Yesterday I finally got around to seeing The Passion of the Christ. I’ve delayed this long because, like a dentist appointment, while I knew it would be good for me, I scorned putting myself through the experience. This is often the case with challenging movies–I know I should see them, but it’s often hard to motivate myself. Yesterday, I eschewed the pack of Jolly Ranchers that was The Girl Next Door and attended Mr. Gibson’s latest epic.
I paid for my ticket at one of those self-service machines that so many people seem to ignore like a leper. I was amused to note that, when I choose The Passion, the screen displayed the film’s rating: R. This film, however, had a non-standard addition to the usual ‘extreme violence, torture’ warning. It read ‘may be offensive to the religious’. It’s the first time I’ve seen this particular caveat. Surely this isn’t the first film to meet those requirements?
If I put aside the religious context of the film, and evaluate The Passion based on my standard criteria for feature films, it falls dreadfully short:
- Plot: The central dramatic question–will Jesus be crucified?–is answered far too early. There are no reversals or twists in the story, and the film lacks suspense.
- Character Development: None of the characters change in the course of the film. In fact, we’re barely given any information about them at all.
- Acting: While the performances are generally strong, they’re singular. James Caviezel suffers. Monica Bellucci and Maia Morgenstern mourn. Only the actors playing the more minor roles–Simon, Pilate, Peter get to display much range.
- Theme: The film’s morality is muddy at best. Without more information about the context of Jesus’s suffering and the sins of humanity, it’s unclear what the movie’s central message is.
In truth, though, The Passion is more of a docudrama. Yet, even in this it only preaches to the choir. Even a dramatization needs to offer a backstory, introduce the personalities and elucidate confusing passages. If you hadn’t grown up in the western world and were totally unfamiliar with the Bible, what would you make of Gibson’s Last Supper flashback? It’s brief and obtuse–should Peter and the others eat Jesus? What does it mean when he says the bread is his body? I know the answers to these questions, but most of the world doesn’t.
Gibson has been very fond of espousing his loyalty to an accurate depiction of the Gospels. After seeing the films, I went back and read the Gospels to compare. Regarding Jesus’s final day, he does follow the scriptures carefully. However, as with any adaptation, his interpretation is far from literal. In the film, there is a gory scene of at least 10 minutes in which Jesus is whipped and beaten by the Roman soldiers. This beating is referenced in only two of the four Gospels, and occupies a single sentence in each. In John, “Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him” and in Matthew, “and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified”. Gibson takes a minor note of this Bible story and turns it into a lengthy sequence that borders on the pornographic. In another instance, Gibons seems to ignore the fact that at least two of the Gospels say that when Jesus is taken to Herod, the king sends him away ‘arraying him in gorgeous apparel’.
I might also add that despite his/her (it’s very ambiguous) appearance throughout the movie, Satan isn’t anywhere to be seen in Jesus’s final day as a man. Gibson also takes license with the brief flashback sequences. Why does he choose to show the ones he does, and not others? If his goal is to depict Jesus’s suffering, why do we see him teaching or breaking bread with his disciples? Personally, those were the parts of the film that interested me most–the main action was pretty predictable.
I compare this movie with another, more-accessable spiritual docudrama: Martin Scorsese’s Kundun. It has its own problems, but it does a much better job of explaining its central elements–the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the precepts of Buddhism, the invasion of Tibet. In fact, Gibson doesn’t even bother to explain what’s going on–he just assumes everybody knows who this Jesus guy is, who those two women called Mary are, and wades–knee-deep in Jesus’s blood–on through.
Roger Ebert is referring to Kundun, but his words are even more applicable to The Passion: [the film is] ‘an act of devotion, an act even of spiritual desperation, flung into the eyes of 20th century materialism’.
It’s unfortunate that Gibson’s film is only for the believers. For those people, I’m not surprised that the film is a deeply spiritual experience. For the rest of us, however, it asks far too much.
[UPDATE] Via Roger Ebert’s review of the film, I found these two (note his comment on The Magdalene Sisters) insightful commentaries. I don’t entirely agree with them, but the author is obviously very well-read and makes articulate arguments.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
You said: “It’s brief and obtuse–should Peter and the others eat Jesus? What does it mean when he says the bread is his body? I know the answers to these questions, but most of the world doesn’t.”
My response: Ok so not *every single person* on the planet knows the answers but in general quite a few people have an idea!
“The number of Roman Catholics worldwide rose by 1.6 percent in 1999 to a total of 1.038 billion, making up 17.4 percent of the world’s population, the Vatican reported April 9. The figures were contained in the Pontifical Yearbook for 2001, which Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, and Vatican statisticians presented to Pope John Paul II.
The Vatican said that its latest statistics, which were for 1999, showed that the rise in the Catholic population was just above the total world population rise of about 1.4 percent, and the percentage of Catholics remained virtually constant.
The yearbook showed that almost half of the total of baptized Catholics live in the Americas, 27.3 percent in Europe, 12 percent in Africa, 10.4 percent in Asia and 0.8 percent in Oceania.” (taken from http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1141/25_37/73827830/p3/article.jhtml?term= — I don’t know the integrity of this source).
That source only covers numbers re: Roman Catholic people, nevermind other types of Christianity and even the Jewish religion all which have a general understanding of the bible or at least know of it’s existance. (That’s quite a generous amount of people just looking at sheer numbers). Parts of the bible story are so common they are even played out in school plays.
It was never meant to be an original piece of work and there should be nothing original or any surprise elements to the acting or the story. The hype and the attention around the movie made it pretty clear that the film is basically a telling of that portion of the story as written, don’t you think? (Although you have pointed out that Gibson did twist parts).
However, I do take into consideration that you started your critique by saying “If I put aside the religious context of the film, and evaluate The Passion based on my standard criteria for feature films….” I guess I just feel it’s fairly obvious that this isn’t a standard film and it shouldn’t be judged using standard criteria.
I think the rest of your post is very well written and I appreciate the fact that you went and compared with the gospels. I only wished to address your comment of “I know the answers to these questions, but most of the world doesn’t.”
I really hate when I write a comment and hit Post instead of Preview and end up apostrophes where they just have no business being. ;]
Thanks for that, Jenny. This page (http://www.bible.ca/global-religion-statistics-world-christian-encyclopedia.htm ) indicates that roughly 2 billion people are Christians. That’s about 30%. Add a few percentage points for people like me–Westerners who are familiar enough with the stories of the Bible, and we still get “most of the world” not understanding this film.
In truth, what bugged me was that Gibson went to absolutely no effort to introduce characters or explain concepts. For example, the idea of the body and blood of Christ and communion isn’t simple. In fact, it’s kind of cryptic. As such, Gibson would have done well to spend a few minutes less flogging Jesus and a few minutes more clarifying these pillars (no pun intended) of the Christian faith.
i am a non-religious child of Anglican heritage, and although i know the basics of the story, i don’t know the answers to these specific question.
i have not seen this movie, i’m not sure i plan to. as everything i have heard tells me this movie is more of a religious propaganda film and less of an educational story. i am very interested in history of the testaments and everything that surrounds them. and i would expect anyone making a film of this stature to use it as an educational tool. not simply spell out the basic and already commonly known facts.
i guess we have to ask what gibson was attempting to do with this film. was his intent to create a sermon or to tell a story.
i have many issues surrounding this film but i will stop here. to this point i have chosen not to see it, i may change my mind simply so i can discuss it’s content with more accuracy.
It’s intriguing that a one-sentence reference in the gospels is turned into a 10-minute scene in “The Passion”.
From an artistic point of view, this is a legitimate decision. In “The Lord of the Rings”, Tolkien only described the aftermath of Boromir’s last stand to save the hobbits from the orcs. In both the Ralph Bakshi and Peter Jackson versions, it’s a major scene, with Boromir taking multiple hits. It’s both an exciting action scene, but it is also dramatic as Boromir redeems himself from succumbing to the influence of the ring.
From a religious standpoint, I’m not so sure.
However, in any adaptation of a work from one medium to another, there are always decisions of interpretation to make. Gibson made this call, and I couldn’t say whether this was out of piety or commercialism.
Totally agree Darren. As far as I know, the bit where the bird pecks out the unbeliever on the neighbouring cross isn’t in the Bible either. I thought the invention made God look kind of petty.
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