Schrader 'Disturbed' by Gibson's Crucifixion Film (Last Temptation Screenwriter Pointing Fingers)

Reuters ^ | Tue, Mar 23, 2004 | Laith Abou-Ragheb

[presidio9]

LONDON (Reuters) - The Hollywood screenwriter behind the last controversial film about Christ says Mel Gibson (news)'s new film on the crucifixion is violent and disturbing.

"It's a well-made movie but it's very violent and infused with a great sense of self-flagellation,", screenwriter for "The Last Temptation of Christ," told Reuters.

Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," to be released with an adults-only certificate in Britain Friday, has been heavily criticized for its bloody portrayal of Christ's final hours.

A 56-year-old woman died of a heart attack in Wichita, Kan., last month while watching the film's climactic crucifixion scene.

Some Jewish groups even branded the film anti-Semitic, arguing that it revives old accusations that Jews bear collective responsibility for killing the Son of God.

Schrader's "Last Temptation," released in 1988 and directed by Martin Scorsese, was attacked by Christian groups for a brief scene in which Jesus is seen having sex with Mary Magdalene.

But the screenwriter, who penned such cinematic classics as "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull," distanced his film from Gibson's.

"They are two totally different movies," he said after giving a talk in London about his acclaimed career.

"My film was essentially a humanist story about the struggle to find God in which Christ is used as a metaphor," said Schrader, who was raised in a strict Calvinist household and studied theology.

"But screenings of Gibson's film have been more like evangelical meetings. The audience comes into the film with such a powerful belief system that they think they have a religious experience. It's quite an interesting and disturbing phenomenon," he said.

Gibson's film has been a huge success in the United States. According to studio estimates, it has earned more than $250 million since its Feb. 25 U.S. opening.

Shrader said the film would never have been made without the backing of a big star like Gibson.

"This is not the sort of film Hollywood likes," he said. "But Gibson was uniquely positioned to make it and he successfully tapped into a ready-made audience made up of conservative religious groups."

Gibson, who reportedly spent $25 million of his own money on the film, is a follower of a small traditionalist Catholic church that denies the legitimacy of Vatican decrees made since the mid-1960s.

[Paradox]

I managed to catch The Last Temptation of Christ on late night TV. I expected the worst, so I was pleasantly suprised. I liked it. Jesus was triumphant in the end, good guys win! Maybe I am shallow or something..

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

Why do people hate Christians so?

I don't think they 'hate' Christians. I think they fear Christians.

It makes sense if you view their comments in this light.

[cvq3842]

Thanks! You keep the faith, too!

I think somehow those who mock the Judeo-Christian tradition (and indeed, America itself) are comparing the history to some ideal that does not exist. Religion has been used to justify great injustice and harm. The US has not been, and is not, perfect. Yet some people on the left want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It kind of reminds me of an adolescent rebelling against his parents, but still seeking protection under their roof.

I think people living in this time and place (myself included) have NO REAL CONCEPTION of what life in most other countries is like, or how the world would be without an America that is strong, morally as well as economically and militarily. I at least have an idea that things would be much worse. (Imagine being a woman in the Middle East, or a gay person in many Asian countries. And I'd rather be a Muslim living in Israel than a Jew OR a Muslim living in just about any other middle eastern country.) I at least know that I take a lot for granted.

This "misguided idealism" is the most charitable explanation I can come up with.

[kenth]

Why do people hate Christians so? Why do so many not see that hatred, or somehow excuse it?

I keep asking that too, though I know the answer as I'm sure you do. It's evil, plain and simple.

It quickly became apparent that the whole purpose of the criticism was to keep people from seeing the movie, and not merely for the purpose of critique. I don't know which is worse to witness, those who are active players on the side of evil, or those who don't realize which side they are on.

[macamadamia]

"It's a well-made movie but it's very violent and infused with a great sense of self-flagellation."

Amazingly, he's NOT talking about Raging Bull. Raging Bull is a good movie in my opinion, but if Jake LaMotta (as Schrader/Scorcese envision the man) did not engage in "self-flagellation" than Schrader has some cryptic (gnostic) notion of the word.

Personally, I think he's just dancing fast to hide his snobbery. "Hey, Gibson, my violence is better than your violence. It's intellectual! Your's...is just...just so low brow."

[hellinahandcart]

What a beautiful post.

[hellinahandcart]

I think I understand Schrader now.

It's "enlightened" to make "a humanist story about the struggle to find God in which Christ is used as a metaphor", but unenlightened and downright "disturbing" to come into the theatre with a powerful "belief system" (other than a secular humanist belief system, one presumes).

[Ciexyz]

Oh my, what a disturbing thought to a faux Christian -- that people go to a religious movie and actually have a religious experience! How novel!

[freebilly]

No, but if a dog were shaved and tattooed with scenes from the
Annunciation, now that's a different story....

[Ciexyz]

Eight mil, is that the extent of the gross for "Last Temptation"?! In any case, I never even gave it 99 cents for a cheap rental.

[Hildy]

The guy is beyond jealous, as is most of the wicked Hollywood elite.

[presidio9]

Amazingly, he's NOT talking about Raging Bull. Raging Bull is a good movie in my opinion, but if Jake LaMotta (as Schrader/Scorcese envision the man) did not engage in "self-flagellation" than Schrader has some cryptic (gnostic) notion of the word.

I fail to see how the scene where Joe Pecsi repeatedly slams a guy's head in a car door in Raging Bull is any less violent than the scourging scene. As others have pointed out, the "violence" obsession is a creation of people who are dedicated to keeping people from seeing this movie. It emerged when the antisemitism charges didn't take.

[Eva]

I read a post that claimed that he had received an e-mail from some Democrat web site, encouraging Democrats to not pay to see the Passion, to buy a ticket for another movie instead and then just walk into the screening of the Passion. I started thinking about the movie that has knocked the Passion out of the number one spot and am wondering if this was the result of a concerted effort by the left. I don't know, maybe that's just conspiracy thinking, but it is possible.

[Ciexyz]

...I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it (The Last Temptation of Christ).

But weren't you offended by the scene in which Joseph and Jesus made crosses for Roman crucifixions in their carpentry shop?

I didn't see the film myself, I'm just reporting what I heard about it.

[Aquinasfan]

The audience comes into the film with such a powerful belief system that they think they have a religious experience. It's quite an interesting and disturbing phenomenon,"

Because?

And the writer has no "powerful belief system"?

[aegiscg47]

I love the "violence" claims by the media and left to try to get people not to see the film. I recently saw Dawn of the Dead and that film has ten times the violence that was in the Passion!

[presidio9]

I watched Braveheart last night, which the left loved,/u> before they discovered that Mel was not one of them. It is much more violent than the Passion.

[cvq3842]

Frankly, I was a bit afraid to see the film also, hearing how violent it was. I'm glad someone encouraged me to go with them.

You are right - criticizing a film and practically trying to "blacklist" it are two different things.

[macamadamia]

"I fail to see how the scene where Joe Pecsi repeatedly slams a guy's head in a car door in Raging Bull is any less violent than the scourging scene."


I don't disagree with you; at least I hope you don't think I was disagreeing with you. Clearly, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver are a great deal more violent. Schrader's hypocrisy is transparent and so brazen it begs pyschoanalysis.

[TopQuark]

This "misguided idealism" is the most charitable explanation I can come up with.

I agree, of course, with everything you said in your post. But push your idea further and ask not why idealist exists, for it has always been around, but why is it winning now?

The only explanation I found for myself is that religion became defensive as science and industrial revolution started to roll. You don't have to be a historian and look back two centuries: consider "the pill." The only answer to the increasing ease of sexual intercourse without biological consequences is an increase in moral responsibility. I do not think either Jewish or Christian leaders offered a real answer to the pill when it appeared in 1960s. There answer, "Don't use it," was and is suitable for VERY observant people, and these are the ones that need help least. Leadership was required, explaining to people that, just as technology makes killing easier, it does not become more morally justified, contraceptives do not decrease moral aspects of sexual relations, which are given to use to give life. That is just one example.

Every time "the church" and "the synagogue" took a step back, it created vacuum. It is into this vacuum that the idealism you referred to stepped in. This utopian ideal took different forms but was always the same at the foundation: it replaced G-d in heaven with man-god. And, as Dostoyevsky pointed out, man-god is not bound by anything; man-god can march through the Earth and cover it in blood. It did --- in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, communist China... This march of idealism continues --- and only because we allow it to happen by not offering a strong MORAL alternative in the language understandable by most. We preach to the converted, the choir that is getting smaller and smaller...