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Mel Gibson unleashes an unholy uproar over movie about Christ's life

From Detroit Free Press

If you believe Mel Gibson, he has been divinely inspired. While he will be credited with directing and cowriting "The Passion," he says that his upcoming film about the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth -- who Gibson believes is literally the son of God -- is actually the work of the Holy Spirit, expressed through him.

If this is true, the Holy Spirit looks to be one hell of a filmmaker, if you'll excuse the expression. At least that's the impression I took away from the official 1-minute, 45-second online trailer for "The Passion," made available by Gibson's Icon Productions, and the 4 1/2-minute preview that was shown last weekend to a Christian convention in Anaheim, Calif. (Both can found at www.themoviebox.net/trailers /moviebox_trailers /passion_tr_page.htm).

Gibson has also claimed that the book on which much of the film is based, written by the 19th-Century German nun and mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, actually fell from his bookshelf one day, all but begging him to read it. He also says that "The Passion" is not anti-Semitic in its depiction of why Jesus was crucified, but that "anybody who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own culpability."

Naturally, some have begged to differ, including Rabbi Eugene Korn, one of the first Jewish leaders allowed to see the film. He reported it raises troubling questions about "deicide," suggesting Jewish complicity in Jesus' death. That was enough to provoke a news release from the Anti-Defamation League suggesting the film "unambiguously portrays Jewish authorities and the Jewish as the ones responsible for the decision to crucify Jesus." If that's so, what's the Holy Spirit up to?

Whatever it is, Gibson has taken note of the adverse publicity. The marketing director for his production company said Wednesday that Gibson has edited the film to show more "sympathetic" Jewish characters, including some who speak out against the crucifixion, though he was careful to say that wasn't the Gospel's version of the story.

"We believe we have softened the story compared to the way the Gospel has told it," Icon Productions' spokesman Paul Lauer said.

This, of course, is the problem with movies about religion -- and, to some extent, religion in general: God has to rely on humans to make his point. That makes much of what is said in his name somewhat suspect, which is why I've always believed Monty Python's "Life of Brian" is one of the best films ever made about religion. "Blessed are the cheese-makers?" asks one fellow who fails to get a good seat at the Sermon on the Mount. "Did he say blessed are the cheese-makers?"

Gibson, it is obvious, has his biases. He belongs to a Catholic sect that rejects the Second Vatican Council, in which various long-held traditions and teachings were revised or done away with. One section of Vatican II specifically repudiates the belief that Jews should be held responsible for Jesus' murder. Moreover, Hutton Gibson, the director's father, is a conservative Catholic author who has been quoted as calling Vatican II a "Masonic plot backed by the Jews" and as denying that the Holocaust occurred.

Let me admit my own biases: I believe there should be more movies about religion and faith. The reason there are not is the same reason there are not more serious dramas about politics and race and sex: Hollywood is in the business of catering to mass audiences, not offending them.

When someone like Gibson or Martin Scorsese, whose "Last Temptation of Christ" created an uproar for its alleged anti-Christian sentiments, elects to make a movie about Jesus (or Abraham or Muhammad), he is openly inviting the sort of controversy "The Passion" is only beginning to incite. This is why these films are most often bankrolled by a religious organization or by someone like Gibson, who has $25 million -- his current asking price to star in a movie -- to lose.

Moreover, audiences usually shun religious-themed movies on the grounds they do not go to the movies to be preached at and told what to think. They have cable news for that.

Besides, Gibson is still saying he wants "The Passion," which was filmed in Aramaic, to be released without subtitles, which is the equivalent of telling everyone save movie critics, scholars and sign-wavers to stay home. (I'm betting he backslides on this one.) If he sticks by his guns, Gibson may be forced to distribute the movie himself, or through a small boutique distributor that may be all too happy to court and exploit the controversy.

In the meantime, the story of the Passion -- one of suffering and sacrifice and among the most moving and dramatic stories in all literature -- will be overshadowed by yet another holy war waged by soldiers with God on their side. I for one am glad that the French composer Theodore Dubois wrote the impossibly moving "The Seven Last Words of Christ" before the age of mass media. Divinely inspired or not, the seven last words might have ended up as four or five.

Posted by Muddy at August 17, 2003 04:50 AM | TrackBack