Thursday, March 04, 2004
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
Spiritless "Passion"
Last night attended the Gospel According to Gibson at the Roxy in Philadelphia. Andrew Sullivan has dealt with this with far more depth and eloquence than I could bring to it, but as a life-long Christian I must say I took very few positive feelings away from the theatre.
It is a sledgehammer of violence, 45 minutes out of two hours of flesh-rending sadism the like of which I have never seen. I would imagine it compares or surpasses "snuff" films but I thankfully have no experience. Stacey (conservative Catholic) has remarked that the image of Christ's body on the cross is a more Catholic image, and that Catholics are more accustomed to such iconography that emphasizes the suffering of the Christ. There is certainly no doubt that this is what Mel wants us to take away from the film. "Jesus endured all this for you." It is a message delivered with a cat-o-nine-tails, tipped with bits of glass and metal.
Anti-Semitic? No. It is a story where a section of the Jewish leadership is shown as quite ruthless, and one of the "schemers" is a bit of an ethnic caricature, but at no time is the entire Jewish community shown to be monolithic.
The leaving of the Aramaic "blood oath" yet removing the subtitles of it seemed at best clumsy and at worst sneaky and nefarious. The imagery and cinematography throughout the film is stunning and poetic, but I found myself simply unable to trust the agenda.
Overall, my Christianity was not strengthened or damaged by the film, but I did leave convinced that Mel Gibson - from Braveheart disembowelments to his hatchet-wielding Patriot - always seems just a bit too comfortable with blood splattered on his face.
Spiritless "Passion"
Last night attended the Gospel According to Gibson at the Roxy in Philadelphia. Andrew Sullivan has dealt with this with far more depth and eloquence than I could bring to it, but as a life-long Christian I must say I took very few positive feelings away from the theatre.
It is a sledgehammer of violence, 45 minutes out of two hours of flesh-rending sadism the like of which I have never seen. I would imagine it compares or surpasses "snuff" films but I thankfully have no experience. Stacey (conservative Catholic) has remarked that the image of Christ's body on the cross is a more Catholic image, and that Catholics are more accustomed to such iconography that emphasizes the suffering of the Christ. There is certainly no doubt that this is what Mel wants us to take away from the film. "Jesus endured all this for you." It is a message delivered with a cat-o-nine-tails, tipped with bits of glass and metal.
Anti-Semitic? No. It is a story where a section of the Jewish leadership is shown as quite ruthless, and one of the "schemers" is a bit of an ethnic caricature, but at no time is the entire Jewish community shown to be monolithic.
The leaving of the Aramaic "blood oath" yet removing the subtitles of it seemed at best clumsy and at worst sneaky and nefarious. The imagery and cinematography throughout the film is stunning and poetic, but I found myself simply unable to trust the agenda.
Overall, my Christianity was not strengthened or damaged by the film, but I did leave convinced that Mel Gibson - from Braveheart disembowelments to his hatchet-wielding Patriot - always seems just a bit too comfortable with blood splattered on his face.
