Posted on 02/26/2004 11:52:19 AM PST by GulliverSwift
The first UK screening of Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of The Christ provoked a furious response from Britain's Jewish community today.
Many left the Odeon in Leicester Square branding it "disgusting," "deplorable," and likely to incite racial hatred.
Depicting the last 12 hours in the life of Christ, Gibson's blood-drenched epic, which is estimated by its distributor to have made $20 million (£10.74m) in its first day in the US yesterday, had already been accused of anti-Semitism.
It shows Jewish high priests demanding Christ's crucifixion, then looking on as he is tortured and put to an agonising death.
Neville Nagler, director general of the Jewish Board of Deputies, said: "It would have been better if this film had never been made. The glorification of violence and bloodshed and the reinforcement of medieval stereotyping of the Jewish people are extremely dangerous.
"At a time when we are trying to develop co-operation and dialogue within our diverse and multi-cultural society, this film overturns the recent teachings of the Church and is completely unhelpful in fostering closer Jewish-Christian relations."
Lord Janner, former president of the Board of Deputies and now vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, said after the screening: "I hated it. The Jews come out of it as a pretty nasty lot and I believe it could cause very great harm in relations with the Jewish community."
Yitzchak Schochet, a leading rabbi, said: "The cinematography was fantastic, the acting was brilliant - but the content was deplorable in the extreme. It is filled with grotesque blood-letting. Much of it is based on hearsay.
"The idea of the priests standing there smiling as Jesus was crucified is fatally flawed. I hope they ban it, or at the very least edit out some of the scenes No Christian will walk out of this film without bad feeling towards Jews."
Gibson is a conservative Catholic, a member of a breakaway group which does not accept the Vatican II reforms of 1962 which absolved Jews of responsibility for the crucifixion.
One of Israel's two chief rabbis today urged the Pope to reiterate the 1962 decision.
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said: "The Vatican and the Pope must explain today ... that the Jewish nation, the Jewish people didn't kill Jesus." Rabbi Metzger said that friends who had seen the film were "deeply shocked by it."
Catholic priests were also among the 800-strong audience at the special premiere, along with members of the media, and their take on the film was markedly different.
Father Mark Hackeson, from Norfolk, said: "I thought it was an excellent and very moving film. I do not believe it is anti-Semitic - Jesus himself was Jewish. Of course it is violent, but the crucifixion was a very violent event.
"The important thing is that the message behind the violence is one of love and forgiveness, not of condemnation."
Joseph Devine, the Bishop of Motherwell, said: "It was stunning. A remarkable achievement."
However not all Christian viewers were impressed: "I've got very mixed feelings about it," said David Lawrence, media officer for the United Reformed Church. "It's very difficult to lose the Monty Python interpretation because the film was so laden with symbolism and the acting was so laboured. The much-hyped blockbuster drew thousands in early morning screenings in the US yesterday and continued to draw crowds later in the day. It also opened in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Some devout Christians cannot see the film. The Mormon church forbids missionaries from watching television or films and discourages its followers from watching R-rated films, of which The Passion is one.
"I don't think our Lord would want me to see an R-rated film about his son," said 20-year-old Shawn Watts, a Mormon missionary, in Salt Lake City. One viewer reported died after collapsing during the bloody crucifixion scene. The current first-day box office record for a film released outside the summer and Christmas seasons is held by Hannibal which took $19.8m in February 2001. The biggest takings for a film opening on a Wednesday stand at $34.1 million (£18.3m) for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
I can see both views on this. The anger and the smug satisfaction.
I would encourage you to do so...although it is graphic. It is reasonably accurate. (Just saw it last night) Have you heard Avi Lipkin speak? Even if we don't convert one another, we have a belief in the same spiritual Father. Your scripture is the solid foundation for ours. We should not be repeating the quarrelling of Jacob and Esau over who has the birthright. Nor need you fear. Our scripture teaches that the two shall be joined in the vine, that we gentiles are adopted into the Fathers family...with you. You are his first-fruits. God is still true to his promise to Abraham.
Bingo!
Inter-generational guilt is for xenophobes and demagogues. If today's Jews are guilty for killing Christ, then today's Christians are guilty for the Inquisition. Neither is true.
Every Religion believes its own story. Real Jews have the Torah, and for us G-d actually parted the sea like the movie "The Ten Commandments". Real Christians have the passion, and the things represented in Gibson's movie are true to them. Muslims and Hindus have their stories too.
The question becomes, what do you do with the story you believe to be true? Each religion tends its own way. Right now, I suggest that Jews and Christians settle down and look at the real killing: Muslims are killing us. They want us all dead. If you want some "passion" in your life, consider who is killing you.
A good review! Yet extraneous and unfaithful in the end. Extraneous because every movie is hearsay, even the best and must scruplous documentary. Hearsay is always a pot that draws flies, and every movie is full of it. Some pots are covered better than others, some have none.
The cover of this movie's chamberpot is it's very ultra-violence, surpassing what Clockwork Orange only dreamed of.
And there, a shochet might understand the faith of cutting and rending, for few are up to having it seen so boldly. A cut is always honest. A blow, a bruising blow, may damage unseen, dishonest in that. A cut -- it's damage is clear, obvious, faithful and honest.
I haven't seen the movie, but I've seen real cuts and the effects of tearing flesh apart wildly, wishing never to see it again, I am.
And there's the faith of the movie. For it is a movie -- not a real cut -- and only that way bearable to watch, for it is not reported that many at all have walked -- run out -- of the theater as say, folks did for the other ultra-violent movies such as "Pulp Fiction". The faith of the movie is that it is a movie. The faith of the movie is that people watching it -- no matter how deeply affected they might at the time think they are -- the faith, the truth, is unignorable. It is all a fake, that it is all a fake, and just a movie, and the actor, fake-whipped and fake-beat and fake-cruxified yet still lives, unscathed, un-scarred, and rich as Rockefeller, among us -- a mere actor, with manicures and pedicures and hair salon bills.
I really liked that scrapper from the Catholic League...
The Jews of today are no more complicit in Christ's death, 2000 years ago, than the British of today are complicit in the American Revolution over 200 years ago.
She went to see the Passion of Christ yesterday and it was her first trip to a movie theater since the premiere of My Fair Lady.
HairOfTheDog was concerned as we discussed on a thread yesterday about a woman having a heart attack during a showing of thePassion at a theater in the midwest.
I will talk to her at length later but I thought I would give you some of her interesting thoughts.
Mel Gibson was truer to the Gospels than Cecil B. Demille was to the Book of Exodus. Most people might not get the connection to Genesis 3:15 during the movie but it is unmistakable. He shall wound your heel, but you shall wound his head." There were a lot of other scripture reference3s that people might not get. Both old and New Testaments.
If Jewish people are upset about this they are looking for an excuse to be upset. The line, "His blood is on us" was not in the movie and that would be the only reason why someone might come away from it with anti-semitic feelings.
Gory? No, I have spent 88 years trying to visualize how awful the cross and the flogging would have been. All my life I have been prepared to see how brutal mankind can be.
As a Latin teacher she had several comments on that. I will probably start a thread for her experience if you find this interesting.
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