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Aquarian
Weekly 3/3/04
REALITY CHECK
A DEBATE OF "PASSION"
PART II
Art Imitates
Religion
 Mel
Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is not a film about Jesus.
It is also not a film about history or figures that move through
history affecting humanity and the events of history. It is a
film about Christianity. More to the point, it is a clumsily packaged
Hollywood depiction of 1,500 years of Catholicism. It is religious
propaganda. And I do not use the term pejoratively. Every piece
of art with a point of view is more or less propaganda, but let's
call a spade a spade: If Gibson, a devout traditionalist Catholic,
set forth to espouse his faith and depict the center of his own
passion; mission accomplished. But this movie, like Christianity,
has nothing to do with any Jesus of Nazareth.
Let me put it this way; "Passion" is not unlike Oliver Stone's
"JFK". Not too much JFK in there, unless we see his head coming
apart on his wife's lap. No PT-109, no Harvard, no senator, no
president, or Bay of Pigs, or Cuban Missile Crisis or Marilyn
Monroe. His head coming apart. Over and over and over. "JFK" is
about assassination theories. "Passion" is about the Christian
obsession with sacrificial blood ritual.
Watching
this film took me back to the days of sitting in church as a kid
and expecting to see or hear anything about Jesus underneath all
the ritualistic dogma. It's damned frustrating, and hard to argue
that the context of which has inspired horror shows like the Crusades,
the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust. But it also doesn't
mean it cannot be revisited as art either. Although, for me, it
would have been more compelling had it not been more of the same
damn thing.
Beyond
the ultra-Hollywood violence - jacked up a notch for the video
game generation - we get the usual stuff here. Christ dying for
our sins. He comes. He dies. End of story. No back-story. No politics.
No spirituality. No philosophy. No revolution. No mission. No
life affirming usably enlightened theories about embracing empathy
and discovering divinity. Suffering. Death. Good drama. Big box
office, but no Jesus.
Once
again, we get lifeless puppet characters playing their parts in
a suicide pact with God, sufficiently answering the question,
"Who killed Jesus Christ?" Because when viewed through the lens
of Biblical faith - replete with the Lord killing innocents all
over the place - and all the evidence in Gibson's film, the verdict
is clear: God killed Christ. Or, more to the point of Gibson's
way of thinking, we forced God to kill him. Kind of like the Jewish
authorities forcing Pontius Pilate to kill Christ.
(place
plaintive sigh here)
Admittedly,
the thing is aptly named. After all it is "The Passion of the
Christ", although I would have preferred, "Jesus Gets it for Opening
His Big Mouth", or "This is What Happens When One Love's One's
Enemies".
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I
didn't think it was possible, but Mel Gibson actually succeeds
in portraying a completely empty depiction of Jesus Christ.
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But
it's hard to argue that the very essence of the gospel's enlightened
Nazarene, a charismatic healer exalted by an inspiring philosophy
leading a penetratingly gorgeous spiritual movement is sucked
right out. In its stead we have a pawn for sadomasochistic mayhem;
what I like to call the Euro-Christ. But
even two millennium of Christian rhetoric has yet to erase the
impact of the historical Yeshua of Nazareth, from the Council
of Nicea to "Godspell". Yet this movie manages to do it. I didn't
think it was possible, but Mel Gibson actually succeeds in portraying
a completely empty depiction of Jesus Christ.
Not
that actor, James Caviezel doesn't capture the Catholic Christ
pretty well; a vessel for torture and death set up as humanity's
sacrificial lamb by the sadistic Lord God of the Israelites. He
portrays a great punching dummy and the make-up people did a bang-up
job. Lots of pain, but again, no Jesus. Lots of blood and suffering
and reams of Catechism, but no Jesus.
So,
in a sense, "Passion" is the perfect Christian art, an animated
version of Renaissance paintings, (Gibson claims he endeavored
to recreate Caravaggio's gruesome images) but not particularly
good art at that; effective, in that it has caused a stir like
most viable art, but poor in the literal sense. The way smearing
a painting of the Virgin Mary in elephant dung is a sensationalistic
artistic statement, but as a gripping, meaningful rendering, it's
lousy.
As
a movie, "Passion" is bad. The acting is predictably stiff, the
set-design sub par for a Biblical epic, the music surprisingly
non-descript and the directing ham-fisted. I usually don't like
religiously themed films, but most give me at least a moment of
chills or reflection, an uplifting of heart or a distinct feeling
of something. This thing drones from the opening frame and settles
into two-dimensional drudgery.
However,
I cannot engage in hypocritical blather about "too much violence"
here. You want to concentrate compulsively on first century Roman
scourging and crucifixion as a means for redemption, fine; but
its not going to be pretty. This kind of thing went on all the
time in first century Jerusalem. Hundreds upon thousands slaughtered
by Roman governors. Take a trip to Golgotha now and see if you
don't feel it. Not unlike, I'm sure, sitting in Auschwitz or Dachau
today.
But
I would forget theological debate and historical content when
judging "Passion". It is poor storytelling packaged as a religious
tool. Period. This might be great for some, namely fanatical Christians,
but as forceful narrative, it is disappointing. And it is certainly
no "true depiction" of historical events in any way, shape or
form. Gibson picks and chooses his gospel versions like mad scientist
forcing a solution. He might have been better off from a theological
stand-point to stick with, say, the Gospel of John, which dominates
most of the storyline, instead of jumping all over the Biblical
map to suit an agenda. Although, once again, a good framework
for religious theory, but hardly accurate.
When
I heard about this project some two years ago, I was finishing
up the manuscript to my last book, a story based on my trip to
Israel in search of the historical Jesus. I was excited about
the prospect of hearing the gospel characters speak in their original
dialect, and the promised "realistic depiction" of the ordinarily
sanitized crucifixion scenes of earlier Hollywood efforts. But
even I was left feeling I'd just seen the last ten minutes of
"Scarface" for two hours.
Finally,
Gibson nor the actors, or anyone connected to the making of this
thing should feel badly. Based on concepts like "Jesus Christ
was born to suffer and die for the sins of humankind" and "in
suffering there is cleansing" all the participants can be nothing
if not merely chess pieces in a fixed game. And that is how the
characters in this film go about their business, like marionettes
marching in step to a mystical slaying.
(place
despondent wail here)
It is my fault for expecting to see anything else. The film's
popularity (beyond pure curiosity and pack mentality) speaks to
the human condition to be drawn to signature moments that usurp
the entirety of an event, or to miss it completely.
We
read about a warrior for peace slain in his prime and choose to
remember him with a gory effigy of torture and death.
Part
I : Film Art, Anti-Semitism, and Gospel Lore
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