Movie Review
Gibson’s Solution is our Problem: “The Passion of the Christ”
By Stephen Milton
There is nothing pleasant or uplifting about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It is, even by Hollywood standards, one of the most unrelentingly brutal films to have been made in quite some time. Blood and gore are present in almost every scene past the fifteen-minute mark. At times, it seems like a how-to lesson in ancient torture. Children should not see this film, lest they have a nightmare vision of Christ which will overshadow anything an adult says to the contrary. But does the film have any redeeming features?
The film is highly problematic on a number of levels, but it is largely faithful to what the Gospels say about the arrest and crucifixion. The script and most of the scenes are lifted straight out of the Bible. Indeed, the film assumes that its audience already knows the Gospels thoroughly. This is a point lost on many secular reviewers, who have criticized the film for not providing enough character development for Mary and the disciples. Gibson obviously assumes this is a film that is playing for the converted, so he feels no need to provide any kind of back-story. This is a film for believers, a literal depiction of what is described in the Gospels.
Gibson does depart from the Gospels in a few ways, and these provide a clue to what’s really going on in this movie. The first clue is the role played by Pilate’s wife. In the Gospels, she appears only once, having sent a message to Pilate to be lenient with Jesus, because she has had disturbing dreams about this just man. In the film, she tells this to Pilate directly, and then appears often in the judgment scenes, hovering like Pilate’s conscience. She discusses the nature of truth with Pilate, and even brings cloths to Mother Mary, who must clean the blood off the stones where Jesus has been scourged. The film clearly believes that Pilate’s wife knows who Jesus is, and that he should be spared. This is all Gibson’s invention.
The major departure from the Gospels is in the sheer level of violence and malevolence that takes over the film. It is hard to imagine a way to make this film any more gory. In the Gospels, not much is made of the violence – it is mentioned in a single line here and there. There are no detailed descriptions of how the Roman soldiers beat Christ, nor that they went too far in the scourging, as suggested by the film. As Jesus walks down the streets carrying his cross, people drop stones on Him, and curse Him. The Roman soldiers continue to beat him. None of this is in the Gospels, either. This addition matters. The scenes which feature the whipping and beating of Christ are very, very long and explicit. Christ as a character virtually disappears as a result, barely able to open his eyes or even react. He becomes a walking piece of hamburger. This is the Christ Gibson has taken great care to portray, going far beyond anything in the Bible. Why?
Gibson has admitted in interviews that for him, Christ’s power comes from the sacrifice He made for mankind. Gibson is impressed by the degree of pain Christ endured, and knew He would endure. Like many people attracted to Christianity, Gibson had endured a period of immense suffering and self doubt himself, having battled addictions and even the temptation of suicide. It was his re-investment in Christianity which turned his life around. For Gibson, Christianity provides a God who can empathize with suffering, because he suffered Himself. Mr. Gibson clearly wants us to see just how much Christ must have suffered. One gets the sense that there is a calculus of pain at work here; the more Christ suffered, the greater his sacrifice, and hence the greater His gift to humanity.
But who made Christ suffer? This is where the film gets complicated for Christians. On the surface, the answer seems pretty clear: Jewish priests and their followers conspired to kill Jesus, outraged by His claim to being the Son of God. Sadistic Roman soldiers did most of the dirty work. Pilate and his wife are innocent, having only given in to demands from the Jewish priests and their crowds.
This is basically accurate according to the Gospels, but are the Gospels accurate? Gibson clearly assumes they are, but modern biblical scholarship suggests otherwise. Pilate had a reputation for cruelty outside the Gospels. He was known for excessive violence against the Jews, and was eventually fired by the Romans for his abuses. Many scholars believe that Pilate was far more likely to order the crucifixion of Jesus than the Jewish High Priests were. Pilate’s job was to keep the Jews under control. Each year at Passover, thousands of Jews streamed into Jerusalem, and riots against their Roman rulers were always a possibility. Roman guards patrolled the Temple, and would have seen Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers. This kind of subversion was harshly punished in any Roman town – that’s why there were crosses at the edge of town. They were the harshest possible punishment for people who threatened the state, and accordingly, their punishment was public and humiliating. The Jewish High Priests may have handed Jesus over, knowing that his ministry could have resulted in an insurrection that would have undercut their own position with the Romans. However, that power play in no way implicates their Jewish followers. The historical record does not suggest that the average Jew in Jerusalem was a sadist; it does, however, suggest that Pilate was well known for this vice. In short, the Gospels may simply be wrong about how and why Jesus was crucified.
Mr. Gibson is clearly not one to question the authority of the Gospels. If anything, he takes the anti-Semitic tendencies found there and amplifies them. His new role for Pilate’s wife further exonerates the Roman leaders from blame. Meanwhile, all Jews appear guilty of wanting Christ dead, and appear to be in league with the devil. Satan is seen as a woman, prowling through the crowds, clearly happy with how Christ is being punished. This female Satan is an obvious parallel to the saintly Pilate’s wife. The implication is clear: the Romans didn’t want to kill Christ, but the satanic Jews did.
The popular press has pointed out that scholars feel Jews have been unjustly blamed for Christ’s death, and rightly so. But the bigger challenge for Christians is to face up to the possibility that the Gospels are wrong, raising the question of what we can and cannot believe when we open the good book. This is one of the uncomfortable outcomes of the last 40 years’ biblical scholarship, one that Gibson utterly ignores in his literalist depiction of this story. In the United States, some 60 percent of people believe the Bible is literally true. This film will do nothing to shake that conviction, but could well exacerbate the problem.
Near the end of Gibson’s film, Christ is seen teaching forgiveness of human sins. As Christ approaches Golgotha, he recalls his Sermon on the Mount, where he implores his followers to love their enemies. After two hours of a bloodfest, it is unlikely many viewers will get that message. By depicting the violence of the crucifixion so graphically, and by blaming it on the Jews, Gibson’s film emotionally calls for enmity, not forgiveness. Mr. Gibson made his millions by portraying characters who usually win against the sadists – think of his Mad Max and Lethal Weapon films. In Hollywood, sadists are criminals who should be punished, usually brutally. This film does nothing to break with that pattern. Christ may be in a forgiving mood by the end of this movie, but I doubt much of the audience will be. And that makes this film an unwelcome addition to modern Christianity. Christ’s message would have been powerful, even if he had died of old age. Love, not blood, is what He asks of us.
