Why do the armed men sent by the Jewish high priests take Jesus into custody at night? Gibson’s film never addresses the question, because a serious answer would have to take into account the officialdom's fear that the charismatic prophet’s detention might lead to popular protest. Jesus is arrested, through the treachery of his erstwhile disciple, Judas. Foreseeing what is to come, he asks God that the chalice might pass from him, adding, however, “your will be done.” A sinister, androgynous Satan tempts and taunts him (he/she reappears throughout the film). Gibson’s work, on the other hand, opens with Jesus’ internal struggle the night before the crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Most accounts of the Passion begin with this triumphant entry.
After all, only a few days before his death, according to the Gospels, Jesus was welcomed to the city by jubilant crowds. It also excludes the fact of his popularity with wide layers of the Jewish population in Jerusalem. The narrow scope of The Passion of the Christ renders impossible any serious discussion of Jesus’ religious and social message. The filmmaker asserts that he has limited himself to the last half-day of Jesus’ existence on earth to emphasize the “enormity of the sacrifice.” Other possible motivations suggest themselves. The entire frenzied, violent work is oddly unaffecting. The Passion of the Christ is also profoundly anti-Semitic in its imagery and narrative thrust. All the bloody, horrifying details are lovingly filmed. For two hours, virtually non-stop, a man is beaten, punched, spit upon, whipped, scourged, tortured and finally nailed to a cross. Gibson’s film is disgustingly brutal, perhaps unlike any other widely distributed film before it. Emmerich’s The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ adds sadistic details to the Gospel accounts and is filled with references to the “Jewish mob,” depicted as “cruel,” “wicked” and “hard-hearted.” The film treats the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life, as recounted in the four New Testament Gospels and other, later embellishments, particularly the version of the Passion set down by the German Augustinian nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a mystic and anti-Semite. Its lead performer, James Caviezel ( The Thin Red Line), is another devout Catholic, who announced on the Christian talk show “The 700 Club,” in late February, “I believe I was called to play this role.” Gibson first screened a rough cut of his film last year for Christian fundamentalists and other right-wing political and media figures, while excluding potentially critical voices. The movie actor privately financed The Passion of the Christ, filmed in Italy in Latin and Aramaic. Gibson senior describes the Second Vatican Council, which, among other things, officially absolved the Jewish people of responsibility for Christ’s death, as “a Masonic plot backed by the Jews.” His father, Hutton Gibson, is a Holocaust denier who has railed against the Church hierarchy for decades. Gibson, a leading man in numerous action and dramatic films over the past two decades, belongs to a traditionalist Catholic splinter group, one of the many sects that reject the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. The essential facts of The Passion’s production are now widely known. The film has also come under criticism in some quarters, particularly from liberal and Jewish commentators. It has made front-page headlines in every major newspaper and received wide play on television. Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid New York Post dedicated its front page to the film, as did the New York Daily News. By and large, the American media has treated the film with great respect. The Passion of the Christ opened to great fanfare in the US last week and has attracted a large audience, especially among the fundamentalist Christian faithful. In that sense, Gibson’s film is far less a work of theology, much less a serious artistic effort, than a revealing, quasi-autobiographical cri de coeur-and deserves to be treated as such. While offering no contribution to our understanding of Jesus’ life or his teachings, or the relation of religion to modern life (even from the point of view of a believer), it does provide insight into a certain contemporary American mentality and mood. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a deeply repugnant film, but not an insignificant one. The Passion of the Christ, directed by Mel Gibson, screenplay by Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald