The Passion of the Christ

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, with dialogue in two dead languages (Aramaic and Latin) is a film that has been debated and condemned for a year now, often by people who hadn't seen it. Now it arrives, still controversial, but now capable of being assessed on its merits or lack of same. This is not a film one can "like." Rather, it's a film to admire. The effect is visceral. One is either moved spiritually or emotionally by Gibson's film or one is not. I was moved.

The film deals with the life of Jesus, but unlike other cinematic interpretations of the Gospels, Gibson focuses on the passion, a word often associated with love but originally used to describe Christ's sufferings. But love is the ultimate point. This is no white-washed politically correct version of the Gospels with Jesus cast as a hippy philosopher, but one that wholeheartedly accepts his divinity and role as savior of all mankind, the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

Gibson dispenses with the usual opening titles, instead devoting the first frames of film to a quote from Isaiah. We then see Jesus (James Caviezel) praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God the Father to let this burden pass from his shoulders, but vowing to follow through on the Father's commands. Bathed in an eerie pale blue light (the cinematography by Caleb Deschanel is superb), Jesus is alone except for Satan (Rosalinda Celentano), presented here as a female androgen, beautiful, yet barren of spirit. Jesus' meditation is interrupted by Roman soldiers who come to arrest him. Accused by the Sanhedrin of blasphemy, Jesus is passed from Pontius Pilate to King Herod and back to Pilate, who sentences Jesus to death in order to satisfy the Jewish religious leaders.

Here is where most of the controversy originates, but charges that the film is anti-Semitic are ill-founded. Jesus was, after all, a Jew, as were his apostles and many of those who protested his crucifixion. More importantly, Jesus lays down his life of his own accord. His death, like his resurrection, was prophesied in the Old Testament.

The remainder of the film is devoted to Jesus' suffering, and it is presented in graphic, often disturbing detail. Yes, the film is bloody, and very violent, but Gibson somehow avoids being gratuitous. By these wounds we are healed is the message, and the film hopes to communicate the extent of Jesus' suffering on our behalf.

Although the film does not dwell on Jesus' teachings, several flashbacks give us a glimpse of the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper, as well as Jesus' life as a carpenter. One of the most affecting flashbacks occurs during the long march to Golgotha. His cross too heavy to bear, Jesus drops to his knees and his mother rushes to his side. A flashback shows Mary (a luminous Maia Morgenstern) doing the same when a youthful Jesus stumbles and falls.

Although this is only Gibson's third film as a director (the second was 1995's Oscar winning Braveheart), he shows himself to be a master film-maker, capable of creating inspired and inspiring imagery, notably a heavenly view of the crucifixion in which a single teardrop forms and drops near the foot of the cross causing the earth to tremble. Gibson ends his film with a brief but beautiful depiction of the resurrection, a scene that brought applause from the audience I saw it with.

One way to determine whether a creative work qualifies as art is to observe the reaction it triggers in those who experience it. No one who sees The Passion of the Christ is likely to be indifferent to it. You may praise it or condemn it, be inspired or enraged by its violence. It is a movie, but it is the result of Gibson's desire to express his beliefs and proclaim them to the world. It's an act of faith. A work of art.

Brian W. Fairbanks

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal

© 2004 Brian W. Fairbanks


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Lame-brained and shallow Conspiracy Theory

Mel Gibson may very well be crazy which could be why he’s not especially convincing when playing a character too much like himself. He’s not required to act, but play himself, and as Richard Widmark once said, “The only one who can play himself is a baby.” A case in point is Jerry Fletcher, the paranoid cab driver of 1998’s Conspiracy Theory. We’re given a quick introduction to him in a montage that plays along with the opening titles in which one passenger after another is subjected to his rambling conspiracy theories:

“George Bush knew what he was saying when he said ‘New World Order’. . . he was a 33rd degree Mason, and as ex-director of the CIA, he knew that saying that would send conspiratologists everywhere spinning their wheels. They destroy their own credibility.”

“Ever wonder about those right-wing militia and survivalist types? They say they’re defending the country from U.N. troops. They’re yelling so loud, my theory is that this is a conspiracy: they are the U.N. troops! They’re in place!”

Based on his public statements, these theories represent Gibson’s own way of thinking. “As far as conspiracy theories go, I give some credence to them,” he said in explaining his attraction to Brian Helgeland’s script. “I have no doubt there’s a covert force at work somewhere, keeping things undercover and admitting only certain things to the public.” In a Playboy Interview three years earlier, he dismissed then President Clinton as a Rhodes scholar, and we know about those Rhodes scholars, don’t we? They’re groomed for public office where they do the bidding for powerful figures that remain behind-the-scenes. Gibson refused to elaborate further, saying he’d better shut up unless he wanted to be rubbed out.

As Fletcher, he’s a bundle of energy, manic but in a comical way as if he’s parodying the character instead of playing him. We’re meant to laugh at him, and regard his theories as crazy. But this is a Hollywood movie, so while most of Fletcher’s theories are meant to be regarded as a joke, one of them turns out to be true. Conspiracies in movies usually turn out to be true, and are very credibly portrayed with all the elaborate smokescreens that conspiracy theorists, like the fictional Jerry Fletcher and the real life Alex Jones, try to see through. But no matter how believably conspiracies are dramatized in such films as The 39 Steps, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Parallex View, any mention of conspiracy in real life is shot down with ridicule, as they must be. Success depends on silence.

The film acknowledges several conspiracies that are known to be true in including the MK-Ultra program in which the CIA conducted mind control experiments on hapless members of the public. Watergate was a conspiracy, and so was 9/11. If you want to know the truth, you’re more likely to find it at the movies than in the “news,” even if the movie is as lame-brained and shallow as Conspiracy Theory.

Julia Roberts is on hand as Gibson’s romantic interest. Yes, even a conspiracy obsessed blue collar guy who kills cockroaches in his apartment with a spatula must have a romantic interest in the movies, and not just any girl will do. Roberts plays some hotshot government lawyer who rides a horse. No, no, no, she doesn’t ride a horse while joining Gibson in the running around that the characters are required to do in a thriller. She rides a horse for fun.

Brian W. Fairbanks

© 2011 Brian W. Fairbanks


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