MARCH 2004

Zeffirelli understands the Problem with "the Passion"

In Rome, the veteran Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli, who himself made a controversial film about the life of Christ, said Gibson was "sinisterly attracted to the most unrestrained violence".

 

In an article for the newspaper Corriere della Sera, Zeffirelli wrote: "[In America] mothers want at all costs for their children to see the film... What conclusion will children in particular be able to draw from it other than that the Jews were to blame for all that bloodshed? This way we set ourselves back centuries."
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www.cloakanddagger.ca criticise :
S.Skolnick and L Bloom

Mel's movie as to the last hours of the deity on Earth, Jesus Christ, is ballyhooed as having been made to accurately depict what happened.

 

Yet, the Jesus shown is of the height, color, and look of present day Americans/Europeans. Males of Eastern Mediterranean areas of two thousand years ago were dark-complexioned, and at an average height of five foot three inches, not five-foot nine or ten inches. ["What Did Jesus Really Look Like", story with pictures, by David Gibson(no relation to Mel), New York Times, 2/21/2004.] And Mel's movie shows Jews dressed and looking very much like current Ultra-Orthdox Jews, in the U.S. and in Israel. Did their prayer shawls two thousand years ago look identical to those worn nowadays? The movie fosters images that are surely much more than subliminal triggers.

 

To show Jesus as dark-complexioned would set off great commotions among movie-ticket buyers. People of color around the world, including Afro-Americans might cause big noise by loudly proclaiming, "I told you! Jesus was black, a person of color!" Whites as the expected largest number of those going to see the movie, might feel afronted. A detailed consideration of the biblical details would show that Jesus, in fact, was non-white. And why did Mel Gibson NOT show THAT?

 

We understand that a black movie-maker is in the works with a production that would show Jesus Christ as biblically and historically correct non-white, which would shake-up the Mel Gibsons of the world as to their fake Euro-Centric supposed version of history. A side issue is that such a production would give needed support to the economy of Ethiopia which offers to supply accurate depicting of scenes and performers.

 

Do the American/British monopoly press show or describe the Iraqis as "people of color"? Is there any sympathy shown for the innocent men, women, and children of Iraq, continually slaughtered by the American foreign invaders?

 

A question perhaps for bible scholars: In brutalizing Jesus Christ, the deity on Earth, did the Jews/Romans not seek to humiliate him?

Politics, passion in Mel Gibson¹s depiction of Jesus
Excerpts By: Habib C. Malik
The Daily Star Opinion DS 24/02/04


Of all the advance praise the film has elicited, one phrase sticks in my mind as capturing the essence of the work: ³An icon in motion.² The Pieta, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the great Russian Orthodox icons, all present riveting snapshots of the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Gibson¹s The Passion, however, offers two hours of total immersion in the finest specimen of Christian art brought to life through authentic visuals and mesmerizing sounds. It literally transports the viewer back to the year 33 AD, to that Passover in Jerusalem, to those final 12 hours of Jesus¹ earthly life.

Helping create this convincing setting and distancing audiences from Hollywood are the languages used in the film: Aramaic and Latin. English subtitles are provided, but kept to a minimum and serve, so to speak, as a ³page locator.²

.......
Gibson is a devout Catholic living a stable marriage with seven children. Although very much a Hollywood superstar, he is light years away from the decadence and ³new ageism² associated with that place. He has built a church near his home in Malibu where every morning he has a Catholic priest conduct mass in Latin for him and whoever wishes to attend. His preference for the Latin mass has been used by some of his critics to suggest he is not on good terms with the Holy See, and that he rejects the outcome of the Second Vatican Council, which, among other things, allowed for mass to be said in any language. But to my knowledge the council never forbade or abolished the Latin mass; it simply opened up that time-honored form of sacramental worship to all the remaining languages of humankind.

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This has turned out to be probably the most talked-about movie before its release in the history of filmmaking. Over the past several months a number of articles sharply critical of the film and its director have appeared in American newspapers and magazines. Prominent among these were commentaries by Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, by Frank Rich in the New York Times, the liberal theology professor Paula Fredriksen in the New Republic, Peter Boyer in the New Yorker and, most recently, Jon Meacham in Newsweek. What they all had in common was an insistence that a literal reading of the gospel accounts of Jesus¹ Passion is a dangerous thing that is neither ethically nor theologically warranted.

........ There are many Christian Arab communities scattered throughout the Middle East, where viewers would be advised to approach this film as a magnificent artistic production cradling a spiritual experience through which the believer is invited to reflect upon the Lord¹s supreme redemptive act of love for all peoples everywhere. Much good could come out of Gibson¹s Passion if it is viewed with the proper spectacles.

Habib C. Malik teaches history and cultural studies at the Lebanese American
University. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star

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