Aesthetically speaking Gibson's movie may be called scrupulous only to the extent it attempts to depict realistically what it would have meant for the Son of God to enter a human body in order to suffer in a manner extreme enough to take all of our sins on himself. But Gibson hasn't thought through this aesthetic issue. (He doesn't appear to be a thinker at all.) The basic narrative is an allegorical spiritual epic, one in which the hero loses the battle in order to win the war. It can also be characterized as a tragic action with an ironic hero, ironic for a tragedy because he's completely innocent of flaws, which actually permits the story to have the most overarching of comic outcomes--salvation for everybody. The narrative can be characterized in a number of non-exclusive ways, and to me it's much more interesting to describe than to see dramatized.
Especially when it's dramatized in the literal-minded way Gibson does it here. Take the handling of Jesus's mother Mary, for example. At one point on the way to Golgotha Gibson flashes back to Mary's concern when her toddling son takes a fall on the stones. But Mary isn't most significant as this particular hero's mother but as the Mother of Us All. Similarly, the etymology of the name Veronica appears to be an elision of the medieval Latin "vera iconica," or "true image." In other words, there's no distinction between such characters and their function in the narrative. Realistic backstory thus doesn't enlarge Mary's character, which is fundamentally allegorical, it diminishes it. (The vignette looks like a parody of a commercial for bandaids or disinfectant on a Christian cable channel.)
An earlier episode is even worse: Gibson shows Jesus working as a carpenter and inventing the first tall dining table, one requiring chairs. This is the kind of dumbing-down appropriate for presenting a historical figure like Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin to children. But Jesus isn't clearly historical in the same way as Jefferson and Franklin and this sort of accomplishment is ridiculous if you accept him as the Savior. Surely redeeming all of mankind's sins is enough of a feat--the Messiah doesn't need resume filler.
If you accept the gospel story as revealed truth, realistic depiction adds nothing because the story hasn't been constructed in terms of individual psychology or probability, the hallmarks of realism. In fact it degrades the story by applying anachronistic and incompatible artistic means. Applying modern means to an earlier period by itself tinges even such great works as David's Death of Socrates (1787), Delacroix's Death of Saradanapalus (1827-28), Bellini's Norma (1831), and Verdi's Aida (1871) with kitsch, and those are works of aesthetic beauty and power that Gibson as movie director can't approach. Nothing can excuse, for example, the smirking, bloodless, androgynous Satan out of a Goth music video.
![Samson & Delilah (1950) [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513N4RHCD9L._SL120_.jpg)
![Ben Hur - Tale of the Christ (1926) (Silent) [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21TB1T7DV3L._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Amazing Alan, penetrating, encyclopedic, articulate. I am amazed by the range of opinion on this and you explained much of that. Thanks!
2 - David Flanagan
He can't even be tempted, which is more than you can say for even a moral exemplar like a white knight.
Matthew 4:1-2
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Hebrews 2:17-18
For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
I agree with Eric that your post is very articulate. At the same time, your argument is a philosophical one that seems at times to ignore the Biblical narrative of Jesus -- even while you attempt to use it in your critique of "The Passion -- as I point out above with your statement regarding Jesus vs. what the Bible actually says of him.
The real significance of the synoptic gospels is not that they contradict but, rather, that they are exactly what we have always known them to be eyewitness testimony. Do they mesh perfectly? Of course not. If they were identical, they would easily be dismissed as a lie. And though many Christians (myself included) believe that the scriptures were written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we also know that human beings see the same event in different ways, thus the Spirit uses four different people to give us the same event almost as if we were sitting in a court hearing eyewitness testimony to the events that transpired.
Ultimately, for Mel Gibson, this movie was a very personal endeavour; part of his life's journey, and a way for him to pay homage to God. Not only did Gibson pour his heart into this project, perhaps permanently alienating him from mainstream Hollywood, he was willing to put his money where his mouth was and personally finance the movie.
The story of the making of this film is as interesting to me as the film itself. I've read the gospel accounts numerous times, as well as historical texts regarding life in that period and the brutality of Roman Crucifixion. For me, there were few surprises in this movie.
The real fascination for me has been Gibson's journey to the making of this movie, then through the movie, and the thought of what might be next for him. The fact that he stands to make so much money has nothing to do with this movie. Gibson had no clue in the beginning whether or not he'd ever see a dime of it back from ticket sales. I'm very intersted to see what Gibson chooses as his next project.
Thanks.
David
3 - Alan Dale
Thanks for writing. My point about temptation is a narrative rather than a theological point. From a narrative perspective, there's no suspense as to whether Jesus will give in to temptation, any more than there is suspense as to whether Job will curse God. By contrast, Christian knights in medieval romance follow deceptively beautiful maidens and have to learn to distinguish physical enticement from spiritual fulfillment, and to prefer the latter.
4 - Samuel Lieberman
I find your conclusion that you "you don't think the movie is any more anti-Semitic than the common understanding of the underlying story of a schism within the Jewish religion" amazingly naive! It's clear that the Passion is exceptionally anti-semitic from the negative references toward Jews employed in the movie that are not present in the Gospels--particularly the scene where the earthquake upon Jesus's death causes the destruction of the Temple. In the Gospels, the Temple was not destroyed upon Jesus's death! Rather, the earthquake upon Jesus's death split the veil of the Temple, implying that God was now accessible to all, not just the Priests. Gibson's addition of the destruction of the Temple not only conflicts with the Gospels--it conflicts with history, because the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. The clear import of this scene--made up by Gibson--is that God collectively punished the Jews for Jesus's death.
The significance of the destruction of the Temple to both Jews and Christians cannot be underscored. The Temple, after all, is the holiest site in all of Judaism. (They don't call it the holy of holies for nothing!) Under Jewish law, each Jew must fast on two separate days to mourn the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. (Tisha B'Av commemorates the loss of both Temples, and the 17th of Tammuz focuses specifically on the 2nd Temple.) And in Jewish Theology, the destruction of the Second Temple is punishment for the sins of the Jewish People.
The Temple also has significance in Christianity because Christianity is based on Judaism. Indeed, early Catholic Church teachings held that the destruction of the Temple was divine retribution on the Jews for Jesus's death. However, that view, which attributed blame for Jesus's death directly on the Jews, was relgated to minority-view status by the middle-ages and subsequently repudiated by the Church in Vatican II.
There thus can be no doubt that the earthquake scene in the Passion is anti-semitic. Without basis in history or the Gospels, it suggests that the destruction of the site dearest to all Jews was divine punishment for Jesus's death. Such claims of divine punishment of all Jews is anti-semitism in its most basic form. And its parallel to pre-Vatican II anti-semitic Church teachings only serves to confirm Gibson's intent to bring Catholicism to an earlier, darker era. That Mr. Gibson has gotten away with portraying such anti-semitism in a major film is scary; that so many haven't recognized the film as anti-semitic makes me tremble.