Posted on 03/11/2005 9:56:44 PM PST by ambrose
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Softened 'Passion' is still hard on the senses
By WILLIAM ARNOLD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MOVIE CRITIC
When a filmmaker releases a new take on a hit film, it's normally to add footage that was sliced over his objections or better judgment the first time around: giving us the so-called "director's cut." But Mel Gibson has gone the other way.
In order to make it more accessible to the squeamish, "The Passion Recut" -- the new edition of his controversial and lucrative 2004 movie phenomenon, "The Passion of the Christ" -- has removed some six or seven minutes of explicit violence.
His official mission-statement about the new version, which opened yesterday at several area screens (without a prior press screening), was that "By softening some of its more wrenching aspects, I hope to make my film and its message of love available to a wider audience."
How are we to take this? Is it a tacit admission that all those critics who thought the film was much too brutal and violent for anyone's good (and were pummeled by six months of abusive e-mails from the movie's more zealous fans) were right, after all?
Or is it merely just another clever marketing ploy by Mel the Savvy Showman: toning down the grand guignol in the same way that the studios usually excise the vertigo and air-disaster scenes from films that are made available for in-flight entertainment?
Whatever the motive, after sitting through the movie again I can report that it's basically the same old bloodbath. Apparently, the MPAA thought so too, because they once again gave it an "R" rating. (Gibson rejected the classification and the film is officially "unrated.")
I will leave it to a more patient critic to compare the two cuts and determine exactly what is missing. But its structure seems untouched: it's not a "recut" at all in the traditional sense of that term, but a modest abridgment of frames here and there.
So instead of Jesus being smashed in the face 10 times after his arrest in Gethsemane, it's only five or six times. Some of the grisly close-ups of wounds in the flaying scene are gone, and a ghoulish beat or two are missing from the walk to Calvary. The crucifixion, however, seems intact.
I could be wrong, but this new cut also appears to have omitted all but two of the original's numerous spitting-in-Christ's-face shots. You may recall that the original cut was criticized for a spitting fetish that's hard to find in the gospels.
Will the movie be a phenomenon all over again? Will that vast, non-traditional movie audience once again come out in droves to make monkeys out of the Hollywood pundits? Will the director make at least enough to pay for that island he bought in Fiji last week?
We'll see. But the omens are not good. The old "Passion" is long out on DVD, the new one is playing on only four screens in our area, and at the first showing yesterday in the big auditorium of the Grand Cinemas Alderwood, I was the sole member of the audience.
This "re-release" is going to be a colossal flop.
Many christians will go again, also, because it falls at Easter time.
I agree - if the first movie was his vision, why change it?
The worse that can happen is that he spends some of the money he already made. How can that be called a colossal flop?
Maybe there are some who would care see it again on the big screen, I will, and I have the DVD.
He will make a couple bucks.
Ain't America great!!!!!!!
Many christians will go again, also, because it falls at Easter time.
Exactly what I said: take advantage of the Christians who will go because it's Holy Week, and take out some gore to get a few of the squeamish.
I guess when you're worth a half-billion, the next hill is to reach that billion dollar mark.
Strikes me as castrating the movie. Isn't the whole point to drive home how much Jesus was willing to suffer and sacrifice?
Doesn't hurt for christians to see a movie about Jesus. They enjoy having a movie to go to at Easter. Since Mel's a christian he probably likes the fact that he gets to spread the Word and make money at the same time.
I think Gibson has done a very nice things for those who hated this movie, on principle, all along like this guy. The movie was an undeniable and overwhelming smash hit, earning enough to rank as one of the all-time box office kings, and it did so w/o inciting the pogroms that certain charlatans warned of. Then the movie went on to sell millions of copies on dvd. In short, the success of the movie served in one respect as a huge "up yours" to all of those on the secular left who wanted so desperately for it to fail.
This recut release of the film probably won't make all that much money, though, and that will allow the movie's detractors to finally claim a victory over it, by crowing that the 'rerelease flopped.' That it has already generated hundreds of millions of dollars in business will probably be forgotten.
So buy the DVD and watch it at home.
I'm a Christian who bought the DVD, so I'm not going to get suckered by this lame attempt at picking my pocket.
Why do you get to tell everyone what they should do? Some prefer a night out. So what? Let them have a night out.
No, only the message that Jesus was willing to suffer and die for us. What a terrible message! (sarcasm)
The movie is already one of the biggest hits in movie history, nothing can change that no matter how much this fact bothers some people.
This rerelease probably won't make much money, but then again I doubt much was spent preparing it and releasing it.
Overall, "flop" is one of the most false charges that can ever be leveled at this film.
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