DIARY: Ruminations, Occasional thoughts & happenings - as they arise
The Crucifixion of Christ - according to Mel Gibson - Saturday 21 February 2004
I am most impressed by the first images I have seen of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ".
A few privileged people have seen the film in advance of its general release,
in America on Ash Wednesday (25 February) and in Europe during March and April.
Pope John Paul II is unofficially reported to have said
something like, "It is as it was." Billy Graham
was in tears. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Weisnthal Centre in Los
Angeles, fears that the film could promote anti-semitism. "It
denigrates the Jewish people," he says, and his fears would appear to be
justified by the remark of Richard Butler, founder of the Idaho based Aryan
Nations Movement, that "... Christians may finally get an idea of who the
enemy is." He would be using the film as a recruitment aid, he said.
Gibson himself, a fundamentalist Catholic who believes that
Vatican II reforms of the 1960s were mistaken* - presumably including the
Council's statement that the Jewish people were to be absolved from blame for
crucifying Jesus. He has refused to comment upon his 80-year old father's
view that the 2nd World War Holocaust was "mostly fiction".
Out of all of this it appears that this re-telling of the 12
hours leading up to the crucifixion of Christ is fairly exact and reliable, even
down to the dialogue being in Latin and Aramaic - with subtitles, thanks
be to God - for my Aramaic is fairly rusty!
I look forward to seeing it, and will report here when I
have.
REPORT:
A very moving film. I was horrified at the brutality of the Roman
soldiers, disgusted that men can behave with such brutality, then and now.
Things do not change.
Tears welled at the suffering experienced by the mother of
Jesus - truly a sword pierced her heart.
This is a film that all should see at least once. I
could not bear to se it again. What suffering our dear Lord went through
for us - for all of mankind through all time. God keep us in such love. He
really does join with us in our suffering and death.
The magnificence of his resurrection was poorly expressed by the film. Better to
have left it unexpressed, hinted at rather than pictured so inadequately.
* I have my own definite views about this! See Forty Years of Vatican II