Posted on 09/09/2003 9:17:08 PM PDT by Polycarp
Mel Gibson hits back at 'vicious' critics of Christ film
By in New York
(Filed: 09/09/2003)
Mel Gibson turned on critics of his film The Passion, about Jesus Christ, over claims that it is anti-Semitic but his language has ignited a new controversy.
The Australian-born actor and director said he was the target of "vehement anti-Christian sentiment" but admitted that the row over his £16 million self-financed film was good publicity.
In one of a series of inflammatory remarks quoted in this week's The New Yorker, Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of trying "to blame the Holocaust on the Roman Catholic Church".
"It's a lie. And it's revisionism," said Gibson, a follower of Traditionalist Catholicism that still performs the Latin Tridentine mass. "And they've been working on that one for a while."
His film, due to be released next Easter but so far without a distributor, has been described as likely to fuel "hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism" by the Anti-Defamation League and has been criticised by some Roman Catholic theologians.
Its commercial appeal is also open to question as it has been shot entirely in Latin and Aramaic, the everyday language of Jesus and his disciples. It is unclear whether it will be subtitled.
Its director portrays himself as caught up in a huge conflict between "big realms that are warring and battling. You stick your head up and you get knocked," he said.
"I didn't realise it would be so vicious. The acts against this film started early. There is vehement anti-Christian sentiment out there and they don't want it."
Gibson is not averse to dishing out venomous attacks of his own, however, with one target Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist, who implied that Gibson's father was "a Holocaust denier".
"I want to kill him," Gibson said of the columnist. "I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog."
Gibson said: "He never denied the Holocaust. He just said there were fewer than six million."
As proof of his desire to avoid confrontation, Gibson cited his decision to cut a scene in which Caiaphas says "his blood be on us and on our children" soon after Pontius Pilate washes his hands of the captive Christ.
"I wanted it in," he said. "My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house. They'd come to kill me."
Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, just send me a FReepmail. Please realize that some of my "ping" posts are long.)
When the bullets are whizzing around and you're being persecuted for Christ, you know the enemy of our souls considers you a serious threat.
Supposedly, there's no such thing as bad publicity, but this comment is undefendable. Before this, I took Mel at his word that he'd hoped the movie would create dialogue, but this type of immature outburst is not constructive on any level, and is giving more ammo to his detractors.
So Gibson counters arguments he's not an anti-semite by collectively blaming an apparent philosophy and its adherents for books written by Catholics, like "Hitler's Pope" - and even that doesn't "blame" the Church for the Holocaust.
Sounds to me like Mel hasn't outgrown daddy's hang-ups.
The same one with the dog killers. Must be apocryphal or somethin'.
Which is worse, to feel something and pretend you don't (which is what some hypocritical Christian critics of Mel will do now...they would FEEL the same way if they were close to their dads and some cynical wicked SOB took advantage of him) or to feel something and admit to that weakness, that anger?
Mel should have kept his mouth shut. But he was only saying what all of us would feel.
The author of "Hitler's Pope" is no more "Catholic" than my left sneaker.
It really doesn't matter what he says. If he doesn't utter a word, his detractors will make something up.
You don't write for the NYT, do you?
According to Mel's father, the same holds for John Paul II.
Gibson for Senate.
Which is the point! The reporter had one hell of a lot of nerve publishing the stuff from Mel's old kooky dad, in his attempt to smear Mel and his work with the same broad brush.
You have far too much sympathy for these dispicable bastards.
I like Mel, but yeesh! Did he really say this? It reminds me of something Mike Tyson would say in the ring after a fight, when he was off his meds: "I want to eat his children."
see my post 11.
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