"But he knows the fissures that have opened up as a result of
the film he is completing: in Los Angeles alone, he has been
warned he is no longer welcome at the Grand Havana Room,
a Beverly Hills club, and that he will be spat upon if he tries to enter."
Andrew Stephen - America
Monday 22nd September 2003
The New Statesman
Mel Gibson's film about the Crucifixion has already created bitter
divisions and led to allegations of anti-Semitism before it even opens. By
Andrew Stephen
I watched the trailer for a new film this week, although neither the
movie nor the trailer has yet been released to cinemas. The trailer showed a
man being tied to a post and scourged, with one eye shut and his body reddened
all over with blood; then it showed close-ups of nails being hammered into one
of the man's hands, and then a foot. Grim music accompanied the scenes and
there were no words in English, only in the vernacular Hebrew language of
Aramaic, with subtitles.
The man being crucified in such agony in Technicolor, with no detail of
his suffering spared, was Jesus. And the movie, called The Passion and the
work of the Australian-American actor Mel Gibson, is already reopening old
wounds in American society. Christian is pitted against Christian, Catholic
against Catholic. Above all, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (founded in
1913) says the film "could fuel hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism", and has
told Gibson that he has "a great responsibility in the message ultimately
promoted by the film". In turn, Gibson, who has sunk $25m of his own money
into a film that may now not even get major distribution, describes criticism
of his yet-to-be-completed movie as "vicious" and says there is "vehement
anti-Christian sentiment out there".
For Gibson, the film marks the completion of a 12-year journey started
when he was in the depths of suicidal depression. He was brought up a devout
Catholic, and in the midst of his depression rediscovered his religion. But
his Catholicism is not the kind practised by the vast majority of the world's
Catholics; he is a traditionalist who observes only the Tridentine Mass,
believing that the Second Vatican Council's modernising in the 1960s was
heresy. He is so devout that he has built his own church on 16 acres of land
in Agoura Hills, California, near Los Angeles, and carries with him a cloth
that is part of the habit of a 19th-century nun who is due to be beatified.
The trouble with previous movies about Christ's life, Gibson felt, is
that they were far too Hollywoodised: "I mean, have you seen any of the
others? They are either inaccurate in their history, or they suffer from bad
music or bad hair." He decided he wanted to re-create the 12 hours of Jesus's
life leading to His crucifixion - he would not only fund but also produce,
direct and co-write the film - and for his script he would use the four
Gospels of the New Testament.
That has proved the first stumbling block. Christian academics are now
divided on whether the Gospels should be seen as indisputable historical fact
or merely symbolic guidelines to Jesus's life. But Gibson's traditionalism is
such that he sees the Gospels as the unwavering truth. He has shown rough cuts
of his film to a selection of the evangelical Christians who are such a major
component of American life, especially in the south. They have been hugely
enthusiastic, thus producing an unlikely coalition between polemical
evangelical Christians and traditionalist Catholics. Left in between are the
ecumenical Christians, who believe Gibson's film is going too far in its
literalism.
However, there was one major pronouncement of the Second Vatican Council
in 1965 that many traditionalist Catholics - and, by extension, many
evangelical Christians - still do not accept, or accept only reluctantly. That
was the declaration known as the Nostra Aetate, which called for
reconciliation between Christians and Jews and condemned the notion,
previously upheld by the Church, that the Jews are "cursed by God". Jewish
organisations such as the Anti-Defamation League believe that the old
teachings permeate Gibson's movie. It begins with a pronouncement from Isaiah
in the Old Testament: "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed
for our iniquities. By His stripes we are healed."
This is unacceptable to bodies such as the Anti-Defamation League,
implying as it does that the movie is about the Messiah. They also believe
that Gibson's depiction of a Jewish mob baying for the blood of Jesus is
historically inaccurate and an incitement to anti-Semitism. In particular,
they object to the use of Matthew 27:25, which has the Jewish mob saying of
the Crucifixion: "Then answered all the people, and said: 'His blood be on us,
and on our children'." Gibson has already backtracked on this, showing
Caiaphas - the Jewish high priest - saying it instead of the crowd. But Jewish
lobbyists insist that the Jews had no part whatsoever in the execution of
Jesus and that it was all the work of the Romans then occupying and ruling the
Holy Land.
Here the Gospels differ from each other, but only slightly. In both
Matthew and Mark, Jesus's fate is decided by the Sanhedrin - a body of Jewish
scribes, rabbis, Pharisees, priests and Sadducees that had its own police
force and was allowed a degree of autonomy under Roman rule. The Gospels thus
show Jesus being delivered by the Sanhedrin to Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor, with demands that He be executed for blasphemy; Pilate attempts to
save Jesus but in the end gives way to the wishes of the crowd, symbolically
(in Matthew) washing his hands of the matter. Thus Jesus is executed on the
orders of the Sanhedrin, reluctantly rubber-stamped by the Romans.
The Anti-Defamation League, which has now also seen rough cuts of the
film, says that the role of the Jews in the killing of Jesus has been
exaggerated - while Gibson says it reflects the truth as depicted in the
Gospels. But the League is saying that any re-creation of the Passion is
likely to be anti-Semitic and inflame relations between Jews and Christians:
"Throughout history," it said in a statement about the Gibson movie,
"Christian dramatisations of the Passion . . . have fomented anti-Semitic
attitudes and violence against the Jewish people." And in a letter to Gibson,
the League said: "Passion plays have an infamous history of leading to hatred,
violence and even death of Jews." Of Passion plays in general - and the
Oberammergau play in particular - it says that they are "sources of
theological anti-Judaism and do not help to improve the relationship of
Christians and Jews".
Thus we have come to an impasse over Gibson's movie. 20th Century Fox
has already said it will have nothing to do with the distribution of the film;
Gibson hopes it will be released some time around the next Holy Week in 2004.
Christian ecumenists, including Catholics, have teamed up with the
Anti-Defamation League to press for the role of the Jews in the Crucifixion to
be played down in the movie - which Gibson says would require a virtual
remaking of his film rather than mere tinkering. He is resistant to that,
anyway, as the film has already been shot in Rome. As the definitive
theological work on the Crucifixion, many of his supporters cite a 1,608-page
book entitled The Death of the Messiah, published in 1994 by the Reverend
Raymond Brown (who taught at a Protestant seminary). While Brown did not
accept the Gospels as the complete and literal truth, he concluded that Jewish
leaders and other Jews played the major part in seeking Jesus's death.
Gibson, meanwhile, does not intend to make any more concessions. As a
film star and director, he sometimes seems out of his depth in such big
theological storms and strong currents. But he knows the fissures that have
opened up as a result of the film he is completing: in Los Angeles alone, he
has been warned he is no longer welcome at the Grand Havana Room, a Beverly
Hills club, and that he will be spat upon if he tries to enter. This is what
happens to somebody trying to make a serious religious film in Hollywood in
2003.
http://www.newstatesman.com
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