[mlmr]

This is a New Yorker Critics take on The Passion. Major Hatchet Job.

I would be intersted in your comments.

[mlmr]

Ping to this URL for a Passion critique that cannot be published at FR. http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/?040301crci_cinema

[GraniteStateConservative]

Gibson, of course, is free to skip over the incomparable glories of Jesus’ temperament and to devote himself, as he does, to Jesus’ pain and martyrdom in the last twelve hours of his life.

As if that's not a worthwhile focus for a movie on Jesus. Gibson wants people to appreciate how much of a physical sacrifice Jesus' torture and death was, so we'd more appreciate the significance of it. He did it for us. He didn't eat bon-bons for us. He suffered and died for us.

[eyespysomething]

I cry whenever I think about the love God has for us, love so uncomprehensible to we mere mortals, that He gave us His only Son, to be born into mankind, only to suffer a terrible terrible death, all for us to be able to join Him in Heaven.

I cry because I have 3 boys, and if I knew their fate before hand, would I have been able to bring them forth into this world? God did, and did.

He knew what was coming, but He loved us so, He knew we needed salvation and redemption. Christ forgave all as He hung on the cross, dying His earthly death. What a lesson everyone should take from that.

[Lunatic Fringe]

while the Jews were cast into darkness and, one might conclude from this movie, deserved what they got.

Puh-lease! This movie will fuel anti-semitism in much the same way Tora! Tora! Tora! fuels anti-Japanese sentiment. If it does fuel hatred in you, then you already hated that race to begin with.

[King Black Robe]

Thanks for posting the link. The real thing the Passion is exposing is the anti-Christian attitude of the media.

[stanley windrush]

Ditto,
Another hatchet job...today's Chicago Tribune
by Susan Thistlethwaite

Susan B. Thistlethwaite is president of the Chicago Theological Seminary

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/

[Blood of Tyrants]

Written by a true non-believer. It is Mel's hope that when people see the film and wee what Christ was willing to subject himself to, that they would want to know the rest of the story as to WHY Jesus did it.

[Sidebar Moderator]

Looks OK.

Everyone, please do not post excerpts in your replies.

Quoting the boss:

They said links only.

27 posted on 09/23/2003 1:52:41 PM PDT by Jim Robinson

[Cicero]

For what it's worth, I write scholarly books, and the basic copyright law allows brief quotations for purposes of discussion without obtaining any permissions. There's no definition of brief quotations, but usually a few sentences is OK. Longer quotations, especially from poems, require permissions.

That's my take, but of course folks should do what Jim Robinson and his legal advisers say.

[CaptainK]

David Denby, author of American Sucker. I can see how such a deep thinker might be offend by the The Passion

From Publishers Weekly "I wanted to be wealthy," Denby bluntly admits near the end of this absorbing memoir of the dot-com boom and bust. "I didn't make it." Like millions of other amateur investors in 2000 and 2001, Denby (Great Books) was swept along by greed, by the nearly messianic belief that the stock market offered easy opportunities for unlimited prosperity. Denby sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Nasdaq, digested unhealthy amounts of CNBC and the Wall Street Journal and forged friendships with some of the era's brightest stars (and, later, its most public criminals). He lost his balance in the excess of the time-stock tickers in strip clubs; parties at executives' lofts-and then lost his money when the market crashed. ("The ax had swung," Denby writes, "and heads lay all over the ground.") Though exceedingly well written, Denby's portrait of the great "Dot Con" generally echoes the sentiments of other, similarly themed books about the period. The work is more appealing when Denby focuses on himself: he had nearly suffered a nervous breakdown when his wife of 18 years left him, and making enough money to buy out her share of their apartment was his initial motivation for investing in the market. Denby brutally details his decline, from a night of impotence to an affair with a married woman, then a six-month obsession with Internet porn-harrowing stuff for a New Yorker staff writer. His dissection of his own Upper West Side narcissism offers some of the most candid critiques of the Manhattan bourgeoisie ever found outside of a Woody Allen film. More of Denby, and less of the Nasdaq, would have made this good book even better.

[Aquinasfan]

By embracing the Roman pageant so openly, using all the emotional resources of cinema, Gibson has cancelled out the redemptive and transfiguring power of art.

Bulloney. "By embracing the Roman pageant so openly" Gibson presents the truth about The Truth, bringing to life the scale of His sacrifice. There is no higher praise for a film of this kind than the pope's comment that "it is as it was."

Additionally, it is right of Mel to "dwell" on the last hours of Jesus' death since the Passion is at the heart of Christianity, along with the Trinity and the Incarnation.

[realpatriot71]

Not once does the author make the connection that Jesus Christ bore those stripes for him, for me, for everyone. If you watch the movie, see what kind of tortures the God who loves you is willing to endure to spend enternity with you, and still spit on God and His love, then nothing will move you. It's a BRUTAL portrayal because . . . THATS HOW IT WAS! Perhaps those caught up in their worldlieness have ahard time stomaching the idea of a God - not just a "good man" - A GOD allowing himself to be killed as such? No wonder they criticize the "violence". God may have brought a message of love, but He certainly wasn't all "warm and fuzzy" and neither was his death. If you don't want to see what how God died, don't go.

[AD from SpringBay]

This is all good. Lots of people will be seen with a new clarity by lots of other people. I think this will lead to lower subscription rates for some and higher for others. Less money in Hollywood and east coast rags is always a good thing.

[joesnuffy]

.. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The
chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. .

[stop_fascism]

are akin to the bloody Pop representation of Jesus found in, say, a roadside shrine in Mexico, where the addition of an Aztec sacrificial flourish makes the passion a little more passionate.

Hope the multiculturalists don't read this review.

[codyjacksmom]

Opinion? This guy is an idiot. So is the lady(?) from the trib. Do any of "them" have a clue as to what Christianity actually is? If they do, they sure need a refresher course. Jesus went through hell on earth for us. I think this will make more people actually appreciate MORE how much He went through for us and how much He actually loved us all. I know I can always use reminders to keep me on the right path!

[headsonpikes]

Thanks for the link.

A very even-handed review, eh?

[Tanniker Smith]

some of whom, with an ungodly eye to the commercial realities of film distribution, have prepurchased blocks of tickets or rented theatres to insure “The Passion” a healthy opening weekend’s business.

Or maybe because entire congregations can go see it together and then talk about it with fellow parishioners afterwards over a cup of coffee.

ANd at least these tickets will be used, unlike, say, the block sales of Hillary's book to union backers and supporters.

TS
...

[quadrant]

The one thing that David Denby cannot tolerate is the idea of Jesus as the Lamb of God.
It is quite easy for Denby to accept Jesus as a teacher of a radical social gospel - which love your enemy certainly is - but to portray Jesus' death and resurrection as atonement for the sins of mankind would be to admit the truth of Jesus' other and most important message - that no one come to the Father except through Him. Denby has chosen to hide his dislike of Jesus as Messiah behind the screen of pretended shock at the violence of Jesus' treatment by the Romans. I doubt (but cannot prove) that until "The Passion of Christ" David Denby has never before criticized an 'R' rated movie for its violent con- tent. Perhaps Denby's greatest hypocrisy (and that is the essence of hiding the Messiah and Lamb of God behind the social reformer) is his pretended concern that children will be shocked by the movie. But perhaps Denby is concerned for another reason: his fear that children will be shocked into understanding that God was willing to allow His Son (in actually, to allow Himself) to suffer a fearful and horrible death for no reason other than His love for mankind.

[MaryFromMichigan]

"The Passion"
If you loved the Book, you'll love the movie...