Passion : Bigger Longer & Uncut

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Irvine511 said:

it seems to me that reactions to this movie are hugely split upon religious identification. Christians seem to view it as akin to a Schindler's List for Christianity -- a document of how horrible it was, and why it's so important. for non-Christians, it appears to be more of a rather cruel film who's violence is not justified.

but is it a good movie? or is that not the point? is this a movie that can be viewed objectively, or is it by nature impossible to do so?

Well, both me and my friend saw it and while both of us were raised Christian (I as a Lutheran, he as an Episcopalian), neither of us are "actively faithful." We're both movie junkies and went more out of curiosity, and out of a previous appreciation of Gibson's work than any religious conviction.

We both liked the film as a film rather than a religious testament. I thought it was extremely powerful, visually stunning, historically accurate, well-acted and with great special effects/make-up. I considered it one of the better movies of last year.

Naturally, the film forced me to look at it religiously too. We Lutherans never concentrated on the Crucifixion the way the Catholics do, so for me it was actually an interesting new focus, a sort of "Wow, I never thought about it that way." It did make me remember that, whatever feelings or misgivings I currently had with Christianity, this *was* a real person and I shouldn't be so dismissive. But perhaps ironically, it had the opposite effect of driving me further from the church, since I still feel that what most institutions practice is far from what the man himself taught.

On the other hand, I know very religious people *and* athiests who absolutely loathed the film, just as I know devout people who absolutely loved it. It's certainly not a film I would watch over and over again, just as I wouldn't watch "Schindler's List" they're just too much for me to handle.
 
Irvine511 said:

i haven't seen the film, so i'm trying to be open minded, but i've seen other Gibson films, and they are all preoccupied with suffering, pain, and torture. film is a director's medium -- could it be that the blood and gore are Gibson's artistic decisions as opposed to historically accurate renderings?

Why do people focus so much on the violence of Gibson's films?He's only directed three, two of which were violent. Whether "Braveheart" and "The Passion" were excessively violent is individual opinion.

Regardless of how one feels it was used in "The Passion," the fact remains that Gibson's violence is generally appropriate and authentic to the films he makes. I remember "Braveheart" being quite shocking when I first saw it, but it's appropriate for 14th century warfare. William Wallace really died that way. If Ridley Scott had directed it, no one would care, but because it's Mel Gibson, suddenly it's a sign of a twisted mind? I think he might even get more flack than Tarantino these days.
 
AvsGirl41 said:
On the other hand, I know very religious people *and* athiests who absolutely loathed the film, just as I know devout people who absolutely loved it.
Most certainly. I know a pastor who refused to watch it, I'm not exactly sure why.

I too, agree that Mel is getting all the attention for film violence these days. Seems we have forgotten about Quentin Tarantino and Steve Beck.

As if we've never had a gore fest in film. :rolleyes:
 
Macfistowannabe said:
Seems we have forgotten about Quentin Tarantino and Steve Beck.

As if we've never had a gore fest in film. :rolleyes:

Yes but this is exactly the irony. Churches always renounced these other films for being a gore fest, but now as soon as you put Jesus on the recieving end of the gore fest then it's worthy of showing in a church. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.:|
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Yes but this is exactly the irony. Churches always renounced these other films for being a gore fest, but now as soon as you put Jesus on the recieving end of the gore fest then it's worthy of showing in a church. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.:|

Likewise, there is the irony/hypocrisy of those who praised Tarantino's work as "art" yet dismiss Gibson's "The Passion" as excessive violence. I personally don't have a problem with violent films, as I enjoy many cheesy horror films from the 80s, but I would suggest that some of the otherwise culturally prudish types who will accept the violence in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, SCHINDLER'S LIST and even BRAVEHEART (while renouncing others) is because these films are potrayed in a historic context. I admit that I don't keep up with Tarantino and his films, but are any of his "gratuitously violent" works based on historical events?

~U2Alabama
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Yes but this is exactly the irony. Churches always renounced these other films for being a gore fest, but now as soon as you put Jesus on the recieving end of the gore fest then it's worthy of showing in a church. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.:|

That I will agree with. It's ridiculous to label other films as "unsuitable" and then rush out and embrace something just as violent.

I know my Baptist relatives who thought "The Passion" was God's gift won't sit through anything by Tarantino. In fact, I have a hard time getting them to watch anything for fear it might be "weird" or have sex or violence. They were offended by "City of Angels." But they lined right up for "The Passion."

That is hypocrisy. I agree with U2Bama too, it was hypocritical that the film industry displayed such horror. I think there are plenty of films that are worse, or equal. It was the context that was upsetting, just as the violence in "Saving Private Ryan" or "Schindler's List" is. And rightfully so.
 
U2Bama said:


Likewise, there is the irony/hypocrisy of those who praised Tarantino's work as "art" yet dismiss Gibson's "The Passion" as excessive violence. I personally don't have a problem with violent films, as I enjoy many cheesy horror films from the 80s, but I would suggest that some of the otherwise culturally prudish types who will accept the violence in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, SCHINDLER'S LIST and even BRAVEHEART (while renouncing others) is because these films are potrayed in a historic context. I admit that I don't keep up with Tarantino and his films, but are any of his "gratuitously violent" works based on historical events?

~U2Alabama




well, but this is the point of Tarantino. he takes violence and gore and makes you laugh at it, which is in itself an artistic move. it's waaaay to long for me to get into here, but i would say that Tarantino is excessively violent, but i dont have a problem with it because it has no pretentions about it -- it's sometimes a joke, sometimes commentary, and sometimes devoid of meaning. all these are totally appropriate within a postmodern film context, an amoral univese within which Trantino operates. it's all so ironic that the violence isn't even violence, really -- there's not much pain, not much suffering ... i think of Kill Bill, and by the end i was in hysterics as the blood spurted all over the place, gushing as if it were from a firehose, and it was all so unrealistic (and all so breathtakingly virtuosic from a filmmaking perspective) that it was impossible to take seriously. it was a cartoon, more than anything else.

i do think, then, that there are comparisons to be made not with Tarantino, but with "the passion" and "private ryan" or "black hawk down."

first, it's not just Gibson as a director, but Gibson as an actor who is obsessed with pain and suffering. think of the torture scene in the first Lethal Weapon. think of "when we were soldiers." many of Gibson's characters inhabit brutal, violent worlds where violence is often a justified response to other bad things. and as a director, and especially with braveheart -- let's not forget, the final scene is of a disembowelment and beheadding -- and to another level with "the passion," Gibson is about violence and suffering and appears highly intereted in these subjects.

which is fine. he's a director, and i do think he's rather skilled, as both a director and as an actor -- example, he was a very fine Hamlet waaay back in 1990 in the Ziferelli verison.

so this begs the question -- why make a movie on Jesus, and focus to a pornographic extent (and by pornography i mean the reduction of the human to merely flesh) on the violence of Jesus' last hours on earth, especialy when the historical justification for such extreme suffering is tendentious at best (as has been pointed out here.

again, i haven't seen the film, so i'm just trying to provoke dialogue. as someone who aspires to make films, and really grapples with issues of violence in films since i don't like violence at all though i think it can be justiifed -- for example, while i thought SPR was fine, i thought "black hawk down" was more violent than it had to be ... the suffering of the characters was equated with their masculinity, whereas in SPR the violence was characterized much more accuately, in my view, by the ferocity of the randomness and the randomness of the ferocity (the only false notes being those crappy cemetary scenes and Hanks' too noble death at the end) -- a movie like this is very interesting to me.

for the sake of argument, i'll post a reaction to the film that i found very thought provoking:

"The only cinematic achievement of The Passion of the Christ is that it breaks new ground in the verisimilitude of filmed violence. The notion that there is something spiritually exalting about the viewing of it is quite horrifying. The viewing of The Passion of the Christ is a profoundly brutalizing experience. Children must be protected from it. (If I were a Christian, I would not raise a Christian child on this.) Torture has been depicted in film many times before, but almost always in a spirit of protest. This film makes no quarrel with the pain that it excitedly inflicts. It is a repulsive masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film, and it leaves you with the feeling that the man who made it hates life."

also, "there is something deeply disturbed about this film. Its extreme and un-Biblical fascination with human torture reflects, to my mind, not devotion to the message of the Cross but a kind of psycho-sexual obsession with extreme violence that Gibson has indulged in many of his other movies and is now trying to insinuate into Christianity itself. The film could have shown suffering and cruelty much differently. It could have led us into the profound psychological pain that Jesus and his mother and disciples must have endured by giving us some human context to empathize with them; it could have prompted the viewer to use his or her own imagination to fill in the gaps of terror, as all great art does; it could have done much more by showing us much less. But the extremity is Gibson's obvious point. I can understand why traditionalist Catholics might be grateful that there is some Hollywood representation of their faith. But they shouldn't let their gratitude blind them to the psychotic vision of this disturbed director - and the deeper, creepier, heterodox theology that he is trying to espouse."
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:
Yes but this is exactly the irony. Churches always renounced these other films for being a gore fest, but now as soon as you put Jesus on the recieving end of the gore fest then it's worthy of showing in a church. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.:|
There are different ways to portray violence.

The kind of violence I don't enjoy is extreme fictional violence. A matter of taste? Perhaps, but also a matter of meaninglessness.

I personally think that if The Passion was fictional, I'd be grossed out by the imagination of the director. But seeing that Romans were in fact inhumane historically with their crucifixion methods, it's historically inspired. I don't understand that when Speilberg makes a film about millions of Jews being exterminated, we see it as violent but we don't protest it by the flock. Yet when it's Jesus, bam! It's PETA, it's The New York Post, The New York Times, it's rabbis, all these anti-defamation groups.

I'm willing to stomach historical violence because you experience something that really happened, and you feel for the victims, because you know it's based on fact. I don't feel like a hypocrite for going into a movie to experience the suffering rather than to be entertained. It's not supposed to be entertainment, it's supposed to strike a nerve, it's supposed to get your attention and take the sacrifice seriously.

I am willing to respectfully disagree with you, but this film is what motivated me to look further into the New Testament, and really dig deep into the sacrifice that was made for us, should we choose to believe in it.
 
Macfistowannabe said:

I personally think that if The Passion was fictional, I'd be grossed out by the imagination of the director. But seeing that Romans were in fact inhumane historically with their crucifixion methods, it's historically inspired. I don't understand that when Speilberg makes a film about millions of Jews being exterminated, we see it as violent but we don't protest it by the flock. Yet when it's Jesus, bam! It's PETA, it's The New York Post, The New York Times, it's rabbis, all these anti-defamation groups.


i think one difference is that the original contraversy over The Passion was whether or not it was anti-Semetic. i have heard different reactions to whether or not it was, so i'm going to plead ignorace. but that was the intial issue with the film, and then they spun it into perhaps the most brilliant marketing plan in the history of motion pictures: "come see the movie the Jews don't want you to see."

as for Gibson violence vs. Spielberg violence ... again, hard for me to comment, but i do think a difference is that the violence in Schindler's List is very point-blank, to-the-point, and doesn't dwell on excessive suffering. it's random, it's brutal, it's also over in the amount of time it takes for a bullet from a Lugar to pierce a human skull. it depicts a reality, but it doesn't exploit suffering and pain in the way it appears as if the scouring in The Passion does.

again, just thoughts. i don't feel totally comfortable arguing this, but i just find it very interesting.

i do think that SL is a brillaint, brilliant film and an example of how to use violence in an appropriate manner.

i also think Gibson has every right to make this film. i also think that movies must be rated, and that ratings must be enforced.

i do worry, however, about parents who bring their children to this movie. i would hate to think that this is the most important part of Jesus' life, the part that's most worthy of a 2 hour film starring a really beautiful man.
 
Macfistowannabe said:
I don't understand that when Speilberg makes a film about millions of Jews being exterminated, we see it as violent but we don't protest it by the flock. Yet when it's Jesus, bam!


The violence in the holacaust is historically proven by film and survivors, the violence of the Passion is still somewhat the directors perception. But it still comes down to one movie focused on it and the other didn't.
 
Irvine511 said:
i think one difference is that the original contraversy over The Passion was whether or not it was anti-Semetic. i have heard different reactions to whether or not it was, so i'm going to plead ignorace. but that was the intial issue with the film, and then they spun it into perhaps the most brilliant marketing plan in the history of motion pictures: "come see the movie the Jews don't want you to see."
This is a good point, I think that Jews are quite fearful of something that comes out on them that in their view may stir anti-Semitism. I think that Gibson was trying to stick to the story as he believed to be true as priority number one. I don't believe he is anti-Semitic, but he has caused controversy in the past with Braveheart for example. What I found ridiculous was how people were pointing the finger at his father in order to attack Mel. I think his father's denial of the Holocaust was painfully naive, but it had nothing to do with the movie itself. If they made the religious leaders into Romans rather than Jews, it would not fit the story.

Irvine511 said:
as for Gibson violence vs. Spielberg violence ... again, hard for me to comment, but i do think a difference is that the violence in Schindler's List is very point-blank, to-the-point, and doesn't dwell on excessive suffering. it's random, it's brutal, it's also over in the amount of time it takes for a bullet from a Lugar to pierce a human skull. it depicts a reality, but it doesn't exploit suffering and pain in the way it appears as if the scouring in The Passion does.
I'll be honest, I haven't seen Schindler's List - but plan to eventually. Yes, the suffering is prolonged in a way, but it suits the title of the film quite well. From Medieval Latin passi referred to the sufferings of Jesus or a martyr. From Late Latin, physical suffering, martyrdom, or sinful desire. From Latin, an undergoing, from passus, past participle of pat, to suffer. Was it exploited? You decide.

Irvine511 said:
i do worry, however, about parents who bring their children to this movie. i would hate to think that this is the most important part of Jesus' life, the part that's most worthy of a 2 hour film starring a really beautiful man.
I actually agree to this. I don't think it's a kiddie flick at all. If the children can handle it under strict supervision and understand the message, I suppose it's within reason. But anything less than that has me puzzled as well.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:
The violence in the holacaust is historically proven by film and survivors, the violence of the Passion is still somewhat the directors perception. But it still comes down to one movie focused on it and the other didn't.
This is a pretty good link, just to add to the discussion:

http://www.facingthechallenge.org/passion_historical.htm

There were some "artistic liberties" taken, as they call them, and they should be distinguished from the history of the event.
 
Irvine511 said:

first, it's not just Gibson as a director, but Gibson as an actor who is obsessed with pain and suffering. think of the torture scene in the first Lethal Weapon. think of "when we were soldiers." many of Gibson's characters inhabit brutal, violent worlds where violence is often a justified response to other bad things. and as a director, and especially with braveheart -- let's not forget, the final scene is of a disembowelment and beheadding -- and to another level with "the passion," Gibson is about violence and suffering and appears highly intereted in these subjects.

See, I suspected that was part of the argument and while in one sense it's accurate, I also see it as a bit of a strawman. How many actors have played violent and sadistic roles? Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Madsen. Only Eastwood has gone out to make a violent film or two.

Lethal Weapon was, if I remember right, Gibson's first big American movie. He was basically a nobody. I can't see him selecting a script on basis of what role would give him ample torture oppertunity. He's also done an equal amount of fluff--"What Women Want," "Forever Young" "Maverick."

I certainly don't know Gibson and he could be a total psycho, but I think it's a stretch to stereotype anyone's mental state on such evidence, because there's alot of actors and directors we could do it with. He certainly has had alot of addiction problems, which seems to imply the need for some kind of anger release, but again, I don't want to conjecture. I wouldn't want anyone making assumptions about my mental health. (And I am crazy. ;) )
 
AvsGirl41 said:


That I will agree with. It's ridiculous to label other films as "unsuitable" and then rush out and embrace something just as violent.

Don't you think there's a difference in context, though? I think a lot of people object to what they perceive is senseless violence in films -- slasher films, horror films, etc. Films that get off on violence for its own sake -- which seems to be where Tarantino is at.

But "The Passion"'s point seems to be that there is some violence that, when taken in context, has a higher purpose. There are those who might argue that the film is a love story -- we only are willing to suffer for those we truly love.
 
Irvine511 said:

first, it's not just Gibson as a director, but Gibson as an actor who is obsessed with pain and suffering. ... Gibson is about violence and suffering and appears highly intereted in these subjects.

But to a certain extent, isn't this true of any one who deems themself an artist? "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief/All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief..."

A wise woman once told me it's not age that makes one wise, but suffering.
 
nathan1977 said:


Don't you think there's a difference in context, though? I think a lot of people object to what they perceive is senseless violence in films -- slasher films, horror films, etc. Films that get off on violence for its own sake -- which seems to be where Tarantino is at.

But "The Passion"'s point seems to be that there is some violence that, when taken in context, has a higher purpose. There are those who might argue that the film is a love story -- we only are willing to suffer for those we truly love.

I think this is BS. I think a lot of this film did seem to get off on the violence. And like I said before if it had more of a plot I may be inclined to agree with you. Or even if the violence was historically acurate.
 
nathan1977 said:


But to a certain extent, isn't this true of any one who deems themself an artist? "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief/All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief..."

A wise woman once told me it's not age that makes one wise, but suffering.

One can suffer without violence. I think this is exactly where Gibson failed. I would have much rather seen a movie that tried to dive more into the psycological and spiritual suffering than the physical. Of course more artisitic license would have to be taken, but at least it would have made for a good film.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


I think this is BS. I think a lot of this film did seem to get off on the violence.

This seems to be somewhat subjective, at least from the comments on the board...


And like I said before if it had more of a plot I may be inclined to agree with you. Or even if the violence was historically acurate.

Can you prove that it wasn't?
 
nathan1977 said:


This seems to be somewhat subjective, at least from the comments on the board...
And your comment isn't?


nathan1977 said:

Can you prove that it wasn't?

There have been plenty of writings from historians and theologians that disagree with the accuracy. They've been posted in here several times.

But the point is you can't prove that it was, yet people in here are saying, oh now I know what he went through blah, blah, blah and that's simply not true. They don't KNOW. Why not focus on the things that are know and that are in the gospels?
 
I think it's important to remember, as melon has poitned out, that the traditional Catholic "Passion play" deals exclusively with the hours leading up to the Crucifixion. As important as the entire preaching life of Christ is, most of that is not part of a Passion play, and a Passion screenplay was Gibson's intent here. It is true that we today can not know exactly what it was like, although because of the more immediate hostory of the Holocaust and World War II and the events in Somalia basing BLACK HAWK DOWN, we can have a first-hand account of those events and present a more unquestionably accurate screenplay of the events. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST is Gibson's portrayal of the Passion play as he believes it occurred; take it for that if you choose to see it.

Another word about the protest potential that the film had which I think Macfistowannabe was mentioning, it seemed to me there was some initial concern that the film would be offensive to the Jewish community and once it came out, one of the ADL leaders, perhaps Abraham Foxman, came out and indicated that that was perhaps premature. Maybe there was some rabble rousing, maybe there was some legitimate concern, but I didn't see any anti-Semitism in the film as had been predicted. Perhaps there was some concern because of Gibson's father and Mel's reluctance to draw a line in the sand against his father, I don't know. But in the film itself I only saw the portrayal of the Jewish "crowds" as being more of an indictment of much of society in Christ's time; ideally, Mel may have hoped that society would have been more supportive of Christ, but they weren't and the authorities went forward with His crucifixion. Kind of like how the Rolling Stones song asks "Who killed the Kennedys? When after all, it was you and me."

~U2Alabama
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Uh, the Mad Max trilogy?

Considering his voice was dubbed in the first Mad Max, I don't think they count as big hits. The first was a cult hit, the second was more popular, by the third one he'd already done "Lethal Weapon." And it was a bomb.

Most people saw him for the first time in Lethal Weapon.
 
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