More Passion About The Passion
Makeoutcity links to Ray Overbey who has some insights about The Passion and the nature of faith.
When the Jewish man assists his countryman Christ in carrying the cross up the hill, whilst the Roman thugs whip him mercilessly, and the man finally screams at the Romans, begging them to stop, when the Jewish woman offering Christ water is rebuffed by the soldiers— why weren’t these discussed in the alarmist previews of the film? I am utterly confused by this. Everyone comes out badly in this film, be they Jew or Roman. When Christ is taken from the cross, and Mary holds him in her arms, she looks up, directly at the camera, directly into the eyes of the viewer. The camera pans back, revealing the bloody corpse in her arms. She’s still looking at you, and her gaze accuses. It’s your fault, she says.
The critics who attack the film for historical inaccuracy confuse me to no end. You can’t choose both the Gospels and rational, objective history. This is a movie meant to inspire or reinforce faith, and faith is irrational. Get over yourselves. This is a movie about living, sensual, bloody, strong religion. It’s irrational, it’s devotional, it’s about surrendering entirely and trying (and failing) to live up to the obligations of servitude and faith. It’s no wonder journos find it repulsive, but can’t speak their minds about it. The roots of the objections- that they find real religion to be dangerous and possibly unethical, would not sell many newspapers.
He goes on to say:
Mel Gibson’s work confronts us with strong religion. He confronts the viewer with a fundamental choice: either you take the words of this book seriously, or you do not. And after this movie, I’m hoping there are more people who choose the latter. The former is way too bloody and barbaric for an allegedly civilized society.
As a recovering Catholic, I’m interested in this movie but I’m not into S&M and from what I’ve read it’s really over the top with whips and blood. I also don’t want to give Mel Gibson my money, given how well he’s hyped it and the fact that much of that money will probably end up in the hands of the Catholic Church, specifically Opus Dei.
I wonder what it would be like to watch the movie without giving any credibility to the faith-based aspects of it; assuming that Jesus was nothing more than a man who suffered from some pretty serious delusions. Then it would just be the story of an individual being persecuted by both the church and the state. That would be a story I could identify with.
I’d like to watch the movie from that point of view, but don’t want to be a victim of the marketing. So we’ll see. Maybe Mel will read this post and send me a free ticket, good Christian dude that he is.
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