. And the film’s
depiction of bloodthirsty and sadistic Roman guards must also
feel horrendous to many Italians.
In
fact, more than anti-Semitic and anti-Italian, the film feels
simply antihuman.
The
life and death of Jesus and the stories of those around him
are certainly the most famous in the western world. The entire
raison d’être (reason of being) of the Catholic
Church is a very strict and narrow view of the life, death,
and Divinity of Jesus. I believe that Gibson’s film is
so grim and so “in-your-face” that it may very well
ultimately signify a symbolic breakpoint which causes the
acceleration of the slide of this brand of Catholicism into
“fringe” status.
As
Gibson has made nothing less here than a recruiting film for
ultraconservative Roman Catholicism, it will undoubtedly please
much of its target audience. As, however, there have been
simultaneous developments on two different levels that have
shaken the very foundation of the brand of Catholicism to
which Gibson adheres, the lasting effect of the film on everyone
else may indeed be the polar opposite of what Gibson intended.
First,
the last few decades have produced both popular ("The
DaVinci Code”) and scholarly (the Dead Sea Scrolls and
many “radical” looks at the women of the Bible)
breakthroughs that have produced a profound effect on the
way we view the “gospels,” on which Gibson lays
the foundation of his film, and that whole period of time.
For example, I, among others, have a very different perspective
on Mary Magdalene, who is played in this film by the luminescent
Italian actress, Monica Bellucci (who played the wife of the
Merovingian in the last 2 MATRIX films). I couldn’t help
thinking about what she could have done with the role if she
hadn’t been burdened by the director’s (and much
of the Bible’s) take on her character as a “fallen
woman.” (Quite literally, we see Magdalene at the feet
of Jesus after she is almost stoned to death.) For me, Magdalene
may very well have been Jesus’ twin soul who consciously
incarnated with him so TOGETHER they could change the course
of humanity. But — that’s another belief system...
another film... another time....
As
for the Gospels themselves, the first one was written at least
50 years after the death of Jesus at a moment in our evolution
in which that many years represented two generations; moreover,
the Romans rampaged through Palestine around 30 years after
Jesus’ death in a pogrom-like campaign which killed a
huge majority of the population. So, the “Gospels”
(which have become synonymous with “literal truth")
were first written after the death and extermination of two
generations of human beings. There were no written or firsthand
eyewitness accounts that could be relayed to the Gospel writers.
Everything was based on no better than third hand oral reports
and obviously also colored by the perspective of both the
oral histories and the writers themselves.
What
all this means is that any fair view of that period of time
must be taken ON FAITH. There is no empirical “fact”
in the Gospels. One either chooses to believe the narratives
therein or doubts them. Indeed, as a dear friend of mine recently
said to me — without doubt, we would have no need for
faith, would we?
Second,
numerous sex, criminal, and financial scandals have penetrated
the core and sense of invincibility of the Catholic Church.
Even true believers have looked at the Church and are demanding
reforms and modernization. This whole distasteful descent
also reminds me of a line I recently heard: “If Jesus
came back now and saw what has been done in his name, he would
never stop throwing up.”
One
of the basic tenets of Gibson’s form of Roman Catholicism
is that “there is no salvation for those outside the
Church.” That may be a religious viewpoint (albeit a
sadly intolerant one), but, to me, it certainly isn’t
spiritual. Contrary to the way the words are used in both
the media and many comments about the film, RELIGIOUS and
SPIRITUAL are NOT SYNONYMOUS! THE PASSION is a classic example
of Religious Cinema, whereas a film like WHALE RIDER is a
great example of Spiritual Cinema. Hopefully, discussions
of Gibson’s film will also provide the opportunity to
make that very clear distinction. (For a more extensive definition
of this difference, please see:
www.movingmessagesmedia.com/ise-overview.html.)
When
one reviews Gibson’s film choices as both an actor and
director (as recently illuminated by Elvis Mitchell in the
New York Times on February 8), the pattern is very
clear: he has never starred in or directed a movie that was
not, in some way, about a martyred character. THE PASSION
reflects that kind perspective on the death of Jesus and we
have certainly seen it before, albeit not with this kind of
brutality; nevertheless, box office for the opening week of
THE PASSION will, I’m sure, be huge. [Opening week grossed
$135 million. —Ed.] Evangelicals and conservative Church
groups have bought massive blocks of tickets and there will
also be a lot of curious people who show up just to see what
the “fuss” is all about. After word gets around
about the film itself, its brutality, its subtitles, and its
message of the degraded state of humanity, I believe that
the second week box office drop off will be at least 50%,
if not more. This is not to say that Gibson will not profit
handsomely from the film. He will, and I salute him for that.
He put his faith out there for all to see and those who believe
in that message are rewarding him.
Contrary
to the perspective of THE PASSION, the teachings and inspiration
of Jesus, the man, have taken on a new meaning over the last
fifty years or so. Many are beginning to see him as an extraordinary
visionary who came to life as a human being to show us the
beauty and potential for our humanity. Throughout the film,
I kept thinking about Spiritual Cinema and the next 2000 years
of our evolution and believing that the time has come for
us to stop being martyrs. Stop dying for our beliefs and live
for them. And exalt our humanity as a species who consciously
loves and forgives without needing to feel guilty or ashamed.
Truly,
“we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
The time of our humanity has come.
Let’s get on with it.
Stephen Simon
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