Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ"
A Reflection

Apart from the gorgeous cinematography and the wonderfully choreographed
movement of the crowds this film, by conventional standards of dramatic
criticism, is not very good. The plot is simplistic; there are no subplots,
no intriguing twists and turns.  Virtually all the characters are one
dimensional without nuance and complexity verging on a cartoon like
simplicity. Little effort is made to help the viewer understand why the
central character is made to undergo perhaps the most unrelenting and
sadistic torture ever filmed. Because the end is not in doubt the climax
holds no surprise.

But that being said this no ordinary film and the conventional standards of
criticism don't apply.  What Mr. Gibson has given us is a cinematic version
of a medieval passion play and, seen as such, it is a triumph. However, to
recognize the triumph it is important to know that the purpose of a passion
play is quite different from a conventional dramatic performance.  It is not
intended to provide entertainment, to excite a passive audience.  It is not
a work of art which encourages thoughtful reflection on the human condition
or which, as in the tradition of Greek tragedy, provokes a cathartic
response. Rather, the purpose of the passion play is to invite us to leave
the sideline, to become involved in the events, to participate in Christ's
passion.

Thus the absence of characterization is deliberate.  The actor's purpose is
not to create a complex character but simply to portray an aspect of the
human condition and invite the viewer to become aware of his own complicity
in the persecution of Christ. Insofar as I am willing to enter the passion
each actor is my potential surrogate.  Thus I am Herod, so attached to my
frivolous pleasures that I cannot hear Christ's call to renunciation that
must precede the experience of true joy.  In Caiaphas I see my misguided
determination to resist any criticism of my world view, to lash out at any
perceived threat to my power and prestige all of which give rise to an anger
that silences Christ's call of love.  I am Pilate content to see truth
defined within the narrow boundaries of ambition and regard for my own well
being, blinded to the truth which Christ points to, the truth of eternal
salvation which does not reside in the kingdom of the self-regarding ego but
in the kingdom not of this world.  I am Peter in the moment of crisis
denying my friend, saving my body, betraying my soul.  In the darkest
recesses of my soul I glimpse the gleeful sadism of the Roman soldier taking
grotesque delight in the humiliation of anyone whose only "crime" is being
better, more virtuous and noble than I.

At the same time God's grace gives me occasions when I am capable of
Veronica's compassion, Mary's single minded devotion, Simon of Cyrene's
willingness to help my neighbour to carry his cross.  The point is, that to
see these people simply as characters participating in an event is to miss
the intent of the passion play.  To see them as different aspects of my own
soul, both in its capacity for sin and openness to grace is to be open to
the power of spiritual transformation which is the promise which lies at the
heart of Christ's passion.

The film has been much criticized for what many critics see as excessive,
even gratuitous violence.  Rick Groen entitled his Globe and Mail review
"The Greatest Gory Ever Told."  In The New Yorker David Denby called the
film's journey to Golgotha " A sickening death trip, a grimly unilluminating
procession of treachery, beatings, blood and agony." Indeed the violence is
horrific and on several occasions I turned my eyes away from the unrelenting
torture of the scourging.  However, I suspect that the criticisms indicate
not simply a praiseworthy aversion to violence but reflect attitudes which
reach deep into the history of modern western civilization to the period of
the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment.  The Christ that James Caviezel
portrays is far removed from The Enlightenment idea of Christ, the great
ethicist so revered by humanists like Thomas Jefferson, Christ the apostle
of reason and understanding, the great teacher whose enlightened moral
precepts are worthy of serious attention. But the tortured Christ covered in
blood and filth is an aesthetic offence to humanists, then and now, who
embrace many of the teachings but who reject both the passion and the
resurrection.

Mr. Denby is rightly appalled that some parents may take children to see a
film in which the man who said "Suffer the little children to come unto me"
is sadistically tortured.  But the point is that the Christ who, in profound
love, enjoined the little children to be with him is the same Christ who is
made to endure treatment that no adult, let alone a child, can watch without
a deep sense of revulsion.  Humanists, of whom I suspect Mr. Denby is one,
cannot fathom the paradox of a divine love rooted in the excruciating
humiliation and pain of the cross.  But no matter how much enlightened human
nature would have it otherwise, without the violence of the cross there is
no Christianity.  As St. Paul wrote to the Galatians  "As for me, the only
thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom
the world is crucified to me, and I to the world."  A Christianity which
strays from that central idea may be ethical and enlightened but it is not
the good news of Jesus Christ.

What then are Christians to make of the film's violence? Our natural impulse
in the Easter season is to move from Psalm Sunday to Easter Sunday with a
passing nod to Good Friday's crucifixion. But to ignore Good Friday is to
deny the necessity of dying to the unredeemed self; it is a willful refusal
to undergo the suffering to which Christ, by teaching and example, calls his
disciples as the precondition of being born in the spirit.  By dwelling at
such length and so explicitly on the suffering of Christ, Mr. Gibson is not
allowing us to avoid the profound importance of the Good Friday experience
in the life of every Christian.  Christ never left his disciples in doubt
that carrying the cross is the central reality of the spiritual journey. "If
anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up
his cross and follow me.  For anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel
will save it" (Mark 8:34-35)

An important function of the passion play is to provide a character,
invariably a minor one, who can act as our point of reference, an anchor, as
it were, in the story of events.  The character chosen is an individual
decision  a reflection, possibly, of personality, emotional  identification,
even spiritual maturity.  For me that character was the Roman centurion
responsible for overseeing the procession to Golgotha and the subsequent
crucifixions. He seemed to me to be in discomfort, if not pain.  A man whose
sense of duty was in conflict with his distaste for what he was ordered to
do. At the moment when Jesus dies he was at the edge of the crowd looking at
the cross, at a physical distance that emphasized the psychological.  Then
something wonderful happened.  In an obvious sign of respect and tribute to
the man whose execution he had supervised, he lifted his helmet.  At the
risk of overwhelming the symbolism I suggest the gesture went beyond one of
simple respect.  At the heart of the passion play is the mystery of God's
redemptive purpose.  Thus the centurion's gesture was also an
acknowledgement of his inchoate sense that what he had witnessed held
meaning that transcended, not just the brutal events of the day, but the very
limitations of time and space.

The film is certainly not for everyone.  Children should be kept away.
Non-believers will find much to dislike.  But Christians who realize their
complicity in Christ's passion, who are ready to accept the demands and
conventions of the passion play and who are prepared to take the spiritual
journey from Gethsemane to Golgotha will be moved, perhaps even transformed,
by Mr. Gibson's portrayal of our Lord's passion.

Ted Penton ... 11 March 2004