THE PASSION OF CHRIST
Peter Malone MSC
This is the edited version of the article as published in the print issue of Madonna, for the full article, click here.
Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of Christ, was released on Ash Wednesday, 2004. But for more than a year there has been worldwide discussion and controversy about the film. This has been based on apprehensions about how the film would be made, as well as on sensitivities about Jewish-Christian history and anti-Semitism. The film is a long--cherished -project of actor-director, Mel Gibson. His Catholic -affiliation and support of traditional Catholicism was another controversial factor in the discussions.
Some background
It is important to realise that the more formal, ‘official’
antagonism between Christians and Jews emerged in the early decades of
the second century. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and John emerged from
Jewish communities. Luke’s gospel draws strongly on the Jewish scriptures
interweaving biblical references and motifs throughout the text. The clash
between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time was a clash within
Judaism, a religious controversy about the Messiah (of which there were
a number in this period) and Jesus’ claims. Disciples who became
Christians accepted his claims. Many religious leaders amongst the priests
and the pharisees did not. There were other converts like Paul, who was
proud of his Jewish heritage and who took a strong stance about disciples
of Jesus not being bound by details of Jewish law. It has been difficult,
given the centuries of antagonism and the experience of repression and
persecution of Jews by Christian, and Catholic, communities to enter into
the context of Jesus’ time and the mentality of the period.
The long traditions of Christians accusing Jews of being ‘Christ-killers’ also played their part in the debate. While the Catholic Church apologised for the persecutions and frequent anti-Semitism of the past in a Second Vatican Council document (1965) and Pope John Paul II visited the wailing wall in 2000 and inserted his own prayer in a crevice, questions about Jesus’ death as being part of God’s plan and how the Jewish religious leaders of the time and the Romans, with Pontius Pilate, fitted into this plan, continue to be raised.
One of the difficulties that films of the life of Jesus encounter, especially from scholars and theologians not versed in the techniques and conventions of cinematic storytelling, is that they sometimes tend to be critiqued and judged as if they were actual gospels. This is a danger for The Passion. It needs to be reiterated that this is a film and that the screenplay is a ‘version’ of the gospel stories with no claim to be a gospel.
This use of the four gospels means that there are different perspectives on the Jews of the time in each. Matthew’s presupposes detailed knowledge of the Jewish scriptures and sees Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy. Hence the more ‘apocalyptic’ scenes at his death. Mark and Luke look on from the outside, Luke writing for readers familiar with Greek and Roman ways of storytelling. John’s gospel from the end of the first century echoes the roots of Christianity in Judaism but acknowledges the growing rift.
Theology
Theologically, the film presents the perennial teaching that Jesus, in his person, was both human and divine in nature. The humanity of Jesus is often presented in the film in a striking manner: Jesus working in Nazareth, the experience of deep human pain in his agony, scourging, falling on the way to Calvary, the nailing and his experience on the cross. It is there in his dignity at his trial, his composure with Pilate and Herod. The film also highlights Jesus’ human anguish of soul and sense of abandonment in his agony and on the cross, along with his profound surrender to the Father.
While Mel Gibson’s film wants to immerse its audience in the experience of the Passion, the final sequence has the stone rolled over the tomb. The stone is rolled away, the cloths wound around Jesus’ body are seen collapsing and the camera tracks to Jesus in profile, sitting in the tomb as a prelude to his risen life. These are the images with which the audience leaves the theatre. The Resurrection, presented briefly, is still the climax of the Passion.
Aspects of the film
While the Jesus of cinema is usually slight and slender in build, actor Jim Caviezel is a big and strong man, with some girth, a credible carpenter and a solid man. This makes the film’s Jesus more real than usual.
One of the principal intentions of the director and his co-screenwriter, Ben Fitzgerald, is to immerse audiences in the realism of the passion of Jesus. Jim Caviezel was the same age as Jesus when the film was shot.
Mary has a strong presence in The Passion. She appears as a woman in her 40s, striking rather than beautiful. She appears in two flashbacks. Her demeanour is serious. She says very little. With Mary Magdalene and John, she follows the passion and the Way of the Cross without any of the histrionics that characterise a number of portraits of Mary, especially Pasolini’s mother in The Gospel According to Matthew. At one stage, she wipes the blood of Jesus on the praetorium floor after his scourging. She kisses his bloody nailed feet. The bond between mother and son is suggested several times by significant eye contact rather than words. The request for John to take care of Mary is included. After Jesus is taken down from the cross, she holds him in a Pietà tableau.
Perhaps a number of people in the audience will find the scourging (in two grim parts) too much to watch. With most of the characters being portrayed in a naturalistic way, the action seems authentic.
The Passion of Christ offers a credible, naturalistic Jesus whose sufferings of body and spirit are real. What impact it will have on those who are not believers is very difficult to predict. For those who believe, there is the challenge of seeing pain and torture which are easier to read about than to see, but there is also the satisfaction of experiencing familiar Gospel stories in a different way.
Fr Peter Malone MSC is president of SIGNIS, The World Catholic Association for Communication.
