The Passion of the Christ

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The Passion of the Christ
Directed by	Mel Gibson
Produced by	Bruce Davey Mel Gibson Stephen McEveety
Written by	Benedict Fitzgerald Mel Gibson
Starring	James Caviezel Maia Morgenstern Monica Bellucci Hristo Naumov Shopov Mattia Sbragia Rosalinda Celentano
Music by	John Debney Gingger Shankar
Cinematography	Caleb Deschanel
Editing by	Steve Mirkovich John Wright
Distributed by	Theatrical: Icon Entertainment Newmarket Films Equinox Films 20th Century Fox DVD: MGM Home Entertainment Warner Home Video 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Release date(s)	February 25, 2004
Running time	127 minutes
Country	United States
Language	Aramaic Latin Hebrew Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Budget	$30 million USD
Gross revenue	Domestic: $370,782,930 Worldwide: $611,899,420
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 film co-written, co-produced and directed by Mel Gibson. It is based primarily on biblical accounts of the arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, events commonly known as "The Passion". The film was rated R by the MPAA for "sequences of graphic violence." The film’s dialogue is in Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew, with subtitles. It was filmed in Italy, exactly in Matera and Craco (Basilicata) and Cinecittà Studios, Rome.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast and crew 2.1 Cast 2.2 Notable Crew 3 Mel Gibson's role 4 Title changes 5 Promotion 6 Pre-release controversy 7 Statistics 8 Commercial success 8.1 Home video 8.2 Re-release 8.3 International box office 8.4 The Definitive Edition DVD 9 Source material 9.1 Differences from the New Testament 10 Critical perceptions 10.1 Anti-Semitism 10.2 Positive views of Judaism 10.3 Christian criticism 10.4 Critical reaction 10.5 Criticism of the explicit violence 11 Cultural impact 12 Satire 13 Music 14 See also 15 References 16 External links

[edit] Plot

Jesus is tempted in the garden by a personified Satan, who appears as an androgynous albino. Mary, mother of Jesus, awakes from a dream with feelings of foreboding and quotes from the Passover Seder, Why is this night different than other nights, and Mary Magdalene replies with a traditional response: Because once we were slaves and we are slaves no longer. When questioned by Caiaphas, Jesus pronounces the ineffable Name of God in his response, which justifies Caiaphas' subsequent charge of blasphemy before witnesses. Herod Antipas is depicted as an effeminate pederast. The people in the crowd that demands the freedom of Barabbas rather than Jesus have been paid to do so by Caiaphas.

An event similar to the story of Saint Veronica is in this account, but the woman is named "Seraphia" in the cast list. Although it is one of the Stations of the Cross, the story of Veronica wiping Jesus' brow with her veil on the Via Dolorosa is not present in the canonical gospels.

The movie ends with Jesus' resurrection and exit from the tomb, the holes in his hands from the nails visible as he walks.

[edit] Cast and crew

[edit] Cast

Actor/Actress	Role
Jim Caviezel	Jesus of Nazareth
Maia Morgenstern	The Virgin Mary
Monica Bellucci	Mary Magdalene
Hristo Shopov	Pontius Pilate
Mattia Sbragia	Yosef Caiaphas
Rosalinda Celentano	Satan
Hristo Jivkov	Saint John
Francesco DeVito	Saint Peter
Luca Lionello	Judas Iscariot
Claudia Gerini	Claudia Procles
Pietro "Pedro" Sarubbi	Barabbas
Sergio Rubini	Dismas
Francesco Cabras	Gesmas
Toni Bertorelli	Annas ben Seth
Roberto Bestazoni	Malchus
Giovanni Capalbo	Cassius
Emilio De Marchi	Scornful Roman
Roberto Visconti	Scornful Roman
Lello Giulivo	Brutish Roman
Abel Jafry	2nd Temple Officer
Jarreth Merz	Simon of Cyrene
Matt Patresi	Janus
Fabio Sartor	Abenader
Luca De Dominicis	Herod Ántipas
Sabrina Impacciatore	Saint Veronica

[edit] Notable Crew

• Mel Gibson - director, co-producer, co-screenwriter
• Benedict Fitzgerald - co-screenwriter
• Caleb Deschanel - director of photography
• Francesco Frigeri - production designer
• John Debney - composer
• Fr. William Fulco S.J. - translated script into Latin and reconstructed Aramaic
• Fr. Jonathan Morris - Theological advisor during production and marketing

[edit] Mel Gibson's role

To produce The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson spent some forty to fifty million dollars of his money to finance and advertise it^{[citation needed]}. Aside from being its co-producer and director, he is the co-screenplay writer with Benedict Fitzgerald. Given the heavy Christian message, the very explicit violence, and the polyglot soundtrack (Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew), it was difficult to find an American distribution company; the film was completed before Newmarket Films agreed to release it in the U.S. Equinox Films was the Canadian distributor, and Icon Films the British and Australian distributor.

In The Passion: Photography from the Movie "The Passion of the Christ", Gibson says:

This is a movie about love, hope, faith, and forgiveness. He [Jesus] died for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It's time to get back to that basic message. The world has gone nuts. We could all use a little more love, faith, hope, and forgiveness.

It was me that put him on the cross. It was my sins [who / that put him there].

Gibson makes an appearance in the film, in close-up only: his hands nail Jesus to the cross.^{[citation needed]}. He also appears as Jesus' feet and hands when he helps up Mary during the attempted stoning sequence.

[edit] Title changes

On October 17, 2003, Gibson's film production company announced the title of the film had been changed from The Passion to The Passion of Christ, because the title The Passion had already been trademarked by a different motion picture. This was then further amended to The Passion of the Christ. The following week Gibson announced a distribution arrangement had been reached with the independent Newmarket Films.

[edit] Promotion

Gibson departed from the usual film marketing formula: a small-scale television advert campaign, no press junkets, etc. [2] Yet The Passion of the Christ was heavily promoted by many church groups, both within their organizations and to the general public, often giving away free tickets. The pre-release controversy about its alleged anti-Semitism helped sell it as well.

Some evangelical Christians considered the film's release a crucial moment for evangelism. In 2004, Marta Poling-Goldenne, Outreach Minister for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Grand Canyon Synod said in an e-mail to pastors:

Seize this mission moment, friends! God is providing "the best outreach opportunity in the last 2,000 years" for us to witness about the gospel story to people for whom it may be very unfamiliar or unknown.^{[cite this quote]}

[edit] Pre-release controversy

Asked by Bill O’Reilly if his movie would "upset Jews", Gibson responded, "It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible."^[1] Accusations of anti-Semitism were fueled by news reports that Mel Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson, denied the Holocaust. After Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote against the unreleased film and called Gibson's publicist a “Holocaust denier defender,” Gibson was overheard by The New Yorker telling his publicist, "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog."^[2]

On his decision to cut the scene in which Caiaphas says "his blood be on us and on our children" soon after Pontius Pilate washes his hands of Jesus, Gibson said in mid-2003:

"I wanted it in. My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house. They'd come to kill me."^[3]

In 2004, he further commented:

"It's one little passage, and I believe it, but I don't and never have believed it refers to Jews, and implicates them in any sort of curse. It's directed at all of us, all men who were there, and all that came after. His blood is on us, and that's what Jesus wanted. But I finally had to admit that one of the reasons I felt strongly about keeping it, aside from the fact it's true, is that I didn't want to let someone else dictate what could or couldn't be said."^[4]

[edit] Statistics

• Production budget: $25,000,000
• Prints and advertising budget: $10,000,000
• Domestic gross: $370,800,000
• Worldwide gross: $610,000,000

• The Passion of the Christ soundtrack (original score by John Debney) was the top-selling CD in America during the first three weeks of the film's release.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Commercial success

After months of controversy that led to more pre-release sales than any film in history, the movie opened in the United States on February 25, 2004 (Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent). It earned $25 million per day in its first five days of release and in short order became the highest-grossing R-rated film in North America. In spite of the criticism, the movie grossed $604,370,943 ($370,270,943 in the United States alone) and is currently the thirty-seventh highest-grossing film worldwide and the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time in North America.[3] Despite this, the film went without any significant recognition by the major American film award celebrations, although it was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Original Score (music), Best Cinematography, and Best Makeup.

[edit] Home video

On August 31, 2004, the film was released on DVD, VHS, and later D-VHS in North America. As with the original theatrical release, the film's release on home video formats proved to be very popular. Early reports indicated that over 2.4 million copies of the film were sold by the middle of the day. The film was available on DVD with English and Spanish subtitles, and on VHS tape with English subtitles.

[edit] Re-release

An edited version titled The Passion Recut was released on March 11, 2005, with five minutes of the most explicit violence deleted to broaden the audience for the film. However, it failed commercially — screening in only 950 North American cinemas, averaging 10 viewers per screen — and was quickly removed from circulation. Despite the deletions, the Motion Picture Association of America deemed the film too violent to rate PG-13, so Gibson released it unrated. This limited the film's commercial appeal because most cinema owners refuse to show unrated films; others did not show The Passion Recut because the original version was already available on DVD and VHS.

"Exhibitors can decide for themselves how they want to handle the situation," Berney said. "Some may choose to still treat it as an 'R' and not let teens see it, unless accompanied by adults. Others may be willing to treat it as a 'PG-13'. The film is still probably too intense for children, but Mel hoped to make it more available for pre-teens."

[edit] International box office

The movie has had mixed success outside the United States. Although as of May 8, 2008, it has the 37th highest all-time worldwide gross of any film ($604,370,943) [4].

This is not the result of a lack of interest in countries without Christian majorities, as its success in many Christian-majority countries has also been less than stellar. The film was banned in several countries, including Israel, as well as some Muslim nations. For example, it did not make the top-100 all time UK box office list as of January 18, 2005 [5] and its position as of October 31, 2004 stood at 132nd [6]. As of March 2, 2005, it held the 116th position in Australia [7] or the 294th position in the adjusted list [8].

As of November 22, 2004, it was below the 140th position in the German all-time box office [9] and as of August 10, 2004, it was below the 121st position in the French all-time box office [10]. The figures suggest its position in both countries would be quite a bit lower than the lowest listed positions [11]. The movie was reported by the Christian Science Monitor [12] to have been a great success in the Muslim world. For example, it was the top-grossing movie for three consecutive weeks in Egypt [13], Lebanon [14], and Turkey [15], and also for two consecutive weeks in United Arab Emirates [16]. It also broke the record for the top-grossing opening week for a foreign movie in Egypt [17] and as of February 21, 2005, was 11th in all-time Egyptian box office earnings for foreign films [18].

[edit] The Definitive Edition DVD

Although the original DVD release of The Passion of The Christ sold well, it contained no extra materials other than soundtrack language selections. The no-frills edition provoked speculation about when a special edition would be released. On January 30, 2007, a two-disc Definitive Edition of The Passion of The Christ was released in the American markets, and March 26 elsewhere. It contains several documentaries, soundtrack commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes, the 2005 re-edited version, and the original 2004 theatrical version.

[edit] Source material

Collectively, the Gospels are not a unique narrative of the Passion of the Christ. According to John, Sanhedrin aides arrested Jesus, and only Annas and Caiaphas interrogated him, without benefit of trial.

Director Gibson intended fidelity to the New Testament, yet expanded the screenplay by making use of additional sources. The principal, most controversial source is The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ the meditations of the stigmatic, German nun Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), as told to the poet Clemens Brentano. Her vision of Christ’s Passion depicts certain Jews as more vicious and bloodthirsty than the Romans ruling Judaea. A secondary, extra-biblical source is The Mystical City of God by Maria de Agreda (1602–1665), a 17th century Spanish nun, and some imagined sequences.

Many critics noted that the costumes worn by the Blessed Virgin (Maia Morgenstern) and Mary Magdalene (Monica Bellucci) resemble the habit of the Augustinian Order nuns, in homage to Emmerich.

Timothy K. Beal, a professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, writes in an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education that The Passion of the Christ is based primarily on the Gospel of John -- and that this is one of the reasons why the film usually draws strongly positive reactions from Christians and strongly negative reactions from non-Christians. The Gospel of John "is an insider text, full of ironies that outsiders just don't get," Beal writes. "Its Jesus repeatedly baffles those not part of his inner circle of 'friends' -- above all, the Jews -- with his teachings, which focus predominantly on his own identity as the incarnation of God, the way, the truth, and the life. His explanations only bewilder and alienate others but are eminently clear to his disciples and the Gospel's readers, who have the necessary gnosis."

The Passion of the Christ "is something of a filmic version of John's Gospel in this respect," Beal writes. "It works the same way on its viewers that the Gospel of John does on its readers, bringing insiders together and affirming their special knowledge while snubbing the rest. It makes little effort to help them 'get it.' Those who know the truth see it, it seems to be saying, and those who don't can't."^[5]

[edit] Differences from the New Testament

Several theologians note that The Passion of the Christ significantly departs from its New Testament source. The reasons for the discrepancy, when known, vary, but tend to either reflect Gibson's personal belief, common or traditional representations, or artistic license.

• In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus crushes a serpent's head in allusion to Genesis 3:15 and the Protoevangelion. [19]
• A Temple guard, sent to arrest Jesus in the Garden, drops and suspends him from a small bridge; this is from The Dolorous Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Chapter 3.
• Judas Iscariot's suicide is provoked by children whose faces metamorphose, revealing them as demons. Acts 1:16–19 says he fell headlong and was disemboweled [20]; Anne Catherine Emmerich in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Chapter 14), says he fled as if a thousand furies were at his heel, and that Satan was beside him, provoking despair; and Matthew's Gospel 27:3–8 says Judas hanged himself.
• Some Jews oppose the absence of the Sanhedrin quorum, challenging the trial's legitimacy, implying that the priests are treating Jesus illegally. Emmerich, Chapter 13, mentions similar events.
• When Jesus first appears before the Pontius Pilate, Roman Governor of Judea, the man he sees is bloodied. He asks the Sanhedrin if they customarily beat prisoners before trial, says Emmerich in Chapter 17.
• King Herod Antipas is an effeminate, homosexual, a stereotype common to medieval Passion plays; not so in the Gospels nor in Josephus's accounts, wherein he is a womanizer. There is a mention of a feminine version of Herod in Luke 13:32 as Christ's description of him as a "fox", using a feminine word in the original Greek.
• Mary Magdalene, is the adulteress saved from stoning by Jesus. Her being the prototypical adulteress is neither Biblically supported nor affirmed by any Catholic dogma. Contemporary scholars argue that the adulterous woman passage is extra-biblical, hence a contentious subject among Traditionalist Catholics and others, within and without the Church.
• Pontius Pilate discusses with his wife his fragile relationship with Tiberius Caesar, emphasizing imperial orders to avert Judean revolts, says Emmerich, Chapter 19. Matthew mentions only a message from Pilate’s wife, delivered while he hears the Christ case.
• Caiaphas answers Pilate's questions: What shall I do with this man?, et cetera, yet the Gospels only say his queries were answered by "the chief priests" and "the crowd" and "the Jews".
• Barabbas is called a murderer; the Gospels have different accounts of his criminal identity. Matthew 27:16, John 18:40 identifies him as a robber, and Mark 15:7 and Luke 23:19 have him imprisoned for rioting and murder during the insurrection. Acts 3:14, written by Luke, identifies Barabbas as a murderer.
• During the scourging, Jesus is nearly flayed alive; the gospels (Matthew 27:26, Mark 15:15, John 19:1), say only that he was scourged. However, Gibson placed the Isaiah 53:5 passage at the very beginning of the film, which is a Messianic prophecy; just before that, in Isaiah 52:14, Scripture states "His appearance was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." (NASB translation)
• After the scourging, the Marys wipes Jesus's blood off the courtyard floor with towels given to them by Pilate’s wife, per Emmerich, Chapter 23.
• On the Via Dolorosa, Jesus is whipped by a soldier. This is from the traditional artistic depiction of the Stations of the Cross.
• A soldier debases Simon of Cyrene (who helped Jesus bear the cross), by calling him Jew (derisively). Only Simon’s name, place of origin, and his helping Jesus are in all three Synoptic Gospels, per Emmerich, Chapter 36.
• On the Via Dolorosa, the image of Jesus's face is imprinted onto Veronica's Veil, an extra-biblical event that is per Roman Catholic tradition; Emmerich, in Chapter 34, includes Veronica offering a drink to Jesus.
• On the Via Dolorosa, Jesus falls thrice under the weight of the cross; Mary aids and comforts him. These extra-biblical events are derived from the Stations of the Cross and is not found in the Gospels; Simon's Roman compulsion to help Christ bear the cross is from the Gospel. Emmerich describes seven falls and the encounters with Mary, in chapters 31–36.
• When Jesus’s right arm does not reach a hole for the nail, a soldier dislocates it from the shoulder by pulling it with a rope until the palm reaches the hole, per Emmerich, Chapter 38.
• After being nailed to the cross, but before it is raised, Jesus and the cross are turned face-down by the soldiers. Jesus and the cross then levitate above the ground, and, when turned face-up, they strike the ground hard, signifying God controls these events. Only Mary Magdalene is witness to this miracle.
• The names of the thieves crucified alongside the Christ, Dismas and Gesmas (also Gestas), are traditional, but extra-Scriptural, per Emmerich, Chapter 43, and the apocryphal Acts of Pilate, aka the Gospel of Nicodemus.
• The crucified thief who mocked Jesus mercilessly has his eye pecked out by a crow.
• In a flashback, Jesus, being a carpenter, builds a somewhat modern, elevated, four-legged table for a Roman customer. Mary tells him "it will never catch on". This scene was possibly included to provide some sort of "comic relief" to balance out the ultra-tense moments in the movie. This also gave rise to the incorrect rumor that that the movie depicts Jesus "inventing" the table.
• Caiaphas and his aides watch Christ's scourging.
• Satan is shown rousing the rabble to shout: "Crucify him! Crucify him!"
• Satan is shown carrying a baby Demon during Christ’s flogging. Mel Gibson is reported to have said

  it's evil distorting what’s good. What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old ‘baby’ with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it's almost too much – just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place.

• The earthquake described by the Gospel of Matthew split open the Temple structure down its center, yet the Gospels report that only the curtain dividing the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was torn apart. The Gospel of the Ebionites, a theologically deviant version of Matthew's Gospel, reports that the Temple's lintel split.

[edit] Critical perceptions

[edit] Anti-Semitism

The Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL) considers The Passion of the Christ religiously controversial; worrying that the movie was collectively blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus and thus stokes contemporary anti-Semitism^[who?].^[6] The National Socialist Front has launched a campaign, which defends Mel Gibson over the criticism he received by Abraham Foxman for making the movie.^[7]

A year before the film's release there was much impassioned controversy about whether or not The Passion of the Christ is as historically anti-Semitic as are most passion plays and so would incite anti-Semitism^{[citation needed]}. The ADL of B'nai B'rith wrote to director Mel Gibson, expressing its fear that Gibson's version may unintentionally do so.

The Jewish community were concerned with again being accused of deicide — the usual justification for pogroms. Rabbis in Orthodox Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Conservative Judaism were fearful that any movie based upon traditional Christian passion plays could only be interpreted by its target audiences as encouragingly anti-Semitism^[who?]. Jewish communal organizations and Jewish community newspapers voiced similar fears, yet Jesuit priest Fr. William Fulco, S.J., of Loyola Marymount University — and the film's Aramaic dialogue translator — often defended the movie against that, saying the script did not violate the 1988 criteria of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for Jewish portrayals in Passional dramatisations in avoiding deliberate and inadvertent anti-Semitism. [21]

Provoking more criticism, director Gibson held private screenings for prominent, politically and socially conservative Christian and Jewish religious leaders; yet denied the ADL's request. Yet Michael Medved — a Jewish columnist and right-wing film reviewer — praised the movie's Biblical accuracy; despite a February 16, 2004, Newsweek cover story by Jon Meacham reports the movie's many inaccuracies. Similarly, the ADL stated: [22]

For filmmakers to do justice to the biblical accounts of the passion, they must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism. Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as The Passion could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews.

An Icon Productions employee gave an early version script of the script to a joint committee of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Department of Inter-religious Affairs of the Anti-Defamation League, who concluded [23] that The Passion of the Christ is:

one of the most troublesome texts, relative to anti-Semitic potential, that any of us had seen in twenty-five years. It must be emphasized that the main storyline presented Jesus as having been relentlessly pursued by an evil cabal of Jews, headed by the high priest Caiaphas, who finally blackmailed a weak-kneed Pilate into putting Jesus to death. This is precisely the storyline that fueled centuries of anti-Semitism within Christian societies. This is also a storyline rejected by the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II in its document Nostra Aetate, and by nearly all mainline Protestant churches in parallel documents . . . . Unless this basic storyline has been altered by Mr. Gibson, a fringe Catholic who is building his own church in the Los Angeles area and who apparently accepts neither the teachings of Vatican II nor modern biblical scholarship, The Passion of the Christ retains a real potential for undermining the repudiation of classical Christian anti-Semitism by the churches in the last forty years.

When The Passion of the Christ was released, although some Jews supported Gibson, the overwhelming Jewish reaction was negative^[who?]. In The Nation, reviewer Katha Pollitt said, "Gibson has violated just about every precept of the (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) conference's own 1988 "Criteria" for the portrayal of Jews in dramatizations of the Passion (no bloodthirsty Jews, no rabble, no use of Scripture that reinforces negative stereotypes of Jews, etc.)". [24]

The Jewish community were concerned about these matters:

• Most Jews, such as the High Priest, are ugly: "The priests have big noses and gnarly faces, lumpish bodies, yellow teeth; Herod Antipas and his court are a bizarre collection of oily-haired, epicene perverts. The "good Jews" look like Italian movie stars (Italian sex symbol Monica Bellucci is Mary Magdalene); Mary, who would have been around 50 and appeared 70, could pass for a ripe 35." [25]
• The High Priest is a member in good standing of the Jewish community, and as a man feared by Roman officials. Some historians have cited the fact that Caiaphas is described by Josephus as having been appointed High Priest by a previous Roman Procurator. They have interpreted this as meaning that the Romans did not allow Jews to appoint their own High Priest and that the contemporary High Priest was an employee of the Roman government.
• Palestine Governor Pontius Pilate is a thoughtful, temperate man who ultimately agrees to Jesus's crucifixion, unwilling to risk either Jewish or Christian rebellions. Historians, including his contemporary Josephus, describe his barbarous treatment of Jews in his province — crucifying many in his reign. However, Josephus also describes the Sanhedrin using the same tactics referred to in the Gospels to prevent Pilate from erecting a statue of Tiberius Caesar.
• Pilate describes Barabbas as "a notorious murderer." In reality, there is little description of his background. Matthew 27:16 describes Barabbas as notorious, Luke 23: 19 implies his crimes as political, he "had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder". Moreover, he is portrayed as a deranged psychopath, again for which there is no textual evidence. Collectively, these editorial choices render Barabbas's release more craven than the text supports. Also in Hebrew, Bar Abba literally means Son of the Father, or an illegitimate child.

When challenged if his movie defames contemporary Jews, director Gibson responded: "It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible". In a Globe and Mail newspaper interview (February 14, 2004), he said: "If anyone has distorted Gospel passages to rationalize cruelty towards Jews or anyone, it's in defiance of repeated Papal condemnation. The Papacy has condemned racism in any form... Jesus died for the sins of all times, and I'll be the first on the line for culpability".

An ADL web page posted on August 13, 2003 provided examples of Anti-Semitic responses to the ADL's criticism of this project. [26] Critics of the ADL retorted that hateful e-mail sent them was not provoked by the film, yet to be released, rather, it was the ADL's attacks against a film about Jesus that motivated it. In response, the Catholic League accused the ADL of "seeking to poison relations between Catholics and Jews", that the "attacks on Mel Gibson have little to do with some off-the-cuff quips and everything to do with waging a frontal assault against all those people — Catholics, Protestants, Jews et al. — who have seen The Passion and love it." [27]

Other commentators who had seen it — Cal Thomas and Roger Ebert — also categorically denied that the film is anti-Semitic. [28] However, in the New Republic (8 March 2004), Leon Wieseltier said: "In its representation of its Jewish characters, The Passion of the Christ is without any doubt an anti-Semitic movie, and anybody who says otherwise knows nothing, or chooses to know nothing, about the visual history of anti-Semitism, in art and in film. What is so shocking about Gibson's Jews is how unreconstructed they are in their stereotypical appearances and actions. These are not merely anti-Semitic images; these are classically anti-Semitic images." [29]

[edit] Positive views of Judaism

Some Orthodox Jews — most notably Rabbi Daniel Lapin and Michael Medved — have vocally rejected claims that the film is anti-Semitic and have voiced their support. They have especially noted the film's many sympathetic portrayals of Jews: Simon of Cyrene (who helps Jesus carry the cross), Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, St. John and Veronica (who wipes Jesus' face and offers him water).

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the South African-born head of the Toward Tradition organisation, declared the ADL and its allies "dangerous organizations, organizations that are driving a wedge between American Jews and Christians." Referring to ADL national director Abraham Foxman, Lapin said, that in calling the movie anti-Semitic, "what he is saying is that the only way to escape the wrath of Foxman is to repudiate your faith." [30] Morover, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, leader of Congregation B'nai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, referred to the film's Liberal Jewish critics as rodef, a term in rabbinical law for an assailant threatening Jewish lives and who may be killed to preempt this danger.^{[citation needed]}.

Senior Vatican officer Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, who has seen the film, addressed the matter so: [31]

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. It draws out from the historical objectivity of the Gospel narratives sentiments of forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation. 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. This film expressed the exact opposite, that learning from the example of Christ, there should never be any more violence against any other human being.

[edit] Christian criticism

Fundamentalist Protestant groups criticised the film for its Catholic and ecumenical overtones, especially the addition of noncanonical scenes of Jesus with his mother (which they say encourages Maryolatry)[32]. The Passion of the Christ is criticised by some Protestant Christian spokesmen^[who?] for departing from New Testament accounts. Many scenes and details are from traditional Catholic passion plays and from Emmerich's book; many scenes and events are symbolic groundwork for the story, reflecting events found elsewhere in Christian scripture and in Catholic tradition.

On the other hand, in New Zealand, the Office of Film and Literature Classification was criticised by the fundamentalist Society for the Promotion of Community Standards for rating the film R16, out of bounds for minors, arguing that children younger than sixteen years of age should be allowed to see the film's explicitly violent depiction of Christ's suffering.

The filmmakers defend said explicit violence as true to the letter and spirit of the Christian New Testament Scripture; others disagree, for example, the scene where soldiers push Jesus off a bridge is Emmerich's creation, it is not Gospel. Universal culpability for Jesus Christ's death is the principal doctrine of Christianity, a fundamental Catholic teaching since the 1st century, stated in the 1570 Catholic handbook Catechism of the Council of Trent:

In this guilt [for the Crucifixion] are involved all those who fall frequently into sin; for, as our sins consigned Christ the Lord to the death of the cross, most certainly those who wallow in sin and iniquity crucify to themselves again the Son of God, as far as in them lies, and make a mockery of him. This guilt seems more enormous in us than in the Jews, since according to the testimony of the same Apostle: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory; while we, on the contrary, professing to know him, yet denying Him by our actions, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on Him.

Further controversy is about the dialogue: "His blood [is] on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:25), which has been historically interpreted by some as a curse taken upon by the Jewish people. Thus, Jewish religious groups asked this be removed from the film. However, only the subtitles were removed; the original dialogue remains in Aramaic soundtrack.[33]

CNN reported that Pope John Paul II privately viewed the film before its release. [34] Supporters of Gibson’s interpretation of the Passion claimed that the Pope remarked to his friend, Monsignor Stanisław Dziwisz, "It is as it was"; Dziwisz denied that ever happened, yet it was widely reported the pope said so.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Critical reaction

Critical reaction to The Passion of the Christ was mixed; per the website RottenTomatoes.com the film received an average critical score of 51 percent. Similarly, Yahoo! critics rate it B-minus.

Entertainment Weekly magazine's June 2006 issue named The Passion of the Christ the most controversial film of all time, followed by Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange (1971). Coincidentally, A Clockwork Orange shows a Passion of the Christ daydream, wherein the protagonist, Alex de Large, is a Centurion whipping the cross-carrying Jesus enroute to Calvary hill. Moreover, Monty Pythons Flying Circus, described The Passion of the Christ film as "the same as ours, but without the jokes", a reference to their historical comedy The Life of Brian (1979), and influential newspaper movie reviewers praised The Passion of the Christ, one is Roger Ebert, who rated it four -of-four stars.^[8]

[edit] Criticism of the explicit violence

Critics were troubled by the film's explicitly-detailed violence, and especially cautioned parents to avoid taking their children to the cinema. Although only one sentence in three of the Gospels mentions Jesus's flogging, and it is unmentioned in the fourth, The Passion of the Christ devotes ten minutes to the portrayal of the flogging. Newspaper movie reviewer Roger Ebert, who rated the movie four-of-four stars, said in his review:

The movie is 126 minutes long, and I would guess that at least 100 of those minutes, maybe more, are concerned specifically and graphically with the details of the torture and death of Jesus. This is the most violent film I have ever seen.

Ebert also mentioned that the R-rated film merits the MPAA NC-17 rating in a "Movie Answer Man" response, adding that no level-minded parent should ever allow children to see it.^[9]

A.O. Scott, in The New York Times, said, The Passion of the Christ is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it."^[10]

David Edelstein, Slate Magazine 's film critic, dubbed the film "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie — The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre — that thinks it's an act of faith", and further criticised director Mel Gibson's focusing on the brutality of Jesus's execution, instead of his religious teachings.^[11]

During Diane Sawyer's interview of him, director Gibson said:

I wanted it to be shocking; and I wanted it to be extreme . . . . So that they see the enormity — the enormity of that sacrifice; to see that someone could endure that and still come back with love and forgiveness, even through extreme pain and suffering and ridicule. The actual crucifixion was more violent than what was shown on the film, but I thought no one would get anything out of it.

[edit] Cultural impact

The emotional/spiritual intensity and other aspects of this film have been credited with prompting criminals to turn themselves in to the authorities. There are at least four cases reported in the media in which felons who had watched the film were so shocked and awed that they felt compelled to surrender, confess and repent^[12][13]. Among them, apparently, were: a Neo Nazi, a bank robber, a burglar, and Daniel Leach (the alleged murderer of his pregnant girlfriend, Ashley Wilson)^[14].

[edit] Satire

The Passion of the Christ and the controversy surrounding it have been repeatedly parodied since the film's release.

In the South Park episode "The Passion of the Jew". Eric Cartman uses the film's popularity to preach a Final Solution to devout Christians who have no idea of what he is talking about. Meanwhile, Stan Marsh and Kenny McCormick watch The Passion and refer to it as "a snuff film." They launch into a quest to find Mel Gibson and get their money back.

In The Family Guy episode "North by North Quahog", Peter Griffin steals the negatives for the sequel to The Passion of the Christ (an action movie in the style of Rush Hour entitled "Crucify THIS!"), citing his hope to save the world from two hours of mindless violence. He is subsequently chased by Mel Gibson through a series of satirized Alfred Hitchcock scenes.

In the Drawn Together episode "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist", Princess Clara produces a blatantly anti-Semitic film depiction of Christ's crucifixion (Jewish caricatures are shown whipping a cross-bearing Christ), parodying the anti-Semitic controversy surrounding The Passion of the Christ.

Though not referenced directly, the Simpsons episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass" has Marge criticizing Ned Flanders' highly acclaimed movies based on Biblical stories due to their graphic violence. This parallels The Passion being criticized for using the Bible to show violence to its audience a year earlier. Another episode briefly shows a parody, entitled "The Salad of the Christ".

Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan remarked on the controversy surrounding the film in his "Cracked" show of 2004 saying "This movie has gotten into a lot of trouble for saying that the Jews killed Jesus. Well, it wasn't the Mexicans!"

[edit] Music

Three CDs were released with Mel Gibson's co-operation: (i) the film soundtrack of John Debney's original orchestral score conducted by Nick Ingman; (ii) The Passion of the Christ: Songs, by producers Mark Joseph and Tim Cook, with original compositions by various artists, and (iii) the eponymously-titled The Passion of the Christ: Songs Inspired By.

A preliminary score was composed and recorded by Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy, but was incomplete at film's release. Jack Lenz was the primary musical researcher and one of the composers^[15]; several clips of his compositions have been posted.

[edit] See also

• Dramatic portrayals of Jesus
• Stations of the Cross
• The Messiah (Iranian film)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

1. Gibson breaks Hollywood’s 10 Commands - The Hollywood Reporter
2. Official site - The Passion of the Christ
3. Passion-movie.com
4. http://www.adl.org/presrele/mise_00/4275_00.asp
5. http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/anti-semitic-responses.asp
6. http://www.catholicleague.org/03press_releases/quarter3/030918_adl.htm
7. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/ct20030805.shtml
8. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gaspari091803.asp
9. Apologetics Index entry on The Passion of the Christ
10. South Park: The Passion of the Jew Episode also on the South Park Single-Disc DVD with the same title.
11. S. Brent Plate, ed. Re-viewing the Passion: Mel Gibson's Film and Its Critics (New York: Palgrave, 2004]]]
12. Matera

Preceded by 50 First Dates

Box office number-one films of 2004 (USA) February 29, 2004 – March 14, 2004

Succeeded by Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

Preceded by Hellboy

Box office number-one films of 2004 (USA) April 11, 2004

Succeeded by Kill Bill