When do subtitles start in The Passion of the Christ (2004)?

Here's a question from the "you asked, I answer" pile: When do subtitles start in The Passion of the Christ (2004)? 

This really depends on which version you're watching, but there are subtitles in the opening scene where Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Sometimes people are caught out because the first words Jesus speaks aren't subtitled. So actually the first line which appear in the subtitles is just "Peter".

This is when (going by the timer/time bar) the various version have this line:

  - UK 1-disc DVD (2004) – 0h 2m 15s

  - Amazon Prime streaming – 0h 2m 22s

I'll look to add details from more versions if I find them. If you have access to a different version of the film I'd be grateful if you'd email me or drop something in the comments to let me know and I'll update the post.

Other Posts on The Passion
Here are some of my other posts about The Passion of the Christ (2004).

  How The Passion of the Christ Wrong-footed Hollywood
  Caiaphas and Jabba the Hutt in Gibson's Passion
  Text and Interpretation in The Passion of the Christ
  The Passion Without Subtitles
  Film: A New Passion (Preview written prior to the film's release in 2004)

  Bible Films Podcast: The Passion of the Christ (2004)
  My original review: The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Book me or read me
If you're interested in Jesus films like this then you might enjoy my book "100 Bible Films" which not only covers around 50 Jesus films, but another 50 that cover the rest of the Bible, going right back to the first still-in-existence Jesus film from 1898.

You can read more about it here: 100 Bible Films.

I also love to do talks, podcasts etc. If you're interested in having me to speak drop me a line.

Still No Real News on The Passion of the Christ 2: The Resurrection

About a year ago a strange thing happened. Noticing IMDb had a poster image for a sequel to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) I began preparing a blog post on the subject. After all despite the rumours of a sequel about the resurrection that have swirled for roughly the last fifteen years, none of them had ever really seemed substantive enough to actually write up. Yet when I sat down a couple of days to write the thing the page was empty. The body poster had gone. Actually it was probably a fake poster designed by a fan, which IMDb swiftly took down once they were alerted to the fact.

However, there has been a fresh flurry of headlines about the film in the last few weeks following an interview that Jim Cavaziel, the star of the original film (my review), gave to Fox Nation. It was Easter after all.

Sadly, I'm not able to comment on the interview as it's not available in the UK, but that didn't seem to be a problem for our tabloid The Daily Express who also published an article on it containing most of the pertinent parts and there were a few more bits in a piece by Fox News.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this story is Caviezel is still lined up to play the title role. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) star was 36 when The Passion came out in 2004; if the sequel - which has the working title The Resurrection - comes out as planned next Easter, then Caviezel will, by then, be 52. To put that in context, H.B. Warner, the oldest actor yet to play Jesus in a major biopic, was 51 when his role in DeMille's silent The King of Kings arrived in cinemas in 1927. While my long-time ally Peter Chattaway noted recently that actors playing Jesus have been getting older, this would still make Caviezel the oldest. And that's assuming that Easter 2021 is even remotely realistic. Given there's been no news of filming (certainly Caviezel doesn't mention it) and the current situation with the Coronavirus, it's starting to seem unlikely.

What Caviezel did say seemed somewhat underwhelming. He confirmed the script is on it's fifth draft and said he "It's going to be a masterpiece. It's gonna be the biggest film in world history, I believe it will be based on what I feel in my heart." He then made some comments about how easy it is to get super hero films made relative to Bible movies and that he will get "to play the greatest superhero there ever was."

All of which is much less interesting that the details Gibson himself has given. In an October 2016 interview with USA Today he said "We’re trying to craft this in a way that’s cinematically compelling and enlightening so that it shines new light, if possible, without creating some weird thing". Earlier that year Gibson was interviewed by megachurch pastor Greg Laurie and explained Randall Wallace, who wrote the Braveheart script, was looking at the screenplay. The relevant bit starts at 3:30. He also said:

"That's a very big subject and it needs to be looked at because we don't want to just do a simple rendering of it. We can all read what happened but in order to experience and explore probably deeper meanings of what's about, it's going to take some doing

Then in November 2016, he had this interview with Stephen Colbert where, explaining the scale of the film he was planning:

"It's more than a single event, it's an amazing event and to underpin that with the things around it, is really the story, to enlighten what that means. It's not just about the event, it's not some kind of chronological telling of just that event, that could be boring."

His interest isn't in a straight telling, but asking the question "what are the other things around it that happen?" When Colbert queried if there were any "bad guys" Gibson replied "There are. They're in another realm. Sure. You're going all over the place. What happened in three days?...I'm not sure but it's worth thinking about isn't it"

This seems to tie in with this interview with Raymond Arroyo from around the same time where Gibson explains

"It's not the Burnett version. It's not man comes back walks through walls, has holes in hands, eats a piece of fish. It's a vast theological experience and I think you need to delve into what that means in a way that you take that as the centrepiece and you juxtapose against many things that go on around it and in other realms so that...it gets pretty wild. It's like an acid trip."

When Arroyo asked if it was nearly ready, Gibson indicated not:

"It just keeps revealing itself more and more the further you get into it, everything from the fall of the angels to the... it's just crazy...It's opens up all these channels...It’s like, why didn’t they recognise him on the way to Emmaus, y'know?

Finally, in another Autumn 2016 interview (this was during the promotional tour for Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge) he gave an interview to Deadline where he explained The Resurrection as "Sort of a sequel, that moves on from the Resurrection, but jumps back before, after, back to the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a pre-figurement of everything and the New…you can correlate them in an uncanny way."

One of the things that always seemed odd to me growing up was the line in the Apostles Creed that says that Jesus "descended into Hell". The biblical justification for all this is fairly tenuous, but the "Harrowing of Hell" is an ancient tradition and it sounds to me like this is what Gibson is working on.

If so, that will be interesting for two reasons. Firstly, because in the run up to The Passion Gibson promised a film that would show events "just the way it happened", but actually delivered a whole load of supernatural (and some would say "horror") elements happening on another level. From the sounds of it, the sequel could either follow a similar pattern, or even largely abandon the pursuit of "realism" in favour of something more fantastical (for want of a better word).

Secondly, it looks from the megachurch clip above that this will be marketed heavily towards the evangelicals who turned out in spades to "support" The Passion. If so it will be interesting to see how well that works. Evangelicals don't tend to talk too much about the Harrowing of Hell - as I say the Bible doesn't talk about it much and so aside from a few hangover traditions from more traditional churches, and the agreement that Jesus' death beat the devil it's something no-one ever seems too keen to flesh out. Of course similar points were made about traditions about the stations of the cross and meditations on Christ's wounds, only for those who made them to be fairly surprised how the film did, so it will be interesting to see if something similar happens if, and indeed when, this film makes it to cinemas.

How The Passion of the Christ Wrong-footed Hollywood

Whilst the late nineties had proved a fruitful time for television and church backed projects, by the turn of the century the major studios had considered the Bible film genre was dead. The experimental period had provided some success with smaller projects, but the vitriol, and indeed threat to life, faced by the makers of Last Temptation of Christ had led them to the conclusion that any similar projects were extremely risky; if anything the Christian right which mobilised itself in response to the film had grown in size, influence and power. Yet at the same time, with falling church attendances and subject matter so significantly at odds with the zeitgeist of the new millennium, it seemed unlikely that a Biblical Epic could find a large enough audience to cover its production costs, let alone prove profitable.

Such was the degree of scepticism that even a major Hollywood star, who had enjoyed success with an historical epic at the box office and with critics, was unable to find backing for film about the death of Jesus. Part of this was perhaps due to the uncompromising vision of Gibson's film. Rather than a family friendly, bland Jesus film such as The Greatest Story Ever Told it would be ultra violent and in a foreign language. If Hollywood Execs had even considered the possibilities for a moment, they would have swiftly dismissed the possibility of a Christian audience turning up en masse for a violent, R-rated film.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, and we now all know the end of the story. Rejected by every major studio, and no doubt a few minor ones along the way, Gibson decided to fund the project himself. He spun the studios rejection into a David and Goliath story, worked tirelessly to pitch it to church audiences and gain the support of their leaders, and, as a result, the film made a huge profit. The resulting success spawned a myriad of new Biblical Epics, both at the cinema and on television, but, as with the supposed Golden Era, whilst some proved successful many have failed to find an audience.

In many cases this is because the studios that failed to predict The Passion's success, continued to mis-diagnose the reasons why it proved successful. Much of the failure of the subsequent films suggests that those responsible for green-lighting these projects had drawn the wrong conclusions. I want to highlight some (and I stress "some") of the reasons why The Passion did well and perhaps why subsequent releases did not.

Fragmentation and Tribal Identities
If 2016 taught us anything (and it seems clear that for many people it did not) it's that we're living in increasingly factionalised times, times where the different factions are not only becoming more and more distinct from those in other factions, but where each is starting to get caught in a self-reinforcing bubble, where the stories, news, beliefs and practice of those within one bubble bear very little relation to those of other factions.

For decades filmmakers and promoters tried to try and hold the different factions together in the hope of appealing to enough of them to make their product worthwhile. What Gibson did however was to ignore very large sectors of the market in order to focus more squarely on other factions. So very few of the middle class, city-dwelling, younger audience have seen Gibson's film. Indeed I get the impression that the majority look at it with disdain. But for practising Christians from more conservative households, Gibson's uncompromising vision was exactly what they felt they had not been served by the Hollywood system.

One of Gibson's key approaches, then, was not to bother to court the whole population, but to focus on the conservative, church-going population. He figured if he could get them on side in sufficiently large numbers then he didn't need to attract those from ourside that demographic. This was the basket into which he put all his eggs, and it paid off.

Grassroots, word of mouth and social media
Gibson also rejected the more traditional top-down marketing approach of spending a huge amount in buying premium media advertising space and reinforcing the message again and again. Instead he practically reinvented the grassroots campaign. Focusing in on his demographic he realised that church leaders held the key. By both dazzling them with his star power (humbly attending their conferences), focusing on their common ground (e.g. a "manly" Jesus, a traditional version of the story), building a strongly persausive case for the areas where their preferences may have differed initially (e.g. using original languages) and speaking their language ("The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film...I was just directing traffic."), he got church leaders on board. Not only were they interested in his project, but they were fully on board, convinced that this created an opportunity to forward their agenda ("an evangelistic opportunity"). Ultimately they were so convinced that not only did they encourage, and in some cases direct, their congregations to buy tickets for the film (thus doing the job of marketing) they also booked out cinemas and sold tickets en masse (thus also doing the job of sales).

Whist this was before the advent of social media as we know it today (before the emergence of Facebook and Twitter) there was still an enormous amount of sharing on websites, blogs and discussion fora. For example, the Arts and Faith forum where I was active at the time had both a -pre-release thread and a post-release thread adding up to over 1150 posts between them. And the film's marketing team didn't need to buy advertising space in the various glossy Christian magazines, as they were all covering the film in their features sections. It was, after all, what everyone was talking about.

Subsequent Bible filmmakers have also tried to promote their films by these routes, by emulating much of what Gibson did. Whilst it was unlikely that any film would reproduce The Passion's success, there have been very few real successes and it is notable that when the two big Bible films of 2014 were released this strategy was relegated to being only a minor player. Part of this is due to audience fatigue - as the novelty of being courted wore off each new appeal generated less interest - but also a lot of the subsequent pitches to churches failed to capture what Gibson brought. Yes some of that was the kind of star power that very few could bring, but there were other aspects of the appeal to churches that were not picked up on that might have been easier to reproduce and I want to look at one or two of those now.

Muscular Christianity
As alluded to above, Gibson's Jesus was a "manly" Jesus. In the run up to the film's release he talked several times about the weaknesses of previous silver-screen Christs and it was not hard to imagine that he was often referring to the slender Robert Powell in Jesus of Nazareth (see the various quotes in my old piece "Film: A New Passion"). Instead Gibson produced the most violent Jesus film ever made and presented his hero as a figure who was not unlike the Martin Riggs character that Gibson played in Lethal Weapon (1987). Like Riggs Gibson's Jesus could suffer immense pain and yet instead of giving up would come back for more (such as the flagellation scene where Jesus defiantly drags himself to his feet after an already heavy beating). Gibson's William Wallace also comes to mind.

What's interesting about this is that certain sections of the church have traditionally protested against sex and violence on our screens. There's an argument to say that these are not all the same groups of people, and certainly there's some truth in that. At the same time think there are many who would hold to that argument in general but would make exceptions in certain cases such as this.

Later Bible films, like The Nativity Story (2006) reverted to the model of Bible Films as family friendly fare. It flopped. In contrast one of the few productions to take a more violent approach to the scriptures, 2013's The Bible proved more successful. It's perhaps an uncomfortable conclusion but, for me, the Passion's violence was part of the reason it was so successful with the Christian market. That might seem like a shocking thing to say, and is perhaps an uncomfortable opinion, yet the filmmakers could not have been more clear about the film's level of violence. "By the time [audiences] get to the crucifixion scene, I believe there will be many who can't take it and will have to walk out - I guarantee it" actor Jim Caviezel said as part of the film's promotion and there is a profusion of similar quotes.¹ Indeed most of the claims about the film's historical accuracy were really claims about the film's 'accurate' depiction of the violence to which Jesus was subjected.

This was a message that strong appealed to many Christians. Fed up of being seem as effeminate for following Jesus they yearned for a films such as Gibson's which reaffirmed that following Christ was not a slur on one's manhood. This leads nicely into the next reason for the film's success.

The Religious Right's Persecution Complex
For years now many parts of evangelical Christianity - on both sides of the Atlantic - have had something of a persecution complex. This seems to exist in spite of the fact that many Christians in other parts of the world are actually being persecuted and tortured for their faith. So the incredibly rare stories of staff being asked not to wear religious symbols, or not being allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexuality have been used to stir up tremendous feeling in the UK. In the US there's been no shortage of claims that Christianity is under attack. It's no coincidence that the most visited article on my whole blog is the one that explains that the rumours about a film being made about a gay Jesus are false.

To an audience soaked in this mindset Gibson's tale of his struggle to find funding for his pet project struck a familiar chord. How typical of the liberal elitist Hollywood to reject such a film, and so it quickly rallied people to Gibson's "cause". A similar things happened recently with Donald Trump's ascent to the presidency. Trump played the card of Christian persecution and found an evangelical base that voted 81% in his favour. He continues to claim he is being persecuted even though he is now the most powerful man in the world.

By pitting himself as some sort of David against an anti-Christian Hollywood Goliath, Gibson grew a huge base of support all who shared his passion to see a decent portrayal of Jesus to supplant the weak film Christs of King of Kings and Jesus Christ, Superstar. No-one really stopped to ask what kind of David had enough personal wealth to be able to sink £25 million dollars into making the film on their own. Nor what he would do with all the profit if it proved to be successful.

What is most troubling about this reason behind the film's success is not the opposition Gibson faced initially, when trying to make the film, but the way he handled the questions people raised about the content of the film. Many, on hearing that Gibson had used Katherine Emmerich's ant-Semitic "Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" as one of his major sources, were concerned that the film too would be anti-Semitic. Instead of listening to these voices, seeking to learn from them, act, amend any content that he'd not previously realised would prove troubling and promote the film with even greater endorsement, he chose instead to go to war. He again played the persecution card, marking out those who questioned the film's potential for anti-Semitism as a powerful enemy when they lacked even a fraction of the resources he possessed. Sadly this further rallied many parts of the church to his defence, many of whom failed even to see the significant difference between the words in scripture and the interpretation of those words in a film. Buying a ticket for the film became seen as a way of supporting Gibson, and by extension the Bible, against those who would criticise it.

Supernatural Endorsement
One other thing which is notable about the marketing of this film, which has tended to be absent in later biblical films is the way Gibson used different forms of supernatural endorsement for his film. This is in fact nothing new and goes back to several of the Jesus films from the silent era. DeMille for example used some of the self-same methods. There are at least four different strands here.

Firstly there are the claims for inspiration. The most famous is Gibson's claim "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic"². Even at the time I remember there being debate about whether this was a 'pitch' or Gibson's genuine belief (and perhaps it was both), but certainly it had the effect of persuading people that it was something they should go and see. Enough people believed the film was, in some way God inspired.

Secondly there were the accounts of miracles as well as what will have sounded, to many, as attacks from the enemy. The most memorable of these are the claims that twice people were struck by lightning during the filming of the crucifixion (including leading actor Jim Caviezel). In previous generations that might have been seen as God being against the film rather than in favour of it, but here the fact that one of them "just got up and walked away" was taken as evidence that God was protecting the cast and crew.³. In the same piece Gibson also talked about "people being healed of diseases".⁴

The third way, which also crops up in on of the pieces that was circulated long before the film's release, is the mention of conversions during filming. "Everyone who worked on this movie was changed. There were agnostics and Muslims on set converting to Christianity".⁵ this ties in with Gibson's hope that the film would have the "power to evangelise"⁶. This later theme was picked up by church leaders who began to market the film, on Gibson's behalf, as an evangelistic tool.

Lastly there is that infamous almost-endorsement by the Pope. Whether or not the Pope really said "It is as it was" and the story behind the quotes hasty retraction is irrelevant, that became the story and the endorsement of it from the church's high office. Even though the majority of those buying tickets may not have been Roman Catholics, the words attributed to the Pope became gospel and even if he didn't actually say them, his team weren't fighting too desperately to retract them. This combined with Gibson's unsubstantiated claims for historical accuracy gave the film further credibility - a crucial criterion for many evangelicals.

In addition to these three factors there are also three further lessons that could be picked up from The Passion's success.

The Growing Christian Audience
Gibson's genius was to realise that there was a growing Christian audience out there who would respond positively to the right product. This audience had not had a great deal of specifically tailored quality content in the years leading up to The Passion's release and it's questionable as to whether they've had a great deal of it since. America's culture wars and the emergence of a more vocal form of Christianity, prepared to show its loyalty to the brand had created a growing, and in some ways new, market. Whilst many of the films that have subsequently sought to exploit that market have failed, a greater number have succeeded than ever did before.

Diminishing Influence of (Liberal) Experts
One of the quotes that so typified the Brexit debate in the UK was the pronouncement of the (then) Lord Chancellor Michael Gove that the "people in this country have had enough of experts". With similar sentiments being felt on the other side of the Atlantic as well it reminds me of how many people spoke out about the more problematic aspects of the film (the excessive violence, the anti-Semitism, etc.) without causing any change in the final film, or any significant impact on its box office success. The not-at-that-point disgraced Ted Haggard's claim that the film "conveys, more accurately than any other film, who Jesus was"⁷ was repeated far more times than those of biblical scholars, with their expert knowledge of the gospels and the world in which Jesus lived and ministered. Many objections by those who had a greater knowledge of the relevant issues were waved away in the rush to endorse such a powerful evangelistic tool. The article I had written for a Christian magazine weighing the pros and cons of the forthcoming film (available here), for example, was dropped at the last minute for one talking about how it was going to usher thousands of new converts to Christianity. Not that I'm bitter (I am).

Diminishing Influence of Film Critics
Not unrelated to the above, a pattern has emerged subsequently in the Christian press surrounding the release of major new Bible films. When such a film is released numerous Christian magazines turn not to their in-house film critic, or even to an experienced Christian film critic, but to a popular/influential leader and/or speaker instead who will give their opinions on the likelihood of the film "reaching" those outside the church or how the film coincides with their own personal idea of what Jesus was like.

But this is not just a problem with the church. In the decade and a bit since the release of the film it has become increasingly clear that the majority of people don't really care, or even agree with, what film critics say. Few, if any, of the top performing films at the box office will appear on critics' end of year lists and whilst Oscar nominations will boost a film's earnings, they are hardly a predictor for financial success (and many critics look down on the Oscar nominations which the general population often considers too highbrow). Back in early 2004 critics were not exactly expecting great things from The Passion. The studios valued such opinions then and perhaps even shared them. Today they would be unlikely to take them seriously. Film critics no longer have the power to derail a movie let alone one with the power to evangelise.


1 - Holly McClure - New York Daily News - A very violent 'Passion' (reproduced here). January 26, 2003.
2 - Kamon Simpson - Colorado Springs Gazette - "Mel Gibson brings movie to city's church leaders" - June 28, 2003
3 - Holly McClure - New York Daily News - A very violent 'Passion' (reproduced here). January 26, 2003.
4 - Holly McClure - ibid.
5 - Kamon Simpson - Colorado Springs Gazette - "Mel Gibson brings movie to city's church leaders" - June 28, 2003
6 - Kamon Simpson - ibid.
7 - Kamon Simpson - ibid.

Bellucci: From Malèna to Magdalena

Whilst the path the film treads is not unpredictable, you might want to look away if you've not seen it as I'm going to give away a few key spoilers.

As I'm heading to Roman this week, I watched the 2000 Italian film Malèna last week. The film, set during the Second World War stars Monica Bellucci as a woman who receives news of her husband's death in combat and as a result has to fend for herself against the town's more predatory inhabitants. As might be expected Bellucci's character, Melèna, has a considerable number of suitors, not least the teenage narrator whose desire for Melèna leads to voyeurism. Her other suitors however are less keen to keep their distance with many seeking to exploit her lack of finances for their own sexual desires.

At the same time Melèna's reputation with the town's women is getting worse and worse leading her to greater isolation and desperation. Ultimately she ends up fraternising with the Nazis and so when the way ends and the Nazis leave she is left to face the town's ire. What begins as a celebration of the town's liberation ends with Melèna being dragged from the barracks in front of a baying crowd, stripped, beaten and then having her hair cut off. The scene (from which the above image is taken) is strongly reminiscent of John 8:2-10 - the woman caught in adultery, and, of course, with Bellucci also playing this role four years later in The Passion of the Christ it's not hard to make a connection. I don't know if Gibson had seen this film - or even just this clip - when he made the film, but certainly the way it is staged and shot contains many similarities, as does the way Bellucci performs it.

However, in contrast to The Passion, this film's lead does not intervene to rescue the woman at the centre of the mob. He waits, and watches, certain that he should step in, but too afraid to do the right thing. For those used to such scenes featuring Jesus - or any of a number of heroes from similar scenes in other genres - the lack of intervention is agonising.

There are a number of other interesting links with Mary Magdalene in this film as well. Firstly there is the idea of Melèna as a fallen woman. Whilst it's church tradition, rather than the Bible, that has portrayed her so, its certainly part of the reason why that scene resonates so much.

Not unrelated to this is Melèna's changing image, most notably from a brunette to a red-head to a bleach blonde. This is perhaps rather tenuous, but there is something about Magdalene's transformation that could be expressed as a reinvention or a change of image.

More importantly there is the way the film finishes with the reappearance of Malèna's husband - a resurrection of sorts - who returns as a heroic if scarred figure who restores Malèna to wholeness once again. And perhaps thanks to her admirer being economical with the truth, he sees her without sin. Perhaps its because I am also thinking a lot about Jesus of Montreal at the moment, but I found the way the film explores truth, the perception of truth, oral transmission, kind lies and vicious lies to be very interesting.

Incidentally I believe I only watched the international cut of this film. There is, apparently, also a scene which was cut from this version which shows Malèna playing the part of Mary the Mother of Jesus as part of some kind of religious pageant (see it here). It seems to me that this changes the meaning of story massively. I'm still thinking over the impact of that.

Concept Art for Passion of the Christ

One of the things that is interesting about researching a subject such as this is how often you turn up something interesting whilst you're in the process of hunting for another thing entirely. Thus it was that, the other day, I came across the concept art pages for The Passion of the Christ by Miles Teves. In his resume, Teves dates his work on the film to 2002, so its interesting to see the extent to which his work made it into the final film.

It's good to see images such as this making into the public domain. Whilst I don't have a special features laden edition of the DVD, I imagine some of this material is there to some extent, but it's still interesting to see this part of the process evolve, particularly for such a visual film.

What to Make of the Latest Story in the Mel Gibson Saga...

A lot has been said over the last couple of weeks about the latest stories about Mel Gibson. I'm always nervous about believing something just because the papers say so, but with audio recordings being online for anyone to hear, its difficult not to take it all at face value.

So I'll try to restrict myself to considering how these latest incidents might affect how we read The Passion of the Christ. For example, Kim Masters, in an article for The Hollywood Reporter quotes an anonymous producer who claims that "if he [Gibson] were to make The Passion of the Christ today, it wouldn't do a dime less business".

That seems to be a fairly outlandish claim. Not a dime less business? Not one person who bought a ticket last time might be put off this time? Peter Chattaway takes it from there:

The Passion of the Christ owed a huge portion of its success to the churches that bought out entire theatres and gave the tickets away, all in the name of "ministry" -- and one huge reason why the churches did this was because they bought into the "narrative" of Gibson's life and career, i.e. he was a devout Christian who had lost his way during the early days of his Hollywood fame but he had begun to turn his life around about a decade or so before he made The Passion.
...whatever the film's merits, I find it hard to believe that Gibson could have sold this film to North American churches today the way he did six or seven years ago. I find it hard to believe that churches would have wanted to associate with Gibson in the absence of some major, major public apologies -- and even then, I would think these scandals are "too soon".

Part of the problem here is, I think, that its far from clear what scenario is being envisaged. It seems fair to assume that the producer in question isn't talking about Gibson making The Passion again - that would be absurd, but imagining a scenario whereby Gibson didn't make the film then but made it in 2010 is equally problematic. For one thing, it seems unlikely that these latest stories, and Gibson's anti-Semitic outburst in 2006, would have gained quite as much publicity as they did were it not for The Passion. Gibson wouldn't have had the money or the fame to make Apocalypto without the profit from The Passion and whilst he did appear in Edge of Darkness it seems unlikely that these stories would have been such major news if it was the only film he had done in 7 or 8 years. Furthermore, these stories are all the more headline grabbing not just because they were about a movie star, but because they were about a movie star with such strong religious convictions that he made the most successful religious film of all time. Hypocrisy always sells.

Not entirely unrelated to that is furore around Gibson's anti-Semitic outburst of 2006. Whilst most, if not all, racist remarks by movie stars would be disapproved of by the media, this story had extra legs precisely because The Passion had been so strongly accused of anti-Semitism. Gibson's outburst was perceived by many as clear proof of those accusations, making the story more newsworthy.

That said, it's possible that the '"narrative" of Gibson's life and career', as Peter puts it, could still be spun in a way that might garner church support. Gibson's life could be depicted as one where he has battled with his faith, but has felt God with him and as a way of saying thank-you he wants to make a film about Jesus with 'the power to evangelize". I don't think the take up would be anything like as great, but I could still see it doing well, albeit with the kind of 'public apologies' that Peter insists would be required.

However, in the light of the anti-Semitic outburst, any such film would have to be substantially different in its handling of the Jews than The Passion was in order for it to be widely embraced. In 2004, many Christians felt that accusations of ant-Semitism were trumped by Gibson's perceived fidelity to the gospels. But in the light of that outburst, and perhaps even the subsequent learning/counselling from Jewish groups that Gibson said he would undergo, it seems likely either that Gibson would make the film differently, or that at least some church leaders would have had second thoughts about embracing the movie so unreservedly.

The other major criticism of The Passion, of course, was that it was too violent, and this, also, looks a little different in the light of these latest allegations. For me, the most disturbing part of the tapes is when Oksana seems to ask Gibson "What kind of a man is that? Hitting a woman when she’s holding a child in her hands? Breaking her teeth twice in the face! What kind of man is that?" and rather than deny it he appears only to say that she "deserved it". Now it appears pretty hard evidence, but I'm painfully aware of how even something like this could be misleading, so what I'm about to say should be read bearing that in mind.

Nevertheless, in the light of all this, the violence in many of Gibson's film seems somewhat more worrying, whether it was in the name of revenge (Mad Max), against himself (the dislocating his shoulder scene in one of the Lethal Weapon films and Wallace's death in Braveheart) and his saviour (in The Passion).

The Passion gave us what is far and away the most violent depiction of the crucifixion to date. If Gibson has beaten Oksana, does it change how we read it? Is The Passion a sub-concious lashing out at Jesus. Is it a reflection of the horror that he feels at his own sin, such that he goes so over the top in depicting the extent to which Jesus had to suffer in order to atone for it, beating himself by proxy so to speak? Or does Gibson somehow let the violence sees God impose on Jesus justify his own violent outbursts? Furthermore, does this incident shed any new light on the long standing discussion about whether violent movies result in a more violent society?

Lastly, I feel its important to state that I'm troubled by the way that so many of the areas around this discussion have become completely polarised: racist/not racist, violent/not violent, anti-Semitic/not anti-Semitic. It seems to me that we are all made up of the various influences on our lives. Some of those influences might encourage us to reject other ones, but it's not always easy to totally purge oneself of such negative influences.

Gibson's father is on record as a holocaust denier, and it's hard to see how Gibson Jr. won't have been influenced by that. At the same time, he clearly knows that it's wrong - he said as much after his 2006 outburst and there are signs of him curbing the excesses of Anne Catherine Emmerich's work in his adaptation of it, even if he wasn't able to do it to the extent that he should have. It's significant, to me at least, that this outburst happened when he was drunk and therefore the controls that he might place himself under in ordinary life weren't there. That doesn't excuse such comments or actions, but at the same time, the idea that it exposed 'the real Gibson' is too simplistic a take for my liking. Our self control is a part of the real us. Similarly, whilst the conversation with Oksana is horrendous, it's significant that Whoopi Goldberg has appeared on record saying he's not racist, and then had to defend herself because of her comments.

Now just because Whoopi Goldberg says something it doesn't mean it's true, but I do think that racism has become such an inflammatory topic these days that it's holding back our society from truly freeing ourselves from it. Even the British Nationalist Party says its not racist, whereas, in truth, I suspect that most of us harbour some unhelpful influences that we know are wrong and thus suppress. Until the term becomes less potent, I think it's going to be difficult to completely purge racism from our society.

The Atonement in Jesus Films

I've been struck recently by how few of the many Jesus films offer any kind of theological interpretation of the crucifixion. In a sense this makes sense for the big Hollywood films such as King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told which needed the broadest possible appeal to recoup their production costs, but even in films made by Christians this is relatively rare. In saying this I am, of course, setting aside the sayings of Jesus relating to his own death - aside from Mark 10:45, these are usually fairly cryptic.

Brief examples are found in From the Manger to the Cross (1912) and Jesus (1979) which both end by citing John 3:16 (thus offering a brief interpretation of the crucifixion as an act of atonement).

Only three films really stand out for me. The first is Jesus of Nazareth (1977) which obviously has a great deal more time to explore such issues. As Jesus is dying, the camera cuts to Nicodemus (played by Laurence Olivier) who quotes from the suffering servant portion of Isaiah 53 as a commentary on the events that are unfolding.

We also find Isaiah 53 in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Throughout the film Jesus is unsure of which path he is to take, but then the prophet himself (played by the film’s director Martin Scorsese) appears to him and shows him the suffering servant part of the passage and Jesus is persuaded that he has to sacrifice himself.

The film also uses the colour red a great deal, evoking blood as well as power. When Jesus is tempted in the devil he bites into an apple and ends up with blood on his face. Shortly afterwards is the infamous scene where he pulls his heart out of his chest, and to underline the point the scene is captured with red lighting. Later, during Jesus’ first visit to the temple, blood red smoke billows up around a statue of Caesar, whilst blood flowing from a nearby sacrifice is licked up by dogs. Then as Jesus throws a money-changer's stall into the air a Roman coin lands next to blood dripping from a different sacrifice. Here the old system is depicted as mixing the blood of Jewish sacrifices with Roman idolatry, whereas Jesus’ quickly actions mark "the end of the old law and the beginning of the new". In addition to all this, is the instigation of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Not only does the film portray the cup of wine literally becoming blood, but blood is also shown on Jesus' palms as a nod, not only to the stigmata, but also to Jesus own fate.

The film which explores the blood of Jesus in greater depth than any other to date is, of course, The Passion of the Christ (2004). The film also quotes Isaiah 53:5 this time just before its opening scene. This is the lens that the rest of the film should be viewed through, and the penal substitution theory of the atonement is present throughout. That said, as Mark Goodacre has pointed out:

There is no question that The Passion of the Christ focuses in a major way on a substitutionary theory of the atonement, but as I argued in my article in Jesus and Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ (38-9) ...it is not the only perspective on the atonement in the film, which also makes a great deal of Christus Victor and exemplary ("no greater love") atonement theories.

Whilst many have criticised the film for it violence, in many ways such objections miss the point - at least from Gibson's point of view. The film is intended to be a contemplation of the suffering that Jesus underwent in order to reconcile humanity with its creator, it's an extension of a long held Catholic tradition. Even the question of whether or not the violence is realistic is not strictly relevant from that perspective.

I have a worrying feeling that in posting in this I'll be reminded of numerous other films that give a far more detailed exploration of the theology of the cross earlier in the film, but for whatever reason, they are not coming to mind right now.

Slant Magazine on Passion of the Christ and Last Temptation

There's a great piece comparing and contrasting The Passion of the Christ and Last Temptation of Christ over at Slant Magazine. Essentially it's a conversation between Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard who disagree on various issues, in particularly the weightiness of The Passion.

It's quite long though so I hope to have time later onto read it in its entirety. Thanks to Ron Reed's Soul Food Movies for the tip off.

Reel History on Passion of the Christ

On Wednesday I linked to some recent pieces on The Passion of the Christ by Juliette Harrisson and Alfonso Méndiz, and now The Guardian's Alex von Tunzelmann has posted her own views on the film. Despite the similarity in subject of von Tunzelmann's Reel History to Pop Classics, the two writers come to opposite conclusions on the film, which is kind of fitting given that it has always provoked similarly strong and yet similarly divided opinions.

Interestingly one of the things von Tunzelmann dicusses is how Satan's costume makes her look like a Jedi. I'm reminded of the post I made back in September 2007 that noted other similarities betwen this film and Return of the Jedi.

Pop Clasics on Passion of the Christ

As part of reflecting on Palm Sunday, Pop Classics' Juliette Harrisson has reviewed Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. As an expert in the classics, as well as a Catholic, it's nice to have her perspective on the film, and she doesn't disappoint with a good proportion of the article taken up discussing the film's use of language. Juliette says the film was recorded in Hebrew and Aramaic, which I'm not quite sure is the way I remember it, unless the use of Hebrew is for a couple of Torah quotations or something. But there's then a good deal of talk on the film's Latin as well including a couple of interesting new observations (which is quite an achievement given how much I have read about the film over the last decade). And whilst I've read several Catholic perspectives on the film the something about the combination of Classics expertise and Catholic faith that means she really gets this film on a level I, perhaps, do not.

There have also been a number of posts on The Passion of the Christ at Jesu Cristo en el Cine recently.

Repphun, Goodacre, Rosson on The Passion of the Christ

Eric Repphun of The Dunedin School, a blog I've not read before, has posted his list of the Top 11 Religiously Themed Films of the Decade. I've been toying with the idea of doing a similar list myself, particularly as this morning I sent one of my editors my Top 10 films of the decade article. There are some good choices on there including a few I've not yet seen, but it's the 11th that has caused a bit of comment elsewhere. Repphun includes The Passion of the Christ as "the worst", listing many of the usual objections.

Quick off the mark as always, Mark Goodacre has posted a response, noting a few errors along the way. The one that left me somewhat gobsmacked was his assertion that the "primary source material for the idea that Jesus was crucified with nails going through the wrists is the Turin Shroud". I'd thought it was tied in with the research related to the find of a crucified man's ankle bone, but apparently not.

One of Repphun's objections that Mark counters is the general charge of historical inaccuracy. Mark's contends that a claim for historical accuracy "was not part of the publicity for The Passion of the Christ". Here I'd disagree. To quote what I wrote in Mark's comments:

Gibson did claim at least twice that he was trying to be historically accurate. Firstly in an interview with Raymond Arroyo in the Wall Street Journal on March 7th 2003 ("I'm trying to make it as authentic as I possibly can, right down to the clothing, right down to the eating customs of the Jews of the old law") and then later with Andrew Gumbel for The Independent on 16th August 2003 ("(the film) will show the passion of Jesus Christ just the way it happened... like travelling back in time and watching the events unfold exactly as they occurred")

Unfortunately neither of these articles appears to still be online, I don't have either of them to hand either, but recorded them and their source in an article I wrote previewing the film back in 2004.

Mark's response draws a line "between interviews before the film and the film's own publicity". I can see his point, but I personally I don't think such a line exists, particularly in this case where the director is trying to build grassroots support for his film. Indeed I seem to recall that Peter Chattaway went as far as to say that even Gibson's claim "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film...I was just directing traffic" was a pitch (though I can't find Peter's quotation so I may be wrong).

It's interesting though that Mark has found his involvement with the BBC's Passion has brought The Passion of the Christ down in his estimation, particularly with regard to the anti-Semitism issue.

Anyway Loren Rosson also discusses this and includes a link to his own thoughts on the film.

Gibson Makes Passion Settlement

Mel Gibson appears to have settled his lawsuit with Benedict Fitzgerald, the screenwriter for The Passion of the Christ. The BBC website is claiming that Fitzgerald and Gibson have settled on an undisclosed sum after Fitzgerald claimed that Gibson told him the cost of making the film was substantially lower than it actually was. Last month he had demanded to see the accounts for the hit film. Fitzgerald is currently working on Mary, Mother of the Christ due to star Al Pacino as Herod.

Telford Reviews Passion Books

Durham University's William Telford is someone who's been studying the Bible and film for a long, long time. He first published on the subject as long ago as 1995 when his essay "The New Testament in Fiction and Film: A Biblical Scholar's Perspective" was included in Words Remembered, Texts Renewed. Essays in Honour of J. F. A. Sawyer and the text of his lecture on Jesus films - Images of Christ in the Cinema - has been around in one form or another for practically as long as I can remember.

So I was interested to see that the recent Review of Biblical Literature carried his reviews of not one, but two of the books that were written about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ - "Mel Gibson's Passion: The Film, the Controversy, and Its Implications" edited by Zev Garber and "Mel Gibson's Bible: Religion, Popular Culture, and The Passion of the Christ by editors Timothy K. Beal and Tod Linafelt. Garber's book has been reviewed at SBL twice before, (first by Mark Goodacre and then by Timothy D. Finlay) and I think it's fair to say that Telford's review falls somewhere between the two.

Incidentally, Telford's staff pages at Durham reveal that he has just signed a book contract with Blackwell's to combine edited versions of his "published and unpublished work on Jesus in film".

The Anti-Mary in The Passion

I received a number of interesting comments on my podcast on The Passion of the Christ, but there was one in particular that I've been meaning to mention here, as it's not something I've heard talked about elsewhere. Scott Knick made this point:

More interesting to me is the very high Mariology of the film, particularly in light of its passionate acceptance by American conservative Protestants. This movie is almost as much about Mary as it is about Jesus. The provocative image of the female Satan carrying the deformed, leering baby quite clearly positions Satan not as the Antichrist but the anti-Mary. That’s elevating the figure of Mary pretty darned high in the Christian cosmology, something I’ve never seen in a Jesus movie, and yet you never hear a peep about it in most commentary on the film.

It's interesting that whilst both that particular scene, and the film's generally high Mariology (her sensing Jesus through the floor for example) have both been talked about at length that the two have rarely been put together.

There are a few further points I'd like to make here. Firstly, whilst the Satan character is meant to be androgynous, the role is performed by a woman, perhaps also emphasising this point. Secondly, it's interesting that Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a follower of Mary as much, if not more, than she is a disciple of Jesus. Yes, there's the scene where she crawls towards him to touch his feet, but the film gives no indication of any relationship between the two, whereas the two Marys are clearly very close. In a way Mary Magdalene corresponds to the only one of Jesus's followers to remain faithful throughout the film - John. Whilst this is, I suppose, largely based on John's gospel, the link between the two Marys is certainly heightened. Jesus has a disciple, Mary has a disciple. I doubt that's what Gibson intended, but there's perhaps something in it.

Having said all that, it's unclear from scripture who or what the anti-Christ actually is, so equating he/she/it with Satan is certainly not a given. There's a modern tendency to picture Satan as the opposite of God, whereas he is nothing of the sort. So making Satan the anti-Mary rather than the anti-Christ could theoretically be about emphasising the lowliness of Satan's status rather than heightening Mary's. Nevertheless, this is certainly one aspect of the film I'll be watching very closely next time I watch it. I remember a number of shots from Mary's point of view and I'd be interested to see how these compare to those from Jesus's vantage point.

The Final Inquiry (L'Inchiesta)

For many people, Ridley Scott's Gladiator is the film responsible for the recent resurgence in epic films. Grand battle scenes, larger than life characters, yet at the heart of it, it's about one man's solitary quest. Others point to the influence of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Braveheart may have been the film that really set the epic wheels in motion, but it was The Passion which inspired a legion of movies that were linked to the Bible.

There are elements of both films in The Final Inquiry starring Dolph Lundgren and Monica Cruz - two actors who, for very different reasons, it's best not to cross in case you ever met them in person. Like Gladiator the action starts in Germania as a noble Roman soldier (Titus Valerius Taurus) leads his troops into victory against the local scraggy-blond Barbarians. There's a dying and noble emperor, double dealing enemies, and a muscular sidekick all crammed in to a whistle-stop tour of the Roman Empire.The film's link to The Passion is more direct. Set just a few months after the death of Jesus, Emperor Tiberius sends Titus to get to the bottom of what exactly happened on the day when, all over the empire, the sky clouded over. So Titus heads to Jerusalem where he talks with various characters who crop up in the gospels.

The continuity with The Passion is further enhanced by Hristo Shopov reprising his role as Pontius Pilate. Much has changed for Pilate over the last few months - he's gained a few pounds, slipped into something more comfortable and learnt to speak English. But there's also some discontinuity as well. Christo Jivkov played John in The Passion, but here he appears as St. Stephen.

Titus is joined on his mission by an enslaved German called Brixos, played by Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren largely sticks to what he does best - roaring and swinging his axe around as he watches Titus's back. Meanwhile Titus also sparks up a friendship with Tabitha, a beautiful Jewish Christian.If all that sounds rather cliché-ridden, then, this is probably isn't the film for you. From the opening title sequence when a group of galloping Roman soldiers come to a halt just to hear Titus say "Forwards" and ride on; through to Tiberius's informant just managing to squeeze out the last vital bit of information before he dies; through to the slave who stays on as his master's friend even though he has just been freed, there are clichés aplenty.

However, clichés aside, the film is actually fairly watchable. There's enough interest in the first half of the film as Titus turns detective and tries to get to the bottom of the story, and there's sufficient chemistry between him and Tabitha (Cruz) to make the love story believable. And the film's use of flashbacks to tell the story of Jesus through Titus's eyes is an interesting approach to the material. It reflects the situation we find ourselves in today unable to meet Jesus face to face we have to put together the facts about him from the various pieces of evidence.

It's also interesting to see a pre-conversion Saul of Tarsus unashamedly played as the bad guy. Usually films that deal with Paul at this stage of his life portray him as a sort of hero in waiting. He may be misguided, and a little hotheaded, but generally he's noble in his own sort of way. Here, however, he lays into the already prostrate Stephen with such relish that it's easy to see why it required nothing less than a vision of the risen Jesus to cause him to convert. The portrayal of Peter (below) is also unconventional, although in this case it's less satisfying as Peter is shown as still living in Galilee.Overall though, the history's not too bad. There's no reason to believe that the sky turned black as far away as Capri, of course, or that if it did Tiberius would somehow link it to the death of Jesus. But otherwise it is true that Tiberius retired to Capri, where he did become somewhat reclusive, and that, as a result, his people held him in fairly low regard. The film does view him through somewhat rose-tinted spectacles though. It's no surprise when it turns out that the reasonably unhistorical reason for his final voyage to Rome is in order to convert the empire to Christianity. Unsurprisingly when his heir (Caligula) finds out about his uncle's plans, the film reverts back to more widely accepted historical territory.

By then, the elements that made the earlier parts of Final Inquiry work have long since been suffocated by the film's underlying agenda. Attempting to demonstrate the rationality of Christian belief, the second half of the film resorts to far fetched storylines. For example, at one point Caiaphas, Saul and Pilate attempt to persuade Titus that the resurrections of both Lazarus and Jesus were faked by poisoning him.

So overall, Final Inquiry is a mixed bag. Whilst it's never quite as bad as it could have been, a relatively promising start deteriorates rapidly as the story heads towards it's conclusion. The evidence Titus Valerius Taurus may have been enough to convince him, but it's unlikely to cause many people to seriously reconsider their previous conclusions.

The Eyes Have It Demonic Similarities Between The Passion and The Miracle Maker

Over the years there have been various people who have spotted similarities between Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and other Jesus films. Some of them are very well known, for example the fact that Gibson shot his film in Matera, Italy - the same place where Passolini shot his Gospel According to St. Matthew. Others were apparent on the film's initial release. For example, Jeffrey Overstreet noticed so much similarity between this soundtrack and that of Last Temptation of Christ that he claimed that composer John Debney "turned in something that sounds like musical plagiarism".

Visual similarities have also been noted. Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing director Lance Tracy whose 2001 film The Cross had used flashbacks to punctuate the violence, and who claimed that one of GIbson's associates had seen his film. And Peter Chattaway has also noted various similarities with DeMille's 1927 The King of Kings such as the raven on the cross, and the difference between Jesus's cross and those of his disciples.One of the more unusual bits from The Passion is the scene following Judas's return of the money to the high priest (a hot from which is above). As he hides, tormented by his own actions, two Jewish boys stumble across him, and their initially friendly banter, turns into mockery, before the boys' faces distort and it appears that now Judas is being tortured by a demon or some such thing.

Last week I came across a very similar moment in The Miracle Maker (1999). This time it is Mary Magdalene who is disturbed, and the film is even more explicit, albeit in a later scene, that she is being tormented by demons. And this time rather than it being two Jewish boys, it is two Roman soldiers whose faces distort and terrify her, as shown below.I find this interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, because Miracle Maker was distributed by Icon, the company founded by Mel Gibson. Whilst he may have had nothing to do with it, it's hard to imagine he's entirely unfamiliar with it.

Secondly, I have a vague, and quite possibly incorrect, recollection that Gibson claimed he hadn't really paid much attention to the other entries in the Jesus films canon. We know he'd seen a few before as in the run up to the release he mentioned other Jesus films such as Pasolini's and those where Jesus had "bad hair", although that's no reason to doubt that he steered clear of them during filming. What's interesting, though, is that if he didn't directly copy these visual ideas, that they nevertheless appear to have entered his psyche and come out subconsciously.

Thirdly, it's interesting how this scene changes from one film to another. Obviously the way Mary and Judas are characterised in this film required that particular change, but it's interesting that the later film also changes the perceived persecutors from Roman soldiers (where there would be good reason to be fearful) to Jewish children. I don't think this changes my thoughts on the anti-Semitism question that I outlined in my recent podcast on this film, but it's certainly an interesting observation in that regard.

Bible Films and the Two Halves of the Brain.

I've just finished reading Walter Wink's book 'Transforming Bible Study'. Whilst it's primarily equipping its readers to facilitate a specific type of group Bible study, it also discusses the relationship between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, which, in turn, got me thinking about where Bible films fit into the picture.

Wink's main points are that the fields of academic study of the Bible and of personal transformation by it are growing ever further apart; that, very loosely speaking, these two fields map to the split that has been found between the two halves of the brain; that if we only use one hemisphere of our brain when we approach the Bible we are ultimately being "halfiwits"; and, thus that we should be seeking to re-integrate the two.

Wink also outlines the advantages of doing so, particularly for those approaching the issue from the academic (left side) side of the divide. He cites evidence suggesting that re-allocating time spent studying maths to music and art actually improved scores in maths, and goes on to cite various stories of scientists who have made their breakthroughs, not whilst hard at study but whilst engaged in something else entirely, such as Archimedes's bath, Newton's apple or Kekule's benzene ring. The theory is that once the right brain is given the chance to work on such problems it uses it's intuition and creativity to find a solution that the right brain would not have found. The final part of the argument is that the best situation is when both halves of the brain are working together.This got me on to thinking about a couple of examples where watching Bible films has been significant in increasing understanding. The first relates to my own experience. Perhaps seven or so years ago, I was still trying to make my mind up over whether Genesis should be taken more literally, or more symbolically. I swayed towards the latter, but still felt some sympathy with the former position. However, the decisive moment for me was watching John Huston's The Bible. That film takes a very literal approach, but at the same time its dark and primitive feel undermines its handling of the text. For me, for reasons I'm still not sure I can explain, the penny dropped, and these stories have remained firmly mythological for me ever since.

The second example I can think of is during the release of The Passion of the Christ. At the time I remember being amazed at just how many people said that this had made them understand more clearly how Jesus had suffered and so on. Shortly afterwards I was in a talk where the speaker really over did it on describing a crucifixion and I remember feeling it was all a bit over the top so soon after that film.In both cases there was a certain amount of critical understanding and academic engagement with the text, but looking at a more creative exploration of it enabled the viewers to "get it" on a whole new level. The penny dropped as the right side of the brain was brought into it.

And this, I guess, is one of the reasons why Bible films can be important, especially for those studying the text. Anyone who is studying a given text has a good knowledge of it, primarily from using the left half of their brains. By watching that text depicted on screen, the right half of the brain is brought into the equation and the two can work together towards more innovative solutions.

The Passion Without Subtitles

In preparation for yesterday's podcast on The Passion of the Christ I watched the film again. Although I've watched many bits and pieces of the film recently, I think this was actually the first time that I'd watched it all the way through since it came out on DVD.

Remembering that, prior to the film's release, Gibson wanted to release it without subtitles (before church leaders apparently convinced him otherwise) I've long thought it would be interesting to watch the film in this way.¹ Would it be able to "transcend the language barriers with... visual storytelling"?²

So I did it, and I think the answer to Gibson's question is that it depends on how well you know the story. I know the story very well, in fact I even know his version of the story very well, so I certainly had a good general idea about what was going on. But I was also aware that there was greater depth in the dialogue that I was missing out on. Indeed for anyone who was totally unfamiliar with the story the question may well arise as to why this prisoner is of particular significance. Sure he's treated brutally, but if he's ultimately going to die what makes this story special?What was good about the exercise was that it did enable me to watch the visuals more closely instead of trying to quickly read the words as soon as they flashed up and then have a look around. It enables you to enjoy the lighting, the atmosphere, the detail and the camera angles a great deal more. In other words it brings out the film's strengths.

At the same time, however, it also highlighted some of the film's weaknesses. In particular the frequent use of slow motion soon became tedious. It takes you right out of the moment and reminds you that this is only a film. "Look here's another camera effect", and so on.

The other thing that removing the subtitles did was enable me to focus more on the languages. I did a year of Latin at school (and hated it. How many 12 year old boys wouldn't?) so I'm vaguely familiar with that, but know nothing of Aramaic other than "Eloi, Eloi lama sabbacthani". Without the words being translated through subtitles the differences between how the two languages sound was much more apparent. Of course, many have pointed out that it's likely that conversations between the Romans and the Jews would have taken place in Greek, which would have changed things somewhat, but it was still interesting to be able to tell which language was being spoken when.Three further observations: firstly I don't recall noticing before that the shot of Satan screaming after Jesus dies takes place on the top of Golgotha. In fact this is the same camera angle (the God shot) and camera movement (pan back / zoom out) that we see when Jesus dies, only now none of the human characters are on the set, and everything is shot using a red filter. This also suggests that this is God's view on things.

Secondly, I was involved in a conversation a while back at Arts and Faith about the way the cross seems to levitate when the Roman soldiers turn it over to hammer the end of the nail round. I'd missed this on my initial viewings, but in watching again this week it was clear that the cross does indeed appear to levitate. Not only does it not slam into the ground (and this, remember, is a film where everything slams relentlessly into everything else all of the time) but also when the cross first begins to be tipped Mary Magdalene looks horrified, but then her reaction changes to a mix of relief and confusion. It's a strange moment in the film, and not one that is often discussed.

Finally, Peter's denial occurs in the actual room where Jesus is tried and amongst a frenzied crowd. This serves to make his fear at this point a little more understandable.

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1 - "Mel Gibson's Passion", Holly McClure - New York Daily News, January 26, 2003 - Now available at crosswalk.
2 - "Mel Gibson's Passion", Holly McClure - New York Daily News, January 26, 2003 - Now available at crosswalk.