"The Passion" trailer

[Dimwhit]

Wow. Looks intense. Probably better without subtitles. It's funny, though. The first time I saw James Caviezel, I thought he'd make a good Christ in a movie. I guess Mell Gibson agreed.

 

[CrusaderX]

Originally posted by Spatula The film has been selectively screened (with subtitles, apparently - maybe they're necessary after all?) for people that share Gibson's religous beliefs.

Wrong. Christians of other denominations have been invited to see the film. Non-Christians have been invited to see the film. Including Jewish commentators such as David Horowitz and Michael Medved, who though conservative is still very much Jewish. All have had the highest of praise for the film. High praise from Jews. Gee, does this make Horowitz and Medved anti-semites?

Gibson simply did not invite those who unfairly bashed his film before seeing it. And I don't blame him at all for doing this. It serves them right for hysterically jumping to conclusions. He owes absolutely nothing to those who would try to damage his reputation based on speculation.

The notion of Gibson inviting anyone to preview the film before release is pretty amazing in and of itself. Gibson did this precisely because he doesn't want the film to offend anyone. And it's interesting that the same can't be said for, say, anti-Catholic filmmakers who seem to have no problem bashing a religious group on film. Were Catholic Bishops and Church leaders consulted before the filming of The Last Temptation of Christ, to ensure that Catholics woulnd't be offended? Of couse not. So why the double-standard here?

 

[Green Knight]

Religous scholars that got a look at an early draft of the script?

"Religious Scholars" is a pretty broad term. Just because you're labelled as a "Religious Scholar" doesn't imply respectability or honesty. Besides, that early draft isn't what got filmed. So they're ranting and raving about something that wasn't made.

The Anti-Defamation League? Because those are the people who were making the claims.

The Anti-Defamation League? Right. And Jack Chick is a legitimate source when it comes to an informed opinion about role-playing games.

The film has been selectively screened (with subtitles, apparently - maybe they're necessary after all?) for people that share Gibson's religous beliefs.

CrusaderX beat me to the punch, and made a more decisive argument than I would have.

And speaking of David Horowitz, here's his opinion of the movie.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/index.asp

 

[Green Knight]

Gibson simply did not invite those who unfairly bashed his film before seeing it. And I don't blame him at all for doing this. It serves them right for hysterically jumping to conclusions. He owes absolutely nothing to those who would try to damage his reputation based on speculation.

Actually, he did invite a critic. But that reporter apparently couldn't be counted on to not try to stir up a ruckus and so was kicked out of the screening.

This is a film - it's art, not reality, not history. If Gibson was going for a perfect historical retelling of Christ's final days, he kinda messed that up when he let his casting director hire all those pale-skinned people.

Quick Note: It was filmed in Italy, so he really didn't have much choice in who got hired. He couldn't exactly film in the Middle East, considering things going on there, unless he wanted a suicide bombing on set every other day of the week.

But people standing around mutely, gesturing frantically without opening their mouths, would've been BEYOND silly.

 

[Wormwood]

Lots more footage here:

http://www.harvest.org/special/index.php/1/2/6.html

Looks awesome!

Reminds me of a Passion Play I saw in the Phillipines when I was very young.

 

[Villano]

You can read about the controversy and what started it all here:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/gibson.asp

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Bring something new to the table? So you want to see a movie which makes things up from whole cloth the way the Last Temptation of Christ did? Guess you have a different criteria then I do, because I prefer movies that stay as close to the source material as possible, especially when the subject matter involves history or religion (I'll spare you my "Pearl Harbor Sucks/Tora! Tora! Tora! Rules" rant).

Personally, the best thing he can do is NOT to "bring something new to the table".

You must have hated Braveheart.

He's not making a documentary, and neither was Scorsese (any more than Nikos Kazantzakis was writing a history textbook). Film is an artform, and we stopped having to be literal in artwork over a hundred years ago.

And if you want to get down to brass tacks, it's not like Last Temptation ended with Jesus pulling himself off the cross, his wounds healing like Wolverine's, and flying back to Jerusalem Superman-like to kick Pilate's ass. He does some stuff, hooks up with disciples, meets John the Baptist, raises Lazarus, causes a ruckus in Jerusalem, is convicted and crucified. Good enough for me, and better "history" than you usually get from Hollywood.

And you can "bring something new to the table," to quote myself , without altering the story one wit. Let's say you want to make a movie about Jesus. You type up "Christ" in IMDB and see that, wow, ever since they loosened up the Code they sure have made a lot of films about Jesus. What can I do, as a filmmaker, to do what hasn't been done before? I could tell it through Judas's or Mary Magdalene's eyes, or even Pilate's. OR, The Bible leaves out a big chunk of his life, I could fill in the blanks and talk about his youth. OR, heck, I could take the X-Files tack and say that Mary was abducted by the Greys and Jesus was some kind of hybrid alien mutant thingy.

I'm just saying, The Passion, aside from being pretty graphic, looks like every other Jesus movie I've ever seen, albeit filmed real purdy-like. Why see this when I've seen it a dozen times over before?

Unless it actually has the SuperJesus ending I mentioned above. Now that I'd pay top dollar to see.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

The Anti-Defamation League? Right. And Jack Chick is a legitimate source when it comes to an informed opinion about role-playing games.

And who WOULD you consider a legitimate source on what is anti-Semitic or not? The American Nazi Party? David Duke? Pharoah?

 

[Wormwood]

And who WOULD you consider a legitimate source on what is anti-Semitic or not? The American Nazi Party? David Duke? Pharoah?

I can't peak for him, but in my opinion it would be best to listen first to groups/individuals who come to the table without an agenda.

The ADL has basically taken the position that this film could re-ignite anti-jewish passions due to it's rather literalist portrayal of some of the Gospels.

They claim that if the film presented a more balanced and historically accurate viewpoint, it would be perhaps be acceptible.

The underlying point here is that the ADL has a problem not so much with Gibsons film as it does with the Gospels themselves.

Note that Gibson is partly to blame for this particular problem. He originally announced this film to be a 'historically acurate' representation of the last twelve hours of Jesus's life. In reality, he seemed to prefer an 'ecclesiastically accurate' rendition of certain events in the Gospels---heavily tilted to conform to his traditionalist Catholic viewpoint. A Passion Play, with all the blood and suffering movie magic could bring us.

As a fairly traditional Catholic myself (don't ask me about Vatican II), I'm very eagerly looking forward to it.

 

[lastelias2]

Please don't malign the ADL. They do a lot of good work on the behalf of Jews & minorities world wide. They are a good organization, and don't deserve scorn.

You can't blame a group for being concerned when a movie (cinema being a very powerful medium) is released that "supposedly" illustrates a 2000 year old claim that has caused death, persecution, and agony for centuries. With incidents of anti-Semitism on the rise everywhere, including a massive increase in attacks on synagogues and Jews in European countries, there is a reason for legitimate concern no matter how or who made the movie.

Your attempts to belittle this concern insults all of us who have suffered or had family members suffer from anti-Semitism. I am disappointed to see something as dangerous as anti-Semitism so causually dismissed on these usually very safe boards.