Mel Gibson Responds to Passion Question - What's Up With the Ugly Baby?

Christianity Today ^ | March 3, 2004 | Mark Moring

[AnAmericanMother]

I have a question of my own about the movie. What is the point or significance of Mary and Mary Magdalene sopping up Christ's blood after the scourging?

Because the Blood that was shed for us is holy and most precious.

For the same reason there is a special sink in the Sacristy for rinsing the communion vessels, so that no drop of consecrated wine goes into the common sewer. If any is spilled at the altar, it is wiped up with special linens and those are carefully rinsed in the sacristy.

[Orlando]

It look to me like Barabra BOXER and her killing babies operation she supports, and it also looks like John Kerry .

[TheSpottedOwl]

What a perfect explanation. Mel Gibson is an amazing human being.

[JoeFromSidney]

I bet The Stations of the Cross will get more close attention this year than any year in the past 100.

I make the Stations every morning before Mass. After seeing THE PASSION, it suddenly struck me that the usual carvings and paintings in the Stations are too antiseptic. I'll be thinking about the movie from now on when I'm making the Stations.

[stranger and pilgrim]

The folks that I saw the movie with decided that the grotesque child was symbolic of Jesus beginning to grow an "old man" or body of sin as he took in sin on the cross. I think I like our explanation better than Gibson's . . .

[Jhensy]

Celentano! The square pizza! Best frozen pizza ever made.

[doberville]

Good one!!

[MrConfettiMan]

Ah, yes! How could I forget those!?!

[NYer]

What is the point or significance of Mary and Mary Magdalene sopping up Christ's blood after the scourging?

Some of the imagery, especially in the flashbacks, are embraced differently, depending on one's christian faith. As a Catholic christian, Mel Gibson uses these 'juxtapositions' magnificently. One of the best explanations I have found so far comes from Mark Shea's blog spot.

"As is commonly known, Gibson draws on a variety of sources: the NT, the stations of the cross, Emmerich's visions, and his own imagination. Of course, secular viewers have complained about the violence and, particularly, the blood of the film. One particularly desperate writer not only assumes the film is anti-semitic but also tries to cash in on old American Know-Nothing chips and ignite some good old Protestant hatred of the film.

But it's a total non-starter. Evangelicals are wild about the thing, and well they should be. A tiny minority of Fundies complain that it takes liberties with Scripture, but these are indeed a tiny minority. The rest recognize that liberties with Scripture are an old artistic practice. And the liberties are not so much contradictions as they are theological illustrations of obvious Scriptural teachings. So, for instance, Evangelicals know that there is "Power in the Blood". So do Catholics. After all, the blood, the selfsame blood that is splattered all over the scourgers at the Pillar, is the blood that we drink on the altar. We say in earnest, what the mob said in unconscious irony: "May his blood be on us and on our children." I pray that prayer will be granted me and my children all the days of our lives. So do Evangelicals. The main difference is that, as a Catholic, I regard the blood of Christ as being just as physical now (albeit sacramentally) as it was then, while my Evangelical friends have a piety that tends to be wary of encounters with the Incarnation in the here and now. (Though encounters with things like this film may serve to alter that.) And since Gibson is a Catholic, he has no trouble with that identification between the blood on the floor of the guardroom and the blood in the chalice. So we are shown the scene (straight from Emmerich) in which Mary blots up the blood of Christ with towels just as a Catholic would blot the spilled Precious Blood with a purificator. It's all one for Gibson because it's all one for any Catholic who knows his faith.

This link between Catholic teaching and the imagery of the film is brilliantly shown in the way Gibson has edited the film. So for instance, as Jesus gazes up to Mount Calvary, the scene suddenly cuts to the Sermon on the Mount and his admonition to love your enemies. As he is beaten, he falls on his back and can see only the foot of the soldier who is scourging him. The scene then cuts to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. And as he falls to the ground at Calvary at the very feet of the Jewish rulers who condemn him (and who, by this time, an ignorant Christian may be tempted to blame) Gibson chooses that moment to flashback to Jesus saying, "No one takes my life from me. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again." The awesome power of this film comes from the connections it makes (at least for me). I literally caught my breath when Gibson cuts to a scene from the Last Supper where the Passover bread is brought to the table, wrapped in cloth. The bread is set at the table and the cloth is taken off, then Gibson cuts back to Jesus being stripped of his garments. The bread is elevated for the consecration at the Last Supper, and Gibson cuts to the elevation of the cross ("If I be lifted up, I shall draw all men to me.") These kinds of juxtapositions occur throughout the film. Probably the most moving one is the scene where Mary is simply paralyzed by fear and cannot follow Jesus any further on the road. He stumbles under his cross. She has a flashback of him falling as a child and her running to comfort him. It somehow gives her the will to run to him again with the same words "I'm here." She is a comfort for him, yet he is somehow the greater comfort for her. His grace has made it possible for her to wrench free of her paralyzing fear. He looks at her and says, "Behold, I make all things new" (words from Revelation that remind us of the cosmic backdrop to this harrowing torment."

Hope this helps.

[McGavin999]

That's what evil is about, taking something that's good and twisting it a little bit."

Like gay marriage?

[international american]

Therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre ya go:)

[geopyg]

"I have a question of my own about the movie. What is the point or significance of Mary and Mary Magdalene sopping up Christ's blood after the scourging?"

Interesting regarding the sacristy -- given the respect it deserves. As a Presbyterian I won't tell you what WE do with the left-over wine (and won't mention that we also use grape juice)!

When I saw this scene I was reminded of the bus bombings in Israel where volunteers go cleanup every last bit of bone fragment, tissue and speck of blood so that they can be properly and respectfully disposed of (not sure exatly how). Of course, I must be wrong because Gibson is so anti-semetic he wouldn't have thought of that, 'cuz why would he want us to think of the poor suffering Jews.

That's what I like about this movie - it makes one think and do research to answer the questions of "I can't believe it was that bad, I can't believe they did this."

I imagine the tradition of mopping up the blood is long-standing among Jews, and that Jesus' blood would have been mopped up by someone. I also don't find it too hard to believe that his Mom was watching, or allowed in afterwards, and tradition may have held that a family member was first in-line to do the job.

(Getting the towels from Mrs. Pilate may be a bit of a streach - although they are bonded together as mothers, and she did have a dream about Jesus as a holy one.)

[ninenot]

Good Stuff!!!!

Now go get a copy of the "St. John Passion" by JS Bach, and listen carefully. It's all there, too--except the Emmerich, of course

Laid out in lavender with the music, right from the prelude which depicts the chill, windy, cloudy day, through the "Ruht Vohl" (Rest Well) sung to the corpse at the very end.

[Dead Dog]

William-Adolphe Bouguereau is greattly under appreciated. Amazing he came out of the same generation as Monet.

[Charles Martel]

Which one was Hillary?

"Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old 'baby' with hair on his back."

Well, Bill is clearly past his forties, but the picture seems clear enough.

[foreshadowed at waco]

The awesome power of this film comes from the connections it makes (at least for me).

I agree with you 100%. Having spent 16 years in Catholic school as a student and 10 years as a teacher, I have been immersed in Catholic teaching. I found myself mesmerized by the visual and textual interplay.

[AnAmericanMother]

My mom was raised Presbyterian (I may be the only Episcopalian child on record who received a copy of the Westminster Catechism at her confirmation!) If you don't believe in the Real Presence in the wine and communion is purely a "symbolic act," then it doesn't really matter what happens to the leftover grape juice or whether all the little individual glasses (or is that the Methodists?) get put in the dishwasher or not.

But if you believe that the bread and wine are actually, truly, really the Body and Blood (though their "accidents" or outward appearances remain the same), then you can't just pour the leftovers down the drain . . .

I'm in the interesting position of being in transition between the apostate Episcopalians and the Catholic Church. So you may want to get an opinion from a Genuine Certified Catholic ;-) . . .

[AnAmericanMother]

We'll have to get somebody more conversant with Jewish tradition to tell us the Scriptural or traditional authority for the volunteers at Magen David Adom. Anybody?

[Muzzle_em]

Funny!