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Orson
Scott Card on The Passion of the Christ
by
Orson Scott Card
As a Film
Critic
Pious films
are usually embarrassingly bad -- one thinks of Richard Gere prancing
around in a diaper in the mercifully forgotten King David -- primarily
because the attempt to inspire and the need to be true to the
source material are often incompatible with each other, and both
interfere with the requirements of art and entertainment.
Director and
co-writer Mel Gibson's artistic achievement in The Passion of
the Christ would have been noteworthy had the film been merely
adequate, as art or entertainment. Instead, it is superb; I believe
that it is, in every way that matters, perfect.
The first
excellent decision was to take the story's structure from the
last hours of Jesus' life, starting with his prayer in the garden
of Gethsemane and ending, except for a bit of denouement, when
he is taken down from the cross.
But this structure
did not stop Gibson from giving these hours of merciless torment
the relief of meaning and context. Through brief flashbacks to
moments in the past -- from tender scenes with his mother and
the last supper with his disciples to the sermon on the mount
-- Gibson reminds us of who the person was before he was physically
tormented.
Moreover,
the words Jesus says in these flashbacks provide meaning -- sometimes
ironic, sometimes poignant, always illuminating -- to the precise
moment where they are inserted in the story.
We see the
flashbacks to Mary-with-Jesus from Mary's point of view, as she
is dealing with the grief of seeing her beloved son suffer so
much, even though she knows this is what he was born for. It makes
the relationship between them come alive for us, so that in a
few moments we get the sense of Jesus as a child, as a young man.
Other flashbacks,
though, provide Jesus' own commentary on the events he knew were
coming in his future.
Some of these
techniques would have been heavy-handed indeed if this film had
been fiction, or a fictionalized version of a little-known historical
figure; imagine how dreadful Braveheart would have been if the
entire film had taken place in the last hours of William Wallace's
life, with mere flashbacks to illuminating events in his past.
But Jesus'
life is well-known, in outline at least, even to nonbelievers;
and to believers, every word of dialogue, every single event,
is expected.
So the real
surprise is how much Gibson was able to step away from the literal
filming-of-the-gospels and insert his own (or co-writer Benedict
Fitzgerald's) brilliant interpretations, augmentations, and allegorizations.
The most obvious
such fictionalization is the way the film depicts Satan. I was
astonished, after the fact, to find that Satan was played by a
woman, Rosalinda Celentano. But the way Satan is presented, his
face a mockery of tenderness and concern, surrounded by images
of maggots, serpents, decay, deformity, I could not imagine a
better depiction. And when we see, at the point of Christ's death,
Satan in the midst of desolation, defeated, it gives the film
meaning and resonance that would not have been there had we seen
nothing more than the torture and death of Jesus' body.
There are
other touches, though, that flesh out the gospel stories. I could
have lived without the old canard that identifies Mary Magdalene
with the woman-who-was-taken-in-adultery, whom Jesus saved from
stoning, but the flashback works well in its context; I loved
the extra acts of kindness and understanding that were given to
Pilate's wife (Claudia Gerini) and Jarreth Merz as Simon, who
bears the cross for Jesus; and the way John, Peter, and Judas
are depicted makes them seem like living souls.
In fact, the
most remarkable achievement was the way every person in the film
-- including Jesus -- is presented as a whole human being. Nobody
mopes through the film in the traditional but tiresome attitudes
of piety. Nobody acts as if they thought they had a halo around
them all the time. As far as they know, they aren't living through
an epic story -- they're living through their own, personal lives,
facing the worst catastrophe and not yet aware that it's a eucatastrophe
that marks the beginning, not the end, of their work.
I also appreciated
the use of the original languages. Aramaic, Latin, Vulgar Latin,
and Hebrew are used to powerful effect. The subtitles do not interfere
in any way. And the result is a truly international film -- everybody
in the world gets exactly the same experience.
There is not
a false step in the film -- and believe me, I was looking for
them. James Caviezel plays Jesus as a man, with a sense of humor;
his love for his friends is practical, not ethereal -- he likes
them and cares about them.
This film
does not exist outside its Christian context, any more than the
film Gandhi would have meant anything at all had we not known
of him as the builder of a nation and a prophet of civil disobedience.
But working within the framework of how Jesus is regarded both
by believers and nonbelievers, I believe Gibson has created a
work of art that stands with the best ever created in the medium
of film.
As a Believer
Viewing this
film can be complicated for a Christian. Because Mel Gibson does
not present a generic Christian view in The Passion of the Christ.
He is a Catholic, and this is a profoundly Catholic interpretation.
I remember
my shock the first time I went inside a Catholic cathedral --
in the town of Araraquara, Brazil. I had not been prepared for
the bloody images of saints, and especially of Jesus.
But having
now visited Catholic cathedrals in many countries, I must say
that American Catholicism is almost puritan by contrast with Catholicism
elsewhere. The images that are presented to most Catholics are
designed to make them feel great pity and respect for the suffering
of the martyrs. And, since Jesus is the greatest of all, his suffering
must be the greatest.
To those whose
background is in Protestant churches, especially those with Calvinist,
puritan histories, the emphasis on violence might be shocking
-- especially if you're from one of the religious traditions that
in recent generations have concentrated on the "nice-Jesus"
teachings that remove him from the harsh and brutal times in which
he lived.
So the emphasis
in this film on wringing every scrap of suffering out of Jesus'
body can seem excessive, almost unbearable. To Catholics, it will
be less surprising -- but what they have long seen in static,
blood-streaked images now comes to life and seems to be happening
to a living person, which is shocking enough.
My own beliefs
are even more removed from the violence. After all, tens of thousands
of people suffered death by crucifixion; hundreds of thousands
have been scourged and tortured cruelly. I don't believe that
the manner of Jesus' death had anything to do with either the
atonement or the resurrection. That's why we Mormons don't use
the symbol of the cross on our churches -- to us, crucifixion
was merely the method that the Romans used to execute those of
whom they wanted to make a public example. Had the death been
by lethal injection, the effect on our salvation would have been
the same.
I believe
that Christ's real suffering was the anguish he felt as he bore
the horror of complete spiritual separation from God -- taking
upon himself to an infinite degree the torment that is the natural
spiritual consequence of sin. The remorse and despair we feel
(or will feel) to varying degrees because of our disobedience
to or rejection of God, he felt so utterly that we cannot imagine
it. In this context, what was done to his body was almost a distraction.
Many people have borne as much.
The problem
is, the inner, spiritual suffering could not be filmed. So even
for someone who believes as I do, the torment of Jesus' body stands
as an outward representation of the inner torment. Viewed in this
way, the violence is not excessive at all; it is all the glimpse
that we can bear of the inner torment he suffered for us.
Even so, no
matter what religious context you bring to the film, you will
find that the critics who wrote or spoke of a festival of gore
have misled you. This is not like the blood-thirsty movies that
kill people left and right and seek for new and excruciating ways
to titillate an audience. There is nothing here designed to promote
a corpse-filled computer game.
In this movie,
violence is shown as appalling, evil, vengeful, malicious. The
moral context is never lost. The people in the film recoil from
precisely the same actions that we recoil from. If some critics
can't see the difference between this film and movies that delight
in casual violence, they're in the wrong line of work.
Some have
reported that the violence became so excessive it left them numb.
In a sense, yes -- you have to detach at some point. In fact,
for me it happened at precisely the point where, in the movie,
Mary says out loud, How long are you going to keep letting them
do this before your work is finished? The standard Hollywood expectation
-- that the hero will bear up under suffering and live to pound
his enemies into the ground -- is destroyed in the long scourging
sequence, where Jesus rises to his feet after 32 strokes from
rods. We have that standard response: Yes! They can't beat him
down! (Bruce Willis in Die Hard comes to mind.)
Whereupon
they switch to flails designed to kill, and strike him far more
blows than before, and from this the hero does not rise, he is
dragged away on the verge of death. From then on, we see his suffering
as being more of a struggle to stay alive until his work is completed.
We no longer wish for him to be saved; we wish for him to be relieved,
and the only possible relief is death.
So yes, we
detach. But it is not the detachment that we feel toward the casual
killing in action films or the pornographic violence in slasher
movies. It is never that we don't care; it's that we've stopped
hoping for life and recognize that death holds no terror for this
man.
The violence
is not what makes us weep.
All my tears
in this movie were shed in empathy for those who loved Jesus,
and in gratitude for those who are shown attempting to be kind
to him. I was moved by Pilate's wife, who knows what is right
and tries to do the one small thing that is possible for her.
I was moved by Mary's love for her son. I was moved by the epiphany
that came to the reluctant cross-bearer, Simon of Cyrene; by the
shame and empathy discovered by one of the soldiers -- the one
required to pierce Jesus' body with a spear, but who can hardly
bear to do it in front of his mother.
The woman
who brings him water to drink at one of the stations of the cross;
Pilate himself, caught in a terrible political situation where
he has no good choice, but chooses his career over his integrity
and makes the futile, empty gesture of washing his hands; the
"good thief" (Francesco Cabras) who is promised paradise
on the cross -- it was goodness, or the yearning for goodness,
that brought tears to my eyes.
And this is
not a movie about despair. Though by no means did Gibson even
attempt to show the story of the resurrection, we get a glimpse
of a whole, perfect, uninjured body rising from the shroud.
So even if
you are not a Catholic, and the sangre de cristo is not something
to be venerated, this film will still speak to you.
(And for those
who piously refuse to see R-rated films, I can only say: There
are movies that children should not see, and this is one of them.
But for a Christian adult to refuse to see it as a matter of moral
principle, as if this movie will somehow dirty you, moves you
over into the category of those who let the letter of the law
keep them from its spirit.)
As an American
I have hated
antisemitism since I first learned, in Rise and Fall of the Third
Reich, what it was. And I have loudly insisted that antisemitism
be named for what it is in most of the opposition to Israel from
both the PC Left and the vast majority of the Muslim world.
But to call
this movie antisemitic and therefore un-American is shameful.
First, this
movie strictly follows the only historical record we have of these
events. There is no competing record to refute the depiction in
the gospels. So to say Gibson should not have shown Jewish leaders
being the driving force behind the killing of Jesus is to say
that Christians are not allowed to actually believe in or dramatize
their own scripture.
I remember
how, after 9/11, everyone leapt to their pulpits to make sure
no one blamed these events on Muslims -- when it was absolutely
Muslims, acting according to their interpretation of the Muslim
faith, who did the act.
Of course
there were Muslims who were appalled by the actions of the terrorists
of 9/11. There were also Muslims who danced in the streets to
celebrate. But one could imagine that the people attacking Mel
Gibson for antisemitism would insist that any film of 9/11 must
not show that the terrorists were Muslim, lest it cause an outbreak
of violence against Muslims.
It is not
surprising that Jewish leaders are hypersensitive about antisemitism.
But the attempt by some to condemn this movie because of the effect
it "might" have on some Christian viewers is wretched
excess.
In fact, to
many Christians it sounds as though some rabbis thought they had
the right to tell Christians which parts of the Christian scripture
are acceptable to believe in. This is so outrageous and so resented
that, if anything, it is not the film but the reaction to it by
these few Jewish leaders that is most likely to cause negative
feelings toward Jews.
The Passion
of the Christ makes it very clear that there are Jews on both
sides, and that Jesus himself was a temple-centered Jew.
In the movie,
Simon of Cyrene is reviled as a Jew by the Romans, even as he
picks up the cross to carry it for Jesus. The only person who
is shown in a profile shot that emphasizes a stereotypical Jewish
face is Peter. In countless other ways, Mel Gibson shot and edited
this movie to make it clear that it wasn't Jews per se who sought
Jesus' death, but only a segment of the leadership of the Jews.
And even among those leaders, the film shows that some spoke loudly
against killing Jesus.
In the absence
of competing historical records contradicting the gospels, the
only argument I've heard is that the Jewish leadership "would
never have" behaved that way because it was illegal and immoral.
Therefore the Christian gospels are slandering Jews, proving that
Christians have been antisemitic from the beginning.
But this is
ludicrous. Most Christians at the time the gospels were first
written down considered themselves to be Jews, since they considered
Jesus to be the fulfilment of the promises God made to Israel.
Christian antisemitism was still more than a century away.
And to insist
that the Jewish leadership in the 30s C.E. were so righteous and
pure that the events recounted in the gospels could not have happened
is also ridiculous. It wasn't that many decades later that assassinations
and betrayals and plenty of illegal actions tore the Jewish leadership
apart during the revolt against Rome.
The gospels
show the dominant faction of the Jewish leadership acting according
to patterns that have been repeated again and again through history.
The Dreyfuss case in France, where an irrational hatred led to
a man being hounded and convicted of crimes he absolutely did
not commit, is merely one of the most famous cases in recent history.
Anyone who doubts that huge and powerful sections of a seemingly
rational society can be filled with nearly insane hatred of someone
who has done nothing to deserve it have only to look impartially
at contemporary American politics.
The gospels
seem to present a reasonably impartial, unhateful depiction of
people behaving the way people in power usually do -- they are
so sure they are right, so sure justice is on their side, that
they toss aside the law in order to accomplish a "higher
purpose." We have judges like that today, too.
It is not
reasonable that the historical account in the gospels should be
doubted solely because some contemporary Jews would like to think
that Jewish leaders two thousand years ago could not have conspired
to get the Romans to kill a particularly offensive leader of a
movement that threatened their ability to control what other Jews
believed.
Moreover,
the Jewish leaders are shown as the powers-that-be, never as the
sadistic torturers whose actions and attitudes would inflame the
viewers to outrage. That role is reserved for the Roman soldiers
-- and since they are depicted as speaking Vulgar Latin, which
sounds like Italian, I would think Italian-Americans would have
far more cause to fear backlash from this film.
What I find
truly disturbing, as an American, is how the American Left, which
supposedly glorifies free speech and cultural inclusion, should
so brutally reveal their true colors. The fact that Gibson could
not find distribution for this film, and had to turn his production
company, Icon, into a distributor (a very expensive and difficult
process), speaks volumes -- there was no such problem over The
Last Temptation of Christ, which apparently was acceptable because
it would offend Christians and denied the accuracy of the scriptural
account.
Hollywood
touts itself as courageous -- just like the rest of the PC Left
-- whenever they stomp on Christians. It's part of the elitist
war on Christianity that's clearly going on. Other people's ethnic
heritage or "folk beliefs" can be celebrated in school
-- but Christian customs and beliefs can hardly be mentioned.
When the Christian
Right spoke out against The Last Temptation of Christ, you would
have thought that Hitler had just taken over in America, to hear
the PC Left scream about censorship and suppression and the sanctity
of art and the need to be open to many different views.
But to a large
degree, the people trying to censor and suppress Gibson's movie,
and to slam the door on this "different view" and ignore
the sanctity of art in this particular case, at least, were the
same people.
So they stand
revealed as hypocrites. They don't believe in freedom of expression,
they believe in anything that hurts Christians; and anything that
actually expresses Christian belief effectively, they will oppose.
That's an
ugly place for America to be in today.
But that's
what happens when you have an established church, as America does
now -- as priests of that church strike down American laws and
ancient customs, not by democratic process, but by authority of
their private beliefs about what is "fair," thus imposing
their religion on others against their will.
Personal
Comments about Mel Gibson
In fact, the
behavior of the Left toward Mel Gibson as a believing Christian
-- and not just over this issue -- follows a pattern that makes
the historical record in the gospels seem quite realistic.
Crucifixion
isn't the way we kill offenders today. We do it metaphorically,
in the media, and financially, by withholding the means to make
a living.
And now, ironically,
because it is clear that Christians are supporting this movie
in vast numbers and it is going to make back its investment, Gibson
is being accused of profiting from his faith.
Here's the
truth: Any movie can fail. There was no guarantee. Gibson spent
$24,000,000 of his own money, put his own talent and reputation
on the line, did not put any stars in his movie, and had no established
distributor sharing the risk. No one in the history of film has
ever taken such a personal risk.
He made a
bet that Christians would support an excellent film about the
death of Christ. He had no takers. And when he turned out to be
right after all, it is stupid and mean-spirited to accuse him
of having financial gain as his motive.
The Letter
So I have
a few things to say to Mel Gibson, beyond the praise I have already
given to him as an artist and as an interpreter of the Christian
gospel:
Dear Mr. Gibson,
It looks like
you're going to make a profit on The Passion of the Christ.
Please don't donate any part of the profits to charity. Instead,
use it to finance other films, so this faithful audience can have
the visualized stories they hunger for. Keep the standards high,
and the audience will only grow. This will do far more for Christianity
-- and religious faith in general -- than any other donation you
might make.
Remember the
parable of the talents, and keep putting this money at risk in
service of your faith. Remember that these profits were given
to you by fellow believers, because we trusted you as an artist
and as a Christian to bring the scripture to life in a way that
no sermon -- and no lesser artists -- ever could.
And when award
season rolls around next year, please withdraw The Passion of
the Christ from consideration for any and all awards.
It would demean
this great film to be listed as a competitor for a prize. We don't
need to hear absurd and offensive statements like "The Passion
of the Christ really has legs as a contender for the Golden Globe"
or "The Passion of the Christ is a shoo-in for the best-makeup
Oscar."
Hollywood
shut you out on this one. Keep this film outside. Don't let them
use it as a tool to show how open-minded they are, after the fact.
Since this is one of the few perfect films ever made, and since
it deals with a subject matter sacred to you and to most of its
audience, there will never be four other films worthy of being
listed with it in any category.
Originally published in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina
Copyright © 2004 by Orson Scott Card.
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