Posted on 03/31/2003 5:28:35 AM PST by dead
Movie makers know that a dose of pre-release controversy can work wonders for their films at the box office. But even such modern marketing techniques don't quite explain the flak Mel Gibson is drawing over the film he is making based on the final hours in the life of Jesus.
Called The Passion, the movie has been directed, co-written, and largely privately financed by Gibson who says it will be an authentic - and graphic - presentation of the gospel story even to the point of having the actors speak exclusively in Latin and Aramaic.
The Passion has been panned in advance by some critics who say the story has been done to death. Some reports have linked it to Gibson's religious beliefs with one scathing attack recently suggesting he is peddling an outmoded theology favoured by "conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected conservatives".
The film has also raised concerns among Jewish groups who fear it will revive the charge that Jews are collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
Gibson went so far as to claim, in a March 14 interview with an American Catholic cable network, that "the other world" was "warring" with him to prevent his retelling how Jesus died a horrible death for the sake of humanity.
The real war Gibson has joined, however, is a culture war within the Catholic Church which is spilling across the frontiers of inter-religious dialogue.
Gibson has never made a secret of his Catholicism or of the particular variety of the faith with which he feels comfortable. This is a traditionalist Catholicism that is deeply suspicious of the changes brought about in the church by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and determined to retrieve a sense of its own separateness from the world.
He was quoted in Time magazine in January as arguing that Vatican II had "corrupted" the church.
"Look at the fruits," Gibson had said, "dwindling numbers and pedophilia."
This ignores the fact that attendance levels at Mass now are about what they were a century ago (high attendance levels in the decades before 1960 were the anomaly), that many cases of clerical sexual abuse go back well beyond the past 40 years, and that it was Vatican II which encouraged Catholics of Gibson's generation to take the study of the Bible seriously.
Gibson is also a devotee of the Latin Mass - he is said to attend daily in his private chapel - which Vatican II replaced by Mass celebrated in the vernacular.
Vatican II reasoned that the adoption of Latin as the universal language of the church in the fourth century was merely a concession to the times and that by conducting Mass in the language of the participants they could take a more active part in the ceremony.
But active involvement brings with it differences of opinion and outlook. It was such differences, taken to their extreme by Protestant reformers and also by those Catholics who sought to counter the Reformation, that led to the Council of Trent in the 16th century. The council sought to impose order amid the chaos by, among other things, standardising the Mass. This became known as the Tridentine Rite, commonly referred to as the Old Latin Mass.
Among traditionalists the popularity of this Mass is essentially an expression of support for the type of church that produced it - one that placed a premium on order, stability and certainty rather than innovation, participation and inclusiveness. Its appeal has very little to do with any inherent beauty associated with the Latin language.
This explains why clerics such as Bishop Daniel Dolan, who ministers to traditionalist Catholics in Cincinnati, told The New York Times recently that for Gibson "to put the weight of his Hollywood celebrity behind the truth that the whole modern church structure is rotten to the core is excellent". (Dolan was ordained by a French archbishop who broke with Rome over Vatican II and was later excommunicated.)
The symbolic importance of the Latin Mass also explains why Gibson, and by extension the publicity for his views The Passion will attract, draws criticism from mainstream Catholics and from non-Catholics who are thankful that the church finally embraced the modern world and all its complexity in the 1960s.
The moral for Gibson is obvious: if you are going to be a combatant, expect to be shot at from time to time.
The message for everyone else is simple: celebrities are entitled to their opinions but, for all the influence they wield, their views are no more valid than anybody else's.
SD
who said there were no subtitles? I heard Mel say there were.
Sheeeeeeeeezzz, is there no limit to the crass commercialism. The kicker is, IMHO, the guy is about the sorriest excuse for an actor that I can think of.
Was Charlton Heston as Moses "crass" and "commercial" as well?
SD
You're welcome. The tide is turning, and we should expect better translations to be used in English sometime in the not-too-distant future. Another example "And with your spirit" is the proper translation of "et cum spiritu tuo," not "And also with you."
SD
and are getting new ones all the time... A few weeks ago our music director decided that the congregation would sing Agnes Dei (Michael W. Smith)rather than having one of the praise team sing it, as is usually done, as a solo. It caught all of us in the choir by surprise as he hadn't informed us ahead of tme.
There were 7,000 people singing their own solos, veins popping in their necks. The choir broke their normally uniform ranks and gathered around the microphones (they are not supposed to do this, ever), and sang at the top of their lungs. The sound was positively astounding, the choir loft was shaking (I'm not kidding, we could feel it move under our feet) and I'm sure they had to check the foundation before the next service.
It was one of the most powerful moment I have ever experienced in Church.
Mel Gibson produced this film in Sassi of Matera, as Pasolini did in 1964 with his Gospel According to St. Matthew. Even Richard Gere did his David here in 1985. It focuses on the 12 hours of Jesus' life leading to his crucifixion. Jesus speaks Latin and Aramaic without the aid of subtitles.
"Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages," Mel Gibson explained at a news conference Friday in the Sala Fellini at Cinecitta. "They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.
"I want to show the film without subtitles," he added. "Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend language barriers with visual storytelling. If I fail, I'll put subtitles on it, though I don't want to."
"The idea came to me 10 years ago and has been rambling around in my empty head, very slowly taking shape ever since," Gibson said. "I think this is a pretty timeless and timely story to tell, involving an area where there's turbulence now just as there was turbulence then because history repeats itself.
"I want to show the humanity of Christ as well as the divine aspect," he continued. "It's a rendering that for me is very realistic and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be."
I also wonder why a movie that apparently concentrates strictly on the crucifixion of Christ is going to tell people something they don't already know about Christ. There have been movies made already that show Christ's suffering rather graphically. If there's one thing most people know about Christ, it is that He was nailed to a cross. If the movie is not going to portray Christ's teachings about His own coming death, and the significance of that death, then I don't see what is so important about the movie.
He ain't dead...
As for that verse you posted, He's not absolving the Jews who want Him dead of any guilt, He's saying that since He's the Son of God, he could very easily change the course of events, but He's choosing to fulfill the prophecies about Him.
While I agree with your sentiment I take issue with the term quasi-Protestant. Not due to it sounding like a slam against protestants but because it is inaccurate.
A much better way of stating it is that churches (both Catholic and Protestant) who have compromised the gospel are dying while churches who have remained true to the gospel message are growing like crazy.
{please everyone let's not turn this into a Catholic or Protestant bashing party. You know as well as I do that some Catholics and some Protestants will be in heaven together and that God doesn't particularly care what building you worship in as long as you accept His Son Jesus as your Savior}
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.