Is it as it was?

AFTER SEVERAL months of controversy, Mel Gibson’s latest film, The Passion of the Christ, was released on 25 February – Ash Wednesday.
Containing dialogue in Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic (the vernacular of ancient Palestine), the film is subtitled, which often lessens a feature’s appeal for a predominantly English-language audience. Usually, outside the major cities, few Americans get a chance to see foreign-language movies. Gibson’s drama, though, based on Gospel narratives detailing the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus, debuted on 2,000 screens across the country. This was by far the widest opening ever of a subtitled picture, surpassing the previous record of 1,225 screens for the Hong Kong action film Iron Monkey in 2001.
One cinema in Plano, Texas, reserved all of its 20 screens for the film on opening day. “I knew it would start building and building, but now it’s like a tsunami,” said Bob Berney, president of the movie’s distributor, New Market Films. “We’ve had a flood of calls. People call and say, ‘I want 10,000 tickets.’”

Heated debate

The film has provoked fervent reactions across the globe, with praise and criticism coming in equal measure. Though it’s not the first time that a film about Christ has stirred such controversy – The Life of Brian in the 1970s was attacked for being too irreverent, while in the 1980s, The Last Temptation of Christ came under fire for being too sexual – Gibson’s latest epic is under fire for allegedly fomenting anti-Semitism. Jewish groups claim it will incite anti-Jewish hatred because it depicts Jewish elders as largely responsible for the Messiah’s death.
Four out of five reviewers on a New York Post panel – including a priest, a rabbi, a professor and the paper’s movie critic – called The Passion of the Christ everything from “unfair” and “deeply troubling” to “appalling.”
Elizabeth Castelli, a professor of religion at Barnard College and senior research scholar at NYU’s Centre for Religion and Media, said “Gibson had an opportunity to reflect on the long history of the theology of suffering, and he missed that opportunity by producing just a picture of brutality.” She added that the movie’s portrayal of Jews was based on “medieval stereotypes that have a history of inspiring violence against Jews.”
The positive review came, notably, from a civilian: Joan Wilson, one of the Post’s readers, said the “must-see movie” was “riveting.”
Many theologians agree, and have heaped praise on the piece for its fidelity to Biblical texts and refusal to compromise to modern norms. Catholic and other Christian groups, as well as biblical scholars, have defended the film, saying it sticks closely to accounts of the crucifixion as told in the New Testament. The Rev. Billy Graham, America’s most influential minister, was moved to tears when he saw the film, and said it made him feel as if he had been a bystander during the last hours before Jesus’s death.

The power of love

The Vatican was similarly impressed. After seeing the film last September, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Vatican department in charge of priests, said he would gladly trade some of his homilies about the passion of Christ for even a few of the scenes of the film, which Gibson both produced and directed. Having seen the film, Cardinal Castrillon, who is also president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei – the office established by the Pope for the pastoral care of Catholics attached to the liturgy as it was celebrated before the Second Vatican Council – said “One of the great achievements of this film is to have shown so effectively both
the horror of sin and selfishness, and the redeeming power of love.”
He added that the film is “faithful to the meaning of the Gospels as understood by the church” and is not anti-Semitic. “It captures the subtleties and the horror of sin, as well as the gentle power of love and forgiveness, without making or insinuating blanket condemnations against one group,” he said. “Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth in order to put a whole race of people in a bad light. This film does nothing of the sort.”
Then, in December, a Vatican source leaked a report that the Pope had seen the film. Apparently, after a private DVD viewing in his apartments, John Paul had told a close friend “It is as it was,” meaning he considered it an authentic portrayal of Gospel accounts of the last hours in Christ’s life. The Vatican was quick to deny the story, but refused to comment further on the Pope’s reaction to the film.
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, said the group would respect the Pope’s views, as the Holy Father “has a record and history of sensitivity to the Jewish community and has a clear moral voice and understanding when it comes to anti-Semitism.” However, Mr Foxman repeated the concern of Jewish scholars and religious leaders that the film would potentially “rationalise and legitimise anti-Semitism” and said that he thought Gibson was “seriously infected, with some very, very serious anti-Semitic views.”

Meditating on the passion

Despite Gibson’s status as a top box-office draw and Oscar winner, and the fact that he contributed $25 million of his own money to make the film, Hollywood’s major studios shied away from distributing it due to the controversy it would cause. But the star was undeterred, telling the Associated Press that while the film is indeed an attempt to capture what really happened in the last hours before Christ’s death, it was also a product of years of meditation and a personal expression of faith. “I had to make this film; I couldn’t not make it,” he said. Acknowledging that the film was “hugely personal,” Gibson said he was partly moved to make it because he had seen other versions of the events which he could neither understand nor believe.
Having directed, funded and co-scripted the film, he said “I tried to make it as realistic as possible. I wanted the audience to feel like they were really there, witnessing the events as they had actually happened.”
For the actor-director, The Passion has a deeply personal resonance, due to a spiritual crisis suffered 13 years ago. “I came to a difficult point in my life and, meditating on Christ’s sufferings, on his passion, got me through it,” he said.
It is even alleged that he plays a brief cameo in the epic labour of love, and that his hand can be seen putting the nail into the palm of Jesus on the Cross. Some analysts argue this gesture symbolises an expression of his own feelings of guilt. “Once I started meditating on the passion, really going deep into it in my own mind and heart, then I began to understand it, to believe: That’s the version I put on film… The story, the way I envisioned the suffering of Christ, got inside me and started to grow, and it reached a point where I just had to tell it, to get it out.”
Gibson researched the issues involved carefully before he started filming. Noting that experts disagreed about historical details, which he needed in order to flesh out the Gospel accounts, he said he was “thrown back on my own resources to weigh the arguments and decide for myself.”
Gibson, who is a member of a traditionalist Roman Catholic group that still uses the old-style Latin Mass, seems satisfied with the results. In the end, he believes, his creation will be faithful to the Gospels. “I hope it makes people think,” he said. “I hope it makes them reflect. The movie is about faith, hope, love and forgiveness. If it stirs those things up in people, it will be a success.”

Obstacles

His latest venture has been plagued by disruptions. During screening, Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Christ, was struck by lightning. Though many would see this as unfortunate, Gibson heralds the event a miracle. In October, he had to re-title the epic The Passion of the Christ because rights to the title for the original name – The Passion – were owned by Miramax,
who are in the process of making a movie based on the historical romantic fantasy by Jeanette Winterson. Gibson was next infuriated that a national US tabloid got hold of a bootleg copy of the film and threatened legal action.
Then the oscar-winning star of such films as Braveheart, Mad Max and the Lethal Weapon series had problems finding a distributor for the film, before Newmarket Films stepped in with an offer. Meanwhile, the director was stirring up his own storm with controversial comments, such as telling the New Yorker that “modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church.”
Gibson has repeatedly denied that the film is anti-Semitic and said that his intention is “to inspire, not to offend.” His attempts to stem accusations of anti-Semitism by holding previews for leaders of both Christian and Jewish faiths as well as religious scholars and fellow industry players – many of whom defended the film – could easily have backfired.
But it would seem that all the controversy and speculation surrounding the film have only fuelled its popularity, and The Passion of the Christ is set  to be one of the most successful foreign language features of 2004.
Originally intended to be screened in a few cities and spread from there via art-houses, the accusations of purported anti-Semitism apparently compelled Gibson to go wider.
The biggest success for New Market Films before Gibson’s new film was Whale Rider, which grossed $20 million in mostly art-house theatres. It began its run on a handful of screens, and was only shown at 580 venues in total. The Passion of the Christ will doubtless receive much larger viewing figures, and boasts a talented cast of soon-to-be big names in Hollywood. As well as Jim Caviezel in the lead role, the cast of the film includes Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdelane and Maia Morgenstern – the Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor – as the Virgin Mary.