Posted on 03/09/2003 8:22:05 PM PST by kstewskis
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:05:23 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Greatest Story, Newly Told Mel Gibson on "The Passion," and the passion behind it.
ROME--Bounding around Studio 5 on the Cinecitt
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
LOS ANGELES — Mel Gibson and his parents are under fire today from a leading Jewish group for reportedly anti-semitic impulses in the former's new film and the latter's denial that Al Qaeda executed the Sept. 11 attacks. The actor's father, Hutton Gibson, told The New York Times he flatly rejected that the terrorist group led by Usama bin Laden had any role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11.
"Anybody can put out a passenger list," the elder Gibson told The Times.
"So what happened? They were crashed by remote control."
He and the actor's mother, Joye Gibson, also told The Times that the Holocaust was a fabrication manufactured to hide an arrangement between Adolf Hitler and "financiers" to move Jews out of Germany to the Middle East to fight Arabs.
"Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body," Hutton Gibson told The Times. "It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now six million?"
Said Joye Gibson: "That weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, shot back.
"To bigots and antisemites, no amount of evidence of scientific proof is ever enough. In their world, only hate matters."
The comments from the Gibson family come just after the actor built a church in near Malibu that caters to a revisionist version of Catholocism. According to The Times, the church has a congregation of 70, including the star of such films as "Braveheart" and "Conspiracy Theory."
Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic, is directing and co-wrote an upcoming movie "The Passion," rooted in a theological movement known as Catholic traditionalism that seeks to return the faith to its pre-1962 period, before the Pope issued what is known as Vatican II, a series of proclamations that did away with the notion that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
"If the new film seeks to undo that," Hier told The Times, "it would not be uncovering truth. Rather, it would unleash more of the scurrilous charges...directed against the Jewish people, which took the Catholic Church 20 centuries to finally repudiate."
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I just love people who assume and jump to conclusions, long before they ever surface....just to stir up the pot. /sarcasm
...and I find it predictable that you feel that's relevant to the movie.
If the name of Gibson was changed to a left wing celeb the threads would be long and numerous and villifying that celeb.
The movie will stand or fail on its own merits.
Just a guess (whether it's right or wrong) is that it wouldn't matter one way or the other if he commented on his dad's views. It does't hinge on the bearing of the film (what he thinks of his folk's view).
He isn't one to talk about what his family says or does in public (on any topic), so I really don't see the point.
Double standards suck no matter who or what they are applied to.
Agreed. Double standards are wrong. And everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether we agree with them or not.
We haven't (correct me if I'm wrong) heard Mel make statements of his views about the Jews, 9-11, or whatever statements concurrent with what his father has said in the past.
Many things being written about the movie are pure speculation (leaving room to "stir the pot," imho), except for those few that have actually been on the set and interviewed Mel himself. I only know of O'Reilly, and EWTN who have interviewed Mel directly since the project started.
Who knows. Perhaps the folks at DU (or other like minded environs) are ripping Mel and his dad apart, and shun him because he leans towards to the right with his convictions. Would they do the same to Sheen? Maybe, but doubtful.
I think this all will be a "wait and see" thing, next year when it is released, before we can all come to a fair conclusion.
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