Hey Loomis, I recommended that Spectator article on the ajb site. It's a good piece.
Ok, folks... for me, this has all gotten SO out of hand and I thoroughly regret ever joining this discussion in the first place. I sincerely apologize for my intemperate and stupid remarks about Sensualist's beliefs or non-beliefs. REALLY dum on my part! As I said on my post on ajb, somehow this film has simply *touched* a nerve among a lot of people. I hope this is my last post here on this thread.
Sensualist, if you had read my essay on the ajb site you'd see why I "caved in." Your scolding certainly did contribute to my re-think, tho you take far too much credit for my turnabout. Others with whom I'd been discussing the film sincerely wanted me to join their discussion comparing The Passion with other religious films. But my conscience kept telling me that I'd better see the damned thing before continuing on, and your screeching *did* hit its target. So I changed my mind. Why that makes me a hypocrite, I'm not sure. I thought I was being hypocritical by discussing the film and not seeing it.
Anyway, it is entirely Mel Gibson's fault that this hype and controversey exists in the first place. I started paying attention to the PR about the film early last year. As the year went by and I kept reading updates and critical commentary, I was actually criticizing Gibson's critics. I had seen him in "Signs" which I thought was a remarkable film. I loved Gibson in it---he played a former priest who loses his faith and regains it again. (For the record, I liked Mad Max, have never seen any Lethal Weapon movies, liked Braveheart, hated The Patriot, and thought "What Women Want" was just silly). In "Signs," he was completely convincing and there was no ham-fisted bludgeon about his faith the way there is in The Passion. While I cared little for his extreme religious views (and I don't consider him a Catholic---a practicing, believing Catholic recognizes the Pope as the spiritual authority on earth, tho most Catholics do not view him as infallible), particularly his belief in the literal and absolute truth of the Gospels, I thought the critics were just stirring up a hornet's nest for no good reason. I thought "just calm down, let him make his film, you'll just make more people interested in seeing it if you keep this up."
But then I realized that it was Gibson himself who started the ball rolling before anyone had even criticized the film and it was his entire attitude and marketing tactics that kept *fueling* the controversey. In early 2003 he fired the first salvo by stating in an interview that there was a conspiracy of "dark forces" against him that was anti-Christian. He repeated this again on the recent interview with Diane Sawyer. Gibson repeatedly and to this day identifies all his critics as part of a Satanic consipracy against Christianity. He used the word "consipracy" more than once in the Sawyer interview.
At that time in early 2003, NO ONE had even come out with any charges of anti-semitism or anything else. Gibson's remarks, tho, got the press, Jewish and various Christian groups curious about his strange and rather paranoid remarks. Then the NY Times did some digging and interviewed his father, who's really someone out of the 14th century. Quite understandably, Gibson was furious about the press seeking out his father (tho his father could simply have said "no" to the interview, thereby not embarrassing his son).
It was right there that Gibson could've avoided controversey. He simply could've said to the press in private "Look guys, I'll talk with you, but leave my father alone. Off the record, I don't agree with him about the Holocaust but I won't publicly refute my father, I love and respect him." That would've completely mollified those concerned about the film's supposed anti-semitism and the Times editors have clearly said "if Gibson had merely agreed to talk to us and had gone off the record in disagreeing with his father, all the controversey would've died down." The press would've backed off. The folks at ADL have said repeatedly that if Gibson had merely answered their requests for a dialogue, much of the controversey would not have existed. But it was Gibson's bunker mentality, his total refusal to even talk with people who had concerns (while being completely available to evangelicals and fawning entertainment reporters who wouldn't ask him any tough questions) that made some people ask "what's he got to hide? why's he so paranoid?"
Journalists and Jewish groups were asking to just ask him questions in private. They said nothing public needed to come out of these meetings if he didn't want them to. They asked to be included in the special pre-screenings he was arranging. They weren't even attacking him or the film. Scorcese did this in his advance work for Last Temptation. He let all types of religious scholars and representatives, from right-wing to more secular minded, see his film. He organized dialogues between all types of religious folks. Scorcese was open to discussion and debate and never pretended to have the ear of God, he never labelled his critics as "evil," he never painted himself as a persecuted victim. But Gibson refused to meet with any one---except evangelical Protestants and Catholics, and a tiny number of select Jews whom he only because he knew they wouldn't criticize the film or raise any questions or concerns. He invited only these people to his advance and refused admittance to anyone he thought might raise some concerns. Abe Foxman from ADL had to sneak in to see it. For these screenings, Gibson distributed a pamphlet he wrote that asked that no one talk about the film unless they liked it and wanted to use it in their evangelical work. In other words, if you had problems or concerns, you had to shut about it.
Then he tried to get the Pope on his side by claiming that the pontiff had seen the film and had said "it is as it was." Gibson's Icon Productions kept spreading this in their press releases and then the Vatican swiftly came out with a rebuttal, saying it was absolutely not true. So in a bit of shameless marketing hucksterism, Gibson tried to manufacture the Pope's support for his film without the Vatican's approval.
Meanwhile, he kept saying things like the film's critics "are the forces of Satan, or are dupes of Satan." That's an exact quote. He kept painting himself as a victim: "I'm subjected to religious persecution...persecution as an American, persecution as a man." (What is it with Gibson and his constant insecurity about his masculinity for pete's sake?!) He told Diane Sawyer that "a big dark force" (*his* words) didn't want him to make the film. His marketing campaign of the film was to *only* to link up with the huge network of ultraconservative evangelicals in this country, encourage them to use it as a proselytizing tool (his Icon Productions distributed pamphlets urging evangelicals to use the film to spread the good word, esp. in Europe where people are more secular), paint himself as a persecuted martyr, paint his critics as people in league with Satan. It was this bunker mentality and his absolute refusal to even go halfway with people who simply wanted to raise questions that immediately made me change my mind about him. And then when in response to those who asked him about his father's views, he simply said "My father has never lied to me, he taught me my faith" then I really had to wonder about Mel Gibson's fanaticism.
Fine, you say, all this is irrelevant to the film. I don't think it is but it's entirely fair to try to separate the film from the filmmaker. In this, I think the LA Times' Patrick Goldstein has done an admirable, thoughtful job and I recommend his article:
http://www.calendarl...section=/movies Goldstein discusses the issue of separating the artist from the work of art. He doesn't bash Gibson but neither does he fawn. I also recommend this other piece from the LA Times which rightly points out Gibson's determination into turning Christ into some sort of action hero. For all Gibson's fulminating about Hollywood decadence, he still uses the old Hollywood tropes of filmmaking, as when he chose to elevate one person in the Gospels who is barely mentioned in the scriptures as The One Evil Villain to Hate (Caiaphas):
http://www.calendarl...e-more-channelsHarmsway, you are incorrect about Gibson and the schismatic group that he is a part of - that's the entire point of his beliefs and that's what some here are not understanding. Like the ultraconservative *strict constructionists* who believe that the Constitution should not be *interpreted*, like most Christian fundamentalists who view the scriptures as the absolute literal truth, it is *precisely* the trend toward the Church's acceptance of *interpreting* the Gospels that Gibson and his particular cult rejects. Look it up yourself. There is absolutely no room for *intepretation* of the Gospels in Gibson's brand of faith---not once has Gibson said "this is just my interpretation, take it or leave it." Religious literalists like him absolutely *abhor* even the word "interpretation" when it comes to understanding scripture. That's one of the central parts of Vatican II's reforms that Gibson and his father reject utterly. Those reforms declared that the Gospels were *not* in fact eyewitness testimonies, but written 30-40 years after the event, and must be interpreted as written by men writing in difficult political times (when the ruling Romans could not be offended, for example).
I do not for one moment begrudge Gibson's right to interpret the Bible as he wants to, much to the contrary. But he and his brand of Christianity claim to have the corner on the revealed, literal truth of the Gospels and they deride modern, moderate Christians for their "cut and paste" reading of scripture. Gibson has indeed said about the film "what I've made is the truth, you may not want to see it, you may not like it, but it's the absolute truth as given in the Gospels by the Holy Spirit." That is an attitude that I find revolting, thoroughly meglomaniacal and pretty scary.
BTW, I completely disagree that criticizing The Passion is tantamount to ridiculing Christianity. Some of the film's severest critics are themselves Christians. The American Conference of Catholic Bishops have come out with very serious concerns about it. And I look at the film critically from my belief that it comes from a twisted view of the Gospels and Jesus Christ's message.
There have been some analogies made in this thread by various people that I think are completely inappropriate. Loomis, for example, asked why it's ok to diss this film for its Christianity but not any other film for its religiosity. Well, as I said, none of the film's critics are dissing it for its Christianity, the criticism is much more complex than that. Secondly, I seriously doubt any filmmaker wanting to make a devout, ultraconservative film about the prophet Muhammed in which evil and sadistic Christians are shown brutalizing Muslims would ever be distributed in the US or anywhere in the western world. Even if the film were as brilliantly done as The Passion quite obviously is, I also seriously doubt most folks on this board would embrace it.
Furthermore, the analogies with Germans Saving Private Ryan or Italians in mafia movies make no sense. A more apt analogy would be if a German filmmaker who himself had nothing to do with the Nazi regime but whose parents and extended family had strong ties to that regime made a film about a violent crime in which a Jew or Jews were involved. Let's say an innocent German man was murdered by a German police officer (non-Jewish) who was given false information by a Jew who for his own reasons wanted this innocent man killed. The film shows a scheming, sadistic, manipulative, evil Jew demanding that this officer kill the man. The filmmaker totally ignores the historical context of the time, never alluding to persecution of Jews during that period. It's not a great analogy but it's far, far more appropriate than the other analogies given in this thread. The Saving Private Ryan analogy ignores the fact that there is no history of Germans being collectively persecuted as a race by Americans for centuries.
Anyway, thanks to Jim for his eminently reasonable posts. I do believe the film is a work of art, it's extraordinary actually. Tho unlike Last Temptation, it didn't do anything at all to my lapsed faith. It just made me feel bludgeoned and shouted at for two hours by a holier-than-thou fanatic screaming at me from the pulpit and barely compensating for it by giving me a very few quiet, beautiful screen moments that hinted at what the film might have been in the hands of a more subtle filmmaker. It's too bad the evangelicals are so mesmerized by the Hollywood Mel Gibson factor. They ignored a far more thoughtful film released last year called The Gospel According to St. John but it's a simple film with no hysteria, special effects or rivers of gore. Ah well, enuf. My sincere apologies to all for going on so much ranting about this film.
