Posted on 02/25/2005 11:22:14 AM PST by jbemis
THE BEST PICTURE
BY JAMES BEMIS
When this year’s Academy Award nominees were announced, many were shocked Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST was not nominated for a single major award. The movie, which chronicled Jesus’ last twelve hours, took the cinematic world by storm.
BREAKING AN UNSPOKEN TABOO
Because the movie was filmed in Latin and Aramaic with no big-name stars, Hollywood insiders figured producer and director Gibson was throwing away his $30 million investment. However, upon general release in February 2004, it was obvious something extraordinary had occurred: THE PASSION was not only a box office smash but the film succeeded brilliantly as cinema.
Gibson expertly puts us at Ground Zero of the last twelve hours in Christ’s life. In his wisdom, the director played it straight, letting the gripping Passion narrative unfold just as it has been passed down through the ages – thankfully, there’s hardly a modern touch found anywhere in the film.
In taking Christianity seriously, however, “The Passion” broke Hollywood’s unspoken taboo. Controversy raged about whether the film was “anti-Semitic.” But whether people loved or hated the film, most agreed it was extraordinarily powerful cinema. The question was not if the film would be nominated for major awards, but how many.
Then came January 26’s startling news: THE PASSION was nominated for three minor awards but no major ones. Few imagined Hollywood’s bias against Christianity was so big – and its elite so small – that THE PASSION would be virtually snubbed when the Academy Award nominations were announced. Was 2004 such a stellar year for the movies that a great cinematic achievement like THE PASSION could be ignored?
THE SECOND-RATE COMPETITION
Hardly. The five films nominated for 2004’s Best Picture are – at best – second-rate, forgettable as last week’s leftovers. RAY, for instance, is simply a mediocre bio-pic of the sort – albeit seamier – Hollywood used to churn out by the dozens: THE GLENN MILLER STORY, THE BENNY GOODMAN STORY, THE GENE KRUPA STORY, THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY, etc. (None of these – including RAY – holds a candle to “YANKEE DOODLE DANDY,” though.) You never forget you’re watching a movie about Ray Charles: Despite all the acting accolades, Jamie Foxx seems far too delicate and insubstantial for the role of a tough, complex giant like Ray Charles. As one who loves Charles’ music, I wanted to like the movie but found it trite and unmoving. Most viewers would better understand “The Genius” by listening to a greatest hits CD rather than watching this anemic film.
It says much about the corrupted state of our culture that Clint Eastwood’s MILLION DOLLAR BABY is considered mainstream. The story involves the freakish sport of female boxing, an activity that would be unthinkable in a civilized society. None of the athletes exhibit even the faintest hint of feminine virtue, but instead talk, act and think like undersized men with mammeries. Worse, the film smiles upon the “mercy killing” of an invalid by the nominally Catholic “hero.” The message: Once you’ve lost the ability to earn big bucks pulverizing women in a boxing ring, then life just ain’t worth living. This is deep thinking, Hollywood-style.
Finally, director Eastwood can’t resist taking cheap shots at the Catholic Church. As in last year’s MYSTIC RIVER, a priest is disparaged: This time, he’s made to appear immature and so ignorant he can’t explain the doctrine of the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception to a pesky parishioner. In short, MILLION DOLLAR BABY is a thoroughly repulsive film.
Martin Scorsese’s THE AVIATOR is similar to Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose: so overblown it hardly gets airborne. This leaden biography of Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is a cartoonish, indulgent, almost amateurish production. DiCaprio’s hair looks like it was dyed with shoe polish. In the second lead role, Cate Blanchett’s caricature of Katherine Hepburn is uproariously incompetent. Like every movie Scorsese has made since 1980’s great RAGING BULL, this film is too long, too loud, and too lumbering. Nothing in it rings true. Put another way, THE AVIATOR, as they say, must be seen to be disbelieved.
Critically acclaimed SIDEWAYS reveals more about its admirers than it does about human nature. The story revels in degradation - of marriage, friendship, courtship, family, etc. You name it, SIDEWAYS demeans it. Ostensibly about two friends on a week-long wine tasting binge before one’s wedding, the wretched SIDEWAYS is a sort of upscale PORKY’S, replete with foul language, naked fat slobs, animal-like carnality and juvenile high-jinks by two thoroughly unlikable male leads. If this is the “cultural landmark” many are saying, conservatives must ask whether American society has much left worth conserving.
FINDING NEVERLAND, a story about “Peter Pan” creator J. M. Barrie, is a thin but rewarding film, featuring an excellent performance by Johnny Depp – the first role I’ve seen in which he doesn’t grossly overact. Another highlight is the extraordinary performance by Freddie Highmore as a member of the family that inspires Barrie to write “Peter Pan.” NEVERLAND is an enjoyable and touching movie, but ultimately is rather insubstantial.
RELISHING RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY
By any artistic standard, THE PASSION is far superior to any of the films nominated as Best Picture. Why the cold-shoulder? First, part of the wailing over the movie was veiled envy from an embarrassed Hollywood establishment, those makers of infantile comedies and seductive trivialities who saw what a real filmmaker could do. Watching THE PASSION is an unforgettable experience: It demonstrates the heights that cinema is capable of but rarely achieves, especially these days.
Second, THE PASSION’S snubbing puts the lie to the Hollywood establishment’s reputed “tolerance.” In fact, a hostile blacklisting of Gibson and other Christians now occurring is far more hideous than anything happening during the supposed “Dark Ages” of the McCarthy blacklisting era because it is done out of religious intolerance. Over the years, observers have noted how Hollywood executives relish producing films that undermine, demean, and ridicule the Christian faith. This year the mask is ripped off and we see the bared fangs of religious bigotry in all its grisly and vivid ugliness. In a year when a great film like THE PASSION so obviously should have been honored, Tinseltown’s elites instead chose five forgettable films as the finest they had to offer. Faced with an opportunity to rise above their prejudices for a change, the Academy – to its everlasting shame - took a flyer.
The 2004 Academy Awards forever will be remembered as when the year’s best picture wasn’t nominated as Best Picture.
I danced around nothing. Latin rite, specifically, has a different form of salvation, sin, life after death, forgiveness, structure, authority, etc. Right on down the line it is all different. And it is largely based on philosophy - not scripture.. thus the difference. It's just common sense. You can set a VW Bus next to a Kenworth Semi truck. Both are vehicles, just as Christianity and Catholicism are both religions. Both are choices to be respected. You can even paint the two trucks with Jesus, Mary and Paul.. that doesn't make the trucks both Kenworths or both VWs.. It just means the paint jobs look alike. The surface they're painted upon is vastly different. Do they get you the same place - nope. You can't tow a 20+ foot box trailer behind a VW Bus. If I pointed out the same thing about Mormonism or the Jim Jones cult, you'd agree, I'm sure. They both painted themselves with Jesus, the apostels etc.. They also claimed to be Christian. But the veneer'd claim doesn't make it so. Nor do fits of dissent when the facts are pointed out. Claiming to be an officer of the law when you are not is fraud. Apparently if you stamp your feet and protest loud enough, we're supposed to accept it and let you have your way. Doesn't work with the policeman - why then should different level of scrutiny be applied to religion?
I might note, it used to be that Catholics would not claim Christianity. They flatly would not do it. Looking at the differences, I understand why. And that is in large part what made me start studying the differences back in the late 80's. Having debated the issue here and elsewhere, I find people saying "Well, there's room for different interpretations." No, really there isn't. When you tell your kids to clean the room, you meant something specific.
If your kid comes and tells you there is room for interpretation and that's why he was playing instead, you'd bust the kid's butt. Because it's religion, you'd dissemble in place of the kid to pretend it's just a matter of interpretation. Christ didn't let that go with the Pharisees. Why should the rest of us.
Like I said, I support your right to be Catholic, Budhist, Krishan, etc. I can defend the ground and have at length many times here and elsewhere. You would claim that protestants aren't truly Christians if you went by your dogma - they cannot be said to be "invincibly ignorant" because they know of the Pope and the claims of the Papacy.
They cannot therefore claim ignorance. But you've weakened that stance in order to use Ecumenism to try to draw the protestants into Catholicism. You even know they aren't the same thing. Then there's the problem of Orthodox Catholicism vs. Latin rite. They're even different from one another. Two different sets of requirements for salvation is a big one. As it is central, it is no small, dismissable difference. You either have the right message or you don't.
Latin rite taught the Orthodox view, then changed things more than a thousand years after Christ died and added to their requirements. Thusly, they taught error. Venerate is a term synonymous with worship. In meaning and practice they are the identical same thing. I understand some people don't like that being pointed out; but, it is another massive example of blatent, utter divergence.
They're different. You picked your religion for a purpose, and I respect your choice. But having picked yours please don't tell me you're in mine.
you reeeeeely are a waste of time.
Until you acknowlege the fact that
Catholics are Christians
DO NOT WASTE ANY MORE OF MY TIME WITH YOUR POSTS!
good byyyyyyyye
This guy is as one dimensional and fickle as he accuses them of being... "Passion" wasn't nominated, so I'll beat up on all the other movies that were"
At least I admit I'm fickle. I don't care who wins because there's no Lord of the Rings movie to root for this year.
"The Aviator" was not as good a movie as "Ray". Once "Hell's Angels" is made, the movie bogs down. Endless repetition of phrases may be an accurate description of Hughes' OCD, but does not make good cinema.
"Ray" keeps moving. They are after all, moving pictures. Having said that, "Aviator" was a good movie...just not a great one.
I enjoy Casino most of any Scorsese...and think "Taxi Driver" is an excellent piece. The music helped "Taxi Driver" immensely, as well as DeNiro's performance.
You and me both!!!!!!!! I do NOT even watch the NEWS on the day the OSCARS are awarded...seriously!!!!!
I thought "Taxi Driver" was okay. It was real creepy, i thought. By yeah, DeNiro really did a good job.
"And watching a three-hour film about an eccentric millionaire who once dated Katherine Hepburn is your idea of important cinema? "
I saw "POTC". I did NOT see "The Aviator". Your assertions are invalid and wrong.
Not at all wrong. Passion is obviously an important film with huge significance for millions of people. The Aviator is a fluff entertainment starring an actor who is hard to take seriously. Do you really think people care that much about Howard Hughes--enough to surrender three hours of their time, let alone the price of a ticket?
Glad I could be specific enough for you to stamp your feet, and rise to the level of a liberal. And no, I won't acknowledge an untruth. You can stamp your feet and whimper and call me names or whatever, but appealing to your emotions doesn't change the facts.
"Not at all wrong. "
Yeah you are. You accused me of watching the (dumb) 'Aviator' and not seeing 'POTC'. Both accusations are false. You actually seem to know more about 'Aviator' than I so I should probably be asking you these questions.
"Passion is obviously an important film with huge significance for millions of people. "
Popularity isn't the sole criteria for being award-worthy.
"The Aviator is a fluff entertainment starring an actor who is hard to take seriously. Do you really think people care that much about Howard Hughes--enough to surrender three hours of their time, let alone the price of a ticket?"
No argument, although unlike you, I don't even know what actor is in 'Aviator'. From what I've read today, the Academy didn't award it anything major anyways. I'm guessing some people cared, though, given its box office success. Not everyone is interested in watching someone get beaten for 3 hours over & over again. I personally don't go the the theater to get depressed.
Popularity was not what the Passion of the Christ was all about. It was a film brimming with creative inspiration and intelligence. But because it was a film about faith and the theological significance of the sufferings of Jesus, it was shut out of the Academy Awards. I doubt most of the industry's leading lights even bothered to see the film. An implacable wall of hostility instead has opposed this movie. It opposed Gibson long before the film ever started production and was the culmination of a long Hollywood grudge against Christianity itself. It's silly to even try to deny this. It had done all it could to try to keep this film from ever being made.
In fact the industry did more than refuse to finance Gibson's venture. It tried to shut it down by means of threats and bad publicity. And when the film was finished, it would not even distribute it--though the market was obviously out there waiting to be served. In fact, so ideologically hostile has Hollywood's left been to anything Christian, that it has gone out of its way for decades to gratuitously insult and ridicule the Christian faith in film after film after film. And because Gibson defied this taboo, he aroused Hollywood's ire, though the film has broken box office records.
The truth is, The Passion of the Christ is a serious film, a thought-provoking film, a film with superb cinematography, a well-acted film, a beautifully directed film, a unique film, a film that is a smash hit, a film that evokes powerful emotions among countless millions, a film that had proven to be a true phenomenon, in fact--yet it was not even nominated. It lost out to lightweights like Million Dollar Baby and Sideways and The Aviator. Jim Caviezel, whose interpretation was universally praised for his powerful performance, was likewise not even nominated, though no actor in the history of cinema had ever been more convincing in such a difficult role. What does this tell us about Hollywood?
"It's silly to even try to deny this."
Nowhere have I denied this, nor the fact that Hollywood sucks.
"What does this tell us about Hollywood? "
That you & I both know they suck and are in agreement on this point?
Oh, yes - I forgot. There's nothing like ranting against an imagined slight to fill up an otherwise empty page.
Why does this guy need POTC to be validated by Hollywood?
Oscar != greatness
They hate Christianity, period. Not just Catholics.
The Passion is being re-released with a PG rating - some of the violent scenes have been toned down. I had a hard time watching the scourging and I'm a former infantry Marine.
I'm glad that kids will be able to see the film, but the original is a classic that will be viewed in 100 years as something beyond film. It was by far the best film of the year.
Cavezal's portrayal was by far tougher than Fox's natural fit as Ray Charles, and he did an amazing job in The toughest role. I mean let's face it, Fox is a classical pianist and he looks remarkably like Ray Charles. He'll never get another role tailored for him like that.
I may be the only one on this thread that really liked Million Dollar Baby. The characters were interesting and well developed, the film flowed well, and it had enough up and down to really keep you into it. A great film. But it doesn't hold a candle to The Passion Of The Christ, a movie that will stand the test of time.
I honestly think that the "Usual Suspects" who control the Academy were terrified that even more people would see The Passion and know the true potential of their medium.
"Not everyone is interested in watching someone get beaten for 3 hours over & over again. I personally don't go the the theater to get depressed."
But the Passion of the Christ was not about someone getting beaten up--that's a very superficial understanding of Gibson's film, part of the propaganda about it from the left. It was actually about the Crucifixion and the Christian concept of Redemption. So it had something major to say about one of the major religions on the planet, and did so in a way that was cinematically ingenious. Granted this would not be as meaningful to non-Christians as to Christians, any more than a film about the Holocaust would be as meaningful to non-Jews as to Jews. But thinking people of any faith should find such films of considerable interest just the same. The reward is in the aesthetics of such ventures, and in the intellectual insights gleaned. I am not Jewish, but Schindler's List was a disturbing and powerful film experience for me anyway. I thought about it for days. I can't say that I enjoyed it--but it did not depress so much as it evoked sober thought and enlightened--which was what it was intended to do. Such films are important and consequential--and should never be overlooked by the film academy.
"There's nothing like ranting against an imagined slight to fill up an otherwise empty page"
The slight was not imagined. It made evident what Hollywood pretends doesn't exist--its own bigotry towards Christianity.
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