The Passion of Gibson, or: Ha! I Told You So!
The review below was written late in 2005 in preparation for a class project I did that compared The Passion of the Christ, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Gospel According to St. Matthew. My feelings on Gibson's film are more or less the same today, although in their purest form they are less like words than they are a painful screeching sound. Thus, I won't inflict you with them.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Forget Michael Moore’s divisive but juvenile Fahrenheit 9/11; The Passion of the Christ is the seminal propaganda film of the new century. The final hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, savior of humanity to the Christian faith, are brought to the cinema with as much epic swell and booming dramatics as any number of big budget Hollywood epics, not to mention almost twice the violence of Braveheart in about half the running time. One cannot deny Mel Gibson credit for the sheer endeavor undertaken, not to mention the personal investment in the project, but this is a film as off-putting as any on the subject matter at hand, what with its strictly black-and-white portrayal of good and evil and simpleminded, beat-you-over-the-head perceptions on a story far more complex (on a social, religious, spiritual and political level) than Gibson is either willing or able to portray.
Jesus is the unquestionable savior and God the vengeful overseer in Gibson’s epic, and anyone who questions either can expect without a doubt to have some divine ill-will getting medieval on their ass. Save for brief flashbacks to his life and teachings (included more for standardized dramatic tactics than any real insight), we are given no real explanation into what was so crucial about Jesus’ crucifixion during the time of the Roman Empire – any references to the political uprisings or social disorder at the time is wholly incidental – and thus no real justification for the much ballyhooed importance of it all. With as much as is shown, we’re to assume that Christ is savior simply because Gibson says so, his humanity seemingly extending only to his ability to endure previously incomprehensible levels of physical agony.
Inflicting the agony Jesus endures back onto the audience is the end result of The Passions glorification of the physical trails endured before the ultimate crucifixion. The films centerpiece is a brutal depiction of the physical destruction of Jesus’ earthly body, first via traditional whipping, then cat-o-nine-tail razor chains that rip and tear at his flesh until he more closely resembles a hamburger patty than a human being. The violence should be disturbing and powerful, and it is, but in all the wrong ways. Instead of a horrifying look at mans inhumanity to man, or the sufferings of an innocent to serve a higher good, the glorification of this scene instead revels in the violence as the epitome of Christ’s being. Granted, it can be seen as glorious, but without any substantive spiritual context, it’s just an orgasm of thrashing and gore, missing only Matrix bullet time effects to go along with the slow-mo whipping and flying chunks of flesh and blood.
Even more offensive than the misused violence is Gibson’s dangerous depictions of good and evil. Subtlety is nonexistent here; villains are almost entirely of darker complexion, drunk on either spirits or incessant laughter, and seem unable to bear anything other than bad teeth. The Jewish leaders are raving, bloodthirsty fools, and while I question Gibson’s own potentially racist attitudes, it isn’t just that the antagonists of the story are excessively demonized, but that everything is watered down into simplistic visual representations that exaggerate already broadly painted strokes. Satan is a gender-bending figure who provides obvious contradictions to Jesus’ goodness (signified early be a beam of light extending over him from the heavens), with a knack for carrying albino-retard-demon-children to accentuate just how incredibly evil he/she/it is. Christ (portrayed with singular intensity by Jim Caviezel) himself is as undeveloped as any character in the film, a messianic figure of singular intensity upon which Gibson projects his ideals to the audience. There is no mention of his mission nor the need for his crucifixion as mandated by none other than God; with the cartoonish portrayals of his persecutors and torturers, goth-horror overtones and unmitigated shock tactics employed, one might assume that his death was not a necessity on the path to salvation but a sin that mankind will pay dearly for.
What’s depressing about The Passion is not just how severely misguided its exploitative elements are, but that so many accomplished and even masterful elements have been employed in service of something so predominantly conflicting and hateful. One scene late in the film, in which a repenting criminal crucified aside Jesus asks for remembrance in heaven, struck me as almost transcendent in its portrayal of a relationship to the divine and the forgiveness that extends outwardly from, but was so quickly undermined by Gibson’s obsession with violence (a la a crow pecking out the eye of a non-believer) so as to prove more of a chance fluke than anything out-of-step with the rest of the work. If Gibson wanted to express what was important about Jesus’ life and what could be derived from following his example, he lost it in his embracement of a believe-or-die mind setting (and if he thinks he can guilt-trip people into following Christ by overindulging them on gratuitous violence, then doesn’t that miss the point of true faith, anyway?) only exacerbated by the fact that this Jesus is more akin to a human piñata than a three-dimensional savior. Jesus may say on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” but I’m hard-pressed to believe that Gibson believes the same thing. With the extremity of the you-had-better-listen-to-me, I-told-you-so narrative, The Passion of the Christ reveals itself as a story supposedly about love told entirely through means of hate.
Mel Gibson on July 28, 2006, after being pulled over for DUI: "Fucking Jews...the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. What are you looking at, sugar tits?" (to a female officer)
Seriously, folks, these jokes just write themselves. Need I say more? Anyone who didn't see the blatant anti-semitism and hatred of The Passion of the Christ back in 2004 was either already on Mel's batshit crazy bandwagon or must have had too many bloody chunks of flesh lodged in their eyes to see well enough. That everyone is so surprised about this incident is what blows my mind more than anything. Hell, this kid could have told you all about it over two years ago.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)Forget Michael Moore’s divisive but juvenile Fahrenheit 9/11; The Passion of the Christ is the seminal propaganda film of the new century. The final hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, savior of humanity to the Christian faith, are brought to the cinema with as much epic swell and booming dramatics as any number of big budget Hollywood epics, not to mention almost twice the violence of Braveheart in about half the running time. One cannot deny Mel Gibson credit for the sheer endeavor undertaken, not to mention the personal investment in the project, but this is a film as off-putting as any on the subject matter at hand, what with its strictly black-and-white portrayal of good and evil and simpleminded, beat-you-over-the-head perceptions on a story far more complex (on a social, religious, spiritual and political level) than Gibson is either willing or able to portray.
Jesus is the unquestionable savior and God the vengeful overseer in Gibson’s epic, and anyone who questions either can expect without a doubt to have some divine ill-will getting medieval on their ass. Save for brief flashbacks to his life and teachings (included more for standardized dramatic tactics than any real insight), we are given no real explanation into what was so crucial about Jesus’ crucifixion during the time of the Roman Empire – any references to the political uprisings or social disorder at the time is wholly incidental – and thus no real justification for the much ballyhooed importance of it all. With as much as is shown, we’re to assume that Christ is savior simply because Gibson says so, his humanity seemingly extending only to his ability to endure previously incomprehensible levels of physical agony.
Inflicting the agony Jesus endures back onto the audience is the end result of The Passions glorification of the physical trails endured before the ultimate crucifixion. The films centerpiece is a brutal depiction of the physical destruction of Jesus’ earthly body, first via traditional whipping, then cat-o-nine-tail razor chains that rip and tear at his flesh until he more closely resembles a hamburger patty than a human being. The violence should be disturbing and powerful, and it is, but in all the wrong ways. Instead of a horrifying look at mans inhumanity to man, or the sufferings of an innocent to serve a higher good, the glorification of this scene instead revels in the violence as the epitome of Christ’s being. Granted, it can be seen as glorious, but without any substantive spiritual context, it’s just an orgasm of thrashing and gore, missing only Matrix bullet time effects to go along with the slow-mo whipping and flying chunks of flesh and blood.
Even more offensive than the misused violence is Gibson’s dangerous depictions of good and evil. Subtlety is nonexistent here; villains are almost entirely of darker complexion, drunk on either spirits or incessant laughter, and seem unable to bear anything other than bad teeth. The Jewish leaders are raving, bloodthirsty fools, and while I question Gibson’s own potentially racist attitudes, it isn’t just that the antagonists of the story are excessively demonized, but that everything is watered down into simplistic visual representations that exaggerate already broadly painted strokes. Satan is a gender-bending figure who provides obvious contradictions to Jesus’ goodness (signified early be a beam of light extending over him from the heavens), with a knack for carrying albino-retard-demon-children to accentuate just how incredibly evil he/she/it is. Christ (portrayed with singular intensity by Jim Caviezel) himself is as undeveloped as any character in the film, a messianic figure of singular intensity upon which Gibson projects his ideals to the audience. There is no mention of his mission nor the need for his crucifixion as mandated by none other than God; with the cartoonish portrayals of his persecutors and torturers, goth-horror overtones and unmitigated shock tactics employed, one might assume that his death was not a necessity on the path to salvation but a sin that mankind will pay dearly for.
What’s depressing about The Passion is not just how severely misguided its exploitative elements are, but that so many accomplished and even masterful elements have been employed in service of something so predominantly conflicting and hateful. One scene late in the film, in which a repenting criminal crucified aside Jesus asks for remembrance in heaven, struck me as almost transcendent in its portrayal of a relationship to the divine and the forgiveness that extends outwardly from, but was so quickly undermined by Gibson’s obsession with violence (a la a crow pecking out the eye of a non-believer) so as to prove more of a chance fluke than anything out-of-step with the rest of the work. If Gibson wanted to express what was important about Jesus’ life and what could be derived from following his example, he lost it in his embracement of a believe-or-die mind setting (and if he thinks he can guilt-trip people into following Christ by overindulging them on gratuitous violence, then doesn’t that miss the point of true faith, anyway?) only exacerbated by the fact that this Jesus is more akin to a human piñata than a three-dimensional savior. Jesus may say on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” but I’m hard-pressed to believe that Gibson believes the same thing. With the extremity of the you-had-better-listen-to-me, I-told-you-so narrative, The Passion of the Christ reveals itself as a story supposedly about love told entirely through means of hate.Mel Gibson on July 28, 2006, after being pulled over for DUI: "Fucking Jews...the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. What are you looking at, sugar tits?" (to a female officer)
Seriously, folks, these jokes just write themselves. Need I say more? Anyone who didn't see the blatant anti-semitism and hatred of The Passion of the Christ back in 2004 was either already on Mel's batshit crazy bandwagon or must have had too many bloody chunks of flesh lodged in their eyes to see well enough. That everyone is so surprised about this incident is what blows my mind more than anything. Hell, this kid could have told you all about it over two years ago.
