There is a very subtle but powerful aspect to that scene. When Pilate is questioning Christ, Christ effortlessly shifts his responses to Pilate from Aramaic to Latin. The look on Pilate's face morphs instantly from a supreme position of power and confidence to one of awe and fear as he realizes he is not dealing with a mere heretic or insurrectionist, but something completely different and unknown.
To a certain extent this reflects what actually happened to Paul. It always puts a smile on my face when I read Acts 23:22 and it shows how different the Romans were from other people. I can imagine the Roman Commander getting ashen-faced when he learned that Paul was a Roman citizen
They listened to [Paul] until he said this, but then they raised their voices and shouted, “Take such a one as this away from the earth. It is not right that he should live.” And as they were yelling and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the [Roman] cohort commander ordered him to be brought into the compound and gave instruction that he be interrogated under the lash to determine the reason why they were making such an outcry against him. But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion on duty, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman citizen and has not been tried?” When the centurion heard this, he went to the cohort commander and reported it, saying, “What are you going to do? This man is a Roman citizen.” Then the commander came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes,” he answered. The commander replied, “I acquired this citizenship for a large sum of money.” Paul said, “But I was born one.” At once those who were going to interrogate him backed away from him, and the commander became alarmed when he realized that he was a Roman citizen and that he had had him bound.
Interestingly, the Latin they were speaking in the film was liturgical Latin, which I'm pretty sure was developed hundreds of years after the first centyry.
That’s because Pilate effortlessly shifted from Latin to Aramaic. Most people in the audience miss the point because they can’t tell one language from another.
I always said Hristo Shopov should have received an Oscar just for how he managed to look surprised (that Jesus could speak Latin) while trying to not look too surprised. It’s all in his face. It’s beautiful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsSb2VFRbyo
It always reminds me of the face of centurion in Ben Hur who wanted to stop Christ from giving water to Ben Hur. The look on his face when He looks at Christ is priceless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVlf7OiiTJE