Gibson's Passion exploits believers
PETER HOWELL
The pious and the profane are both taking credit for the stunning success of Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ, and I find it unsettling.
Even more unsettling than the movie itself, which frankly appalled me. The Passion is a two-hour snuff film, the spectacle of a man being brutally murdered in a public arena, created for the satisfaction of popcorn-chewing voyeurs. I consider it artless and pointless, although I don't doubt the sincerity of Gibson's misguided motivations for making it. I thought it should have been titled Gladiator 2: The Sadist's Cut.
I don't shrink at the sight of blood and gore. I'm used to seeing gratuitous violence on the screen, and some of it I actually defend. Any movie critic or regular film-festival attendee witnesses more murders, rapes and pillages in the average year than the citizens of Sodom or Gomorrah.
In recent months, we've seen the dice-o-matic swordplay of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 (and how will Vol. 2 ever top the beheading scene?) and the ridiculously bloody remake of Tobe Hooper's 1974 cult-horror artefact The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
We've also seen Gaspar No?'s Irr?versible, in which a woman is sickeningly raped in real time, while the unblinking camera stares. The woman's boyfriend seeks revenge by killing a man in a club whom he believes is the rapist. He bludgeons the man into hamburger with a fire extinguisher.
Some of this can be justified in artistic terms, as indeed No? attempted to with his weak "time destroys everything" argument about the inevitability of human brutality. There's also the standard "it's only a movie" line: People watch things they would never consider doing themselves, and in so doing purge their darkest fears and instincts. In most cases, though, it's really more about making money than about making art.
But the big difference between The Passion and other violent films is that Gibson's film is being sold as a religious experience, thanks in large part to the gullible assistance of many priests, ministers and other Christian leaders. By subjecting ourselves to the real-time horror of Christ's degradation and destruction, their argument goes, we can better understand what He went through to save and redeem us.
In return for our willing participation in Christ's torture, we are supposed to feel closer to Him and His teachings.
Even though these same teachings get scant treatment in Gibson's film, as does the Resurrection, which is presented almost as an afterthought just before the credits roll on the bloody mess.
So intent are religious leaders to spread the Gospel According To Gibson, they have been using their church pulpits to promote The Passion. Indeed, movie marketers are already marvelling at how the film managed to earn a stunning $135.3 million (U.S.) through its first six days of release, despite a relatively modest TV advertising campaign, competition from Oscar films and the hindrance of subtitles.
In less than a week, it surpassed the $128.1 million earned by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for its entire run.
It's also smashed Crouching Tiger's 2000-2001 run's record as the most successful foreign-language film ever to hit North America.
But that's not hard to do, when you have respected church figures acting as unpaid pitchmen, and reaching deep into congregations that might not normally ever darken a multiplex or scan a movie listing.
What really disturbs me about this is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. Many of the same church elders who routinely preach against violence in the media, wringing their hands over Kill Bill or assailing the realistic mayhem of video games, apparently find no contradiction in endorsing a movie where the beat goes on right up to and past the point of a man's horrific death.
Gibson's pious apologists reason it's not just acceptable but downright essential to stare at Christ's suffering, because it's a redemptive experience presented just as the Bible describes it ? even though all kinds of Bible scholars have stepped forward to dispute The Passion's claim to authenticity.
How far would they be willing to take this thinking? If it is indeed healthy for the masses to share Christ's pain in the most realistic Hollywood manner, then wouldn't we also profit by communing through other big-screen exploitations of ghastly experiences?
How about an IMAX movie about the Holocaust, in which we can fully engage with the atrocities committed in the Nazi death camps and gas chambers? How about biopics on Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, in which every one of their victims are violated, murdered and consumed before our greedy eyeballs? Perhaps only by witnessing evil acts in the most intense way possible can we fully understand the pain of victims.
Such an argument is absurd, of course, yet it is being promoted as justification for the masses who are marching off to see The Passion . It's strange how when Osama bin Laden promotes murder as a means to enhance spirituality, he is reviled for it. But when Christians rally at the multiplex to relive Christ's killing, they pat themselves on the back for having lived their faith.
You can be sure it won't stop with The Passion, either. Now that the Hollywood moneymen have seen how much dough is to be made by feeding raw violence to the gullible in the name of religious intensity, they'll be tearing the Bible apart for similar stories of man's inhumanity to man. And all other movies will also crank up the carnage, now that it's been proved that even churches aren't bothered by it.
And if Hollywood goes a little overboard, who cares? Surely no righteous moral figure can now bleat about film violence with a straight face, now that The Passion has passed muster.
I figure Quentin Tarantino should launch Kill Bill Vol. 2 in as many churches as he can round up. His bloodthirsty audience awaits.
" - opens the conversation to talk about X - the movie and how you were affected by it, your personal relationship with Christ, whatever.
I want to go see the movie again, but now I might think of the bloopers and start laughing. 
(besides the Catholic part since I'm not Catholic, sorry!)
