"My intention for this film was to create a lasting work of art and to stimulate serious thought and reflection among diverse audiences of all background" says Mel Gibson, director of the year's - nay, decade's - most controversial film to date, The Passion of the Christ.
Starring Jim Caviezel, it depicts the final 12 hours of Jesus' life, from his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane to his death on the cross. In between we see the full extent of Christ's horrific torture at the hands of ... whom exactly?
Mix film and religion and there will always be issues of contention. Gibson, a self-proclaimed reformed hell raiser, is a devout Catholic and his commitment to the verisimilitude of his project is without question. The story follows the Gospels implicitly and the accusations of anti-Semitism that have been leveled at the film are perhaps the most easily resolved. If you are a Christian, and you take the Gospels as being the true word (as one is directed to do) then there is no denying that it was the Jewish high priests who were the agents of Christ's death, acting from a cornered, political perspective. Is the Jewish race collectively responsible for this most infamous of deaths? No, of course not. The Pharisees merely committed the act that every world leader has done when threatened and took whatever means necessary to ensure self-preservation. Of course, that's easy for me to say because I'm not Jewish, I don't understand the depth of emotion that this incites. Here is the first rule of religion - you can never be impartial.
One newspaper described the film as a "cinematic rorsbach" test, meaning that everyone will read into it what they want to read into it. Naturally. But here is where Gibson does not play fair. The film depicts the final 12 hours of Christ's life and, as such, his death and torture are taken out of context. Why did these people desire his death so much? What threat did he pose that they should choose to free the murderer Barabbas instead of a holy man? Gibson assumes we know our scriptures; it's good job if we do, or else this is a confusing mish-mash of unexplained intolerance amidst brutal violence. In America, there have been unrivalled ticket sales as congregations visit unknown territory - the multiplex, and the film itself has been adopted as an evangelical tool. Christians, and other denominations it must be said, have been moved to tears by the torture so graphically detailed across the screen. At last, they say, they really can see what it was like for Christ to suffer and in doing so are better able to appreciate the magnitude of his martyrdom in giving us the gift of eternal life.
Here in Britain, in Maidstone, Kent, St Luke's Church has offered 3,000 free tickets to see the film, for "those not already attending a church, or those who attend and wish to take a guest". In a recent interview with The Times the church's Director of Prophecy and Worship, Russ Hughes is quoted as saying "this is the greatest opportunity for the church in the last 30 years and if we do not use it we may not get such an opportunity again." Whilst one must applaud their sentiment, it is more likely that it is the existence of the film and the debate it provokes that puts Christianity back on the map, rather than the content of the film itself. Indeed, with the unprecedented popularity of the film among church-going communities, way before the film's release even, it seems the Western World is ready for a timely release of a film that one hopes will reaffirm its faith, show that salvation does come through suffering, and that when the world is poised continually at the brink of war, it is somehow comforting that your faith's leader is as loved and powerful and relevant as those of the other religion's fundamentalists .
But for those who have little knowledge of the Gospels, will the film convert them? Probably not.
Caviezel suffered way beyond the call of any actor's duty to bring Gibson's vision to life. He says "For day after day of filming, I was spat upon, beaten up, flagellated and forced to carry a cross on my back in the freezing cold. It was a brutal experience, almost beyond description. But I considered it all worth it to play this role." His skin also blistered beneath the make-up, suffered bouts of hypothermia from wearing a loincloth in the middle of the Italian winter, suffered a lung infection, a dislocated shoulder, and was even struck by lightning. Unfortunately, this moves me more than his performance in the film.
Caviezel's Christ is one-dimensional; we don't see all that went before; we don't see why he is being treated this way; and because the focus on what is being done to Christ it detracts from the man himself. Yes, this is a truly brutal film, made worse by the fact that it is our own Saviour who is having the skin flailed from his body by whips and scourges, and having nails driven through his palms - but then, we knew that, didn't we? The torture in itself is almost irrelevant - this is what happened, we know, and we know it wouldn't have been very pretty. Pictorially, this should not shock us any more than a Tarantino movie. However, it should move us, and it doesn't. Caviezel seems to mistake inaction for serenity and dignity. This is a role in which the compassion needs to be generated by expression, a glance, a gesture - at most, Caviezel's solemn performance provokes pity which is surely not what we should be feeling towards our Lord?
In fact, the film is short on characterisation throughout. All the attention is on the flogging and other horrors. And herein lies another anomaly: if Gibson wished his film to be as realistic as possible, why choose to fashion its look on the paintings of an Old Master? One may argue that the works of Caravaggio were noted for their realism in their day, breaking away from the idealised images of the crucifixion, but their use of light and dark is hardly naturalistic. Yet Gibson was insistent on using this style for his film, rightly claiming on seeing his first dailies: "Caleb (Deschanel, Director of Photography) has created a moving Caravaggio." The artist in me adores the beauty of the film, and it is a stunning recreation, but one cannot get away from the fact that what Gibson intended to create overall - a realistic depiction - and what he has actually achieved are not the same thing. The only realism here is the wounds and blood. And, again, this painterly (do you mean painted?) artificiality detracts from the engagement with the character.
The film is also highly stylised, with emphasis on slow motion, carefully selected close-ups and cutaways that pile on the emotion, and the surreal use of an androgynous figure that is meant to represent Satan. We know this by the way a worm crawls out of the creature's nostril, and the baby in its arms has an old man's face.
Finally - the question of the language. Once more, Gibson's quest for realism is misinformed. All the characters speak in the language as was appropriate at the time, mainly Aramaic, an ancient Semitic tongue that is today considered a dying language. Again, I applaud the sentiment. However, when watching a film in a language other than one's own, it is the ease and naturalness of the performer speaking in their native tongue, the inflections and accents, that contribute to the viewing pleasure. Here, the language feels forced. Indeed, it reminds one of Shakespeare when it is badly performed, with little insight into the words being spoken so that the dialogue appears to be spoken parrot-fashion without any real depth or feeling. Says Gibson: "Speaking in Aramaic required something different from the actors because they had to compensate for the usual clarity of their own native language. It brought out a different level of performance. In a sense, it became good old-fashioned filmmaking because we were so committed to telling the story with pure imagery and expressiveness as much as anything else." Gibson initially intended to release the film without subtitles and, on reflection, this may have been the correct decision. The subtitles serve only as a reminder of the fact that the performers aren't speaking in their native tongue, and the lack of would have helped with the suspension of disbelief and, as Gibson says, one is never without doubt pictorially what is happening here. Furthermore, it appears that the use of Latin in the film is erroneous - the common language between races was, in fact, Greek.
Sadly, this is just one of a whole list of inaccuracies that includes the fact that Jesus would have been naked on the cross, his hair shorn, and the nails would have been driven through his wrists rather than his palms. And let us not forget that the image we see of Christ is remarkably like that created by western artists, distinctly European.
What we are left with is a film that is an accurate depiction of the last 12 hours of Christ as seen by Mel Gibson. Realistic it may be for him, but for the rest of us mere mortals it is a curious mix of perceived reality and extreme stylisation, referencing previous art as realistic depictions.
They say to avoid argument, don't discuss politics or religion. Religion is such a personal experience that surely there can never be anything like a realistic portrayal of this story. Gibson needs to be honest with himself. However, when he says "one of the greatest hopes I have for this film is that when audiences walk away from it, they will be inspired to ask more questions", he has almost certainly managed to achieve this, and has at least reignited Christianity as a serious religious belief.
Jean Lynch
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