The Passion of the Christ

[Vlad!]

The Passion of the Christ.

Yes, this was actually my first time seeing it. I didn't see it when it came out for a variety of reasons, but one of the side effects of owning a nice teevee is that sometimes random people show up with movie in hand asking to use my hardware like my apartment is some kind of on-demand movie theater.

Gibson is on record saying that he believes the actual torture and crucifixion was more violent than portrayed in the film. I wasn't there and haven't researched the matter, but I personally have my doubts. I'm not sure I would say I enjoyed it, per se, but I was moved by it and felt that it had its moments.

[murlough23]

Gibson is on record saying that he believes the actual torture and crucifixion was more violent than portrayed in the film.

I haven't seen the film, but I suppose that's possible. It's a pretty grizzly way to die. Then again, those soldiers probably executed enough people that form followed function; they weren't going to make a big show of it being as bloody as possible.

The thing is, regardless of how realistically Gibson may have wanted to portray it, I don't think I need to see something that makes me want to puke in my popcorn bag in order to appreciate what Jesus went through. Maybe for some folks, that'll help shed some light on it, but I more or less get the picture. There's a sense in which I appreciate that and am thankful, and there's a sense in which I'll never be as grateful for it as I should be - allow me to be cheesy and quote Tim Hughes for a second: "I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross." (Sorry. Done gagging?)

[Vlad!]

I haven't seen the film, but I suppose that's possible. It's a pretty grizzly way to die.

The only "grizzly" way to die that I know of is being mauled by a bear. I assume you mean "grisly"

[murlough23]

The only "grizzly" way to die that I know of is being mauled by a bear. I assume you mean "grisly"

Whatev.

[Brenden]

The Passion of the Christ.

Yes, this was actually my first time seeing it. I didn't see it when it came out for a variety of reasons, but one of the side effects of owning a nice teevee is that sometimes random people show up with movie in hand asking to use my hardware like my apartment is some kind of on-demand movie theater.

Gibson is on record saying that he believes the actual torture and crucifixion was more violent than portrayed in the film. I wasn't there and haven't researched the matter, but I personally have my doubts. I'm not sure I would say I enjoyed it, per se, but I was moved by it and felt that it had its moments.

Actual crucifixtion was historically more graphic.

Is it strange that I thought it was tamer than, say, a graphic war movie or horror flick? I mean, in zombie flicks you have people getting pulled apart in much more graphic ways and you never really hear people calling those movies sadistic.

[murlough23]

Is it strange that I thought it was tamer than, say, a graphic war movie or horror flick? I mean, in zombie flicks you have people getting pulled apart in much more graphic ways and you never really hear people calling those movies sadistic.

Depends on your POV. Horror movies sometimes intend to be over-the-top gory and disgusting, to the point of exaggerating what is actually anatomically possible for the sake of campy laughs or whatever. War movies sometimes intend to be more realistic, but obviously you could still create quite a bloody mess with semi-automatics and nerve gas and bombs and so forth. A crucifixion could be seen as less graphic than that, but it also delivers death much more slowly and painfully than something that blows you to smithereens or rips you apart instantaneously.

Gibson wanted his movie to be "shocking" but I don't think he intended for it to be over-the-top and campy. (Whether it is, well, that's a decision I'll leave for others.)

[Vlad!]

I think that part of the controversy wasn't just the gore but the sadism. That said, why activists were up in arms about this movie but not about, say, Captain Rhodes being literally torn apart in Day of the Dead, well, I don't know.

Actual crucifixtion was historically more graphic.

Do you have a citation for that? Everything I've read consists mostly of speculation. I have seen nothing, for example, that indicates the flogging was nearly as severe as the movie depicts. For one, I was incredulous that a human could actually stand after receiving the flogging shown in the movie, let alone carry--by himself--a cross that later a perfectly healthy man could barely hold by himself. All that's mentioned in the Bible is a single line (repeated, I believe, in three of the four gospels) that Jesus was "flogged", but it is left up to historians to say to what degree such a flogging would typically be administered. Ultimately, whether the punishment went to the sadistic extreme that it did in the film is difficult to say definitively one way or the other.

That said, I am certainly willing to acknowledge that the film wasn't off by an order of magnitude. Knowing as I do what Gibson's intent was in that scene, I can understand its placement there even if it turns out to be less than historically accurate.

[Brenden]

So that deserves outrage but the Saw movies get a pass from society? Those movies are about a sadistic killer and they feature graphic torture scenes.

And Vlad, the only source I remember reading is The Case For Christ, so I could be totally wrong since I haven't touched it in about 6 or 7 years and it could have bad information.

[bloop]

So that deserves outrage but the Saw movies get a pass from society? Those movies are about a sadistic killer and they feature graphic torture scenes.

Critics aren't big fans of the Saw franchise, but the horror crowd of the torture porn variety are another beast altogether. 

There is a significant difference between the majority of horror films and The Passion of the Christ in that the latter is at least based on something that is true.  Saw is unassailable from a historical perspective since it doesn't purport to be history.  It doesn't make much sense to take offense in the fact that zombies didn't really eat extra #5's entrails.

[Brenden]

Critics aren't big fans of the Saw franchise, but the horror crowd of the torture porn variety are another beast altogether. 

There is a significant difference between the majority of horror films and The Passion of the Christ in that the latter is at least based on something that is true.  Saw is unassailable from a historical perspective since it doesn't purport to be history.  It doesn't make much sense to take offense in the fact that zombies didn't really eat extra #5's entrails.

True, but it doesn't make sense in my mind to criticize one movie for one movie to get labeled as sadistic and not to label movies that are almost marketed as sadistic. I find fictionalized violence to be more bothersome because you can't argue that you're trying to be realistic, you're only being as sadistic as the director wants to be, which disturbs me more than Mel Gibson deciding to go with, "crucifixtions were nasty things, let's portray them as such".

But in the end, I didn't even think The Passion was well made, so I don't know why I bothered arguing in the first place.

[bloop]

I personally wouldn't mind if someone felt free to label both sadistic.  I haven't seen either, though.

[Brenden]

I personally wouldn't mind if someone felt free to label both sadistic.  I haven't seen either, though.

I wouldn't mind either, I've gone on record saying I found The Last Temptation Of Christ to be more moving.

[murlough23]

I think we're talking about two different categories of criticism here. Movies like Saw are just trying to gross you out and/or amuse you with the sick and twisted ways that they can maim and manipulate the human body. I don't think that's a worthy goal for a movie to have in the first place. Something like The Passion of the Christ that aims to retell a story that actually happened, but that is perhaps exaggerated, can be criticized for the exaggeration (especially if it's sensationalistic), but I still respect the intended goal there.

[bloop]

Personally, I just worry about Saw's value as art.  I have too many kids that I teach who seem to think this kind of thing is the very apex of the art of film (well, that and Norbit).  It seriously makes me worry about generation next.

[murlough23]

Personally, I just worry about Saw's value as art.  I have too many kids that I teach who seem to think this kind of thing is the very apex of the art of film (well, that and Norbit).  It seriously makes me worry about generation next.

I don't know that they're any more doomed than we were. When I was that age, I thought the apex of the art of film was The Mighty Ducks.

NP: "Monsoons", Jack Johnson

[Brenden]

I don't know that they're any more doomed than we were. When I was that age, I thought the apex of the art of film was The Mighty Ducks.

NP: "Monsoons", Jack Johnson

The Mighty Ducks is Citizen Kane compared to tripe like Saw 3.

[bloop]

When I was in high school, I really liked "Psycho", "On the Waterfront", and "Citizen Kane" upon being introduced, and I had at least heard of "Casablanca". 

Granted, my favorite movie to this day is "The Empire Strikes Back", but that's genuinely good cinema, too.

Further, there is no way in hell my parents would have let me watch a splatter film.  It's as if the parents have completely abdicated their posts.

*sigh* - I sound old.

[murlough23]

When I was in high school, I really liked "Psycho", "On the Waterfront", and "Citizen Kane" upon being introduced, and I had at least heard of "Casablanca".

You were a really weird high schooler, then. I was sheltered from the stuff that had more violent and/or sexual content, because I had a more conservative upbringing, but my friends were all talking about how much fun it was to play Mortal Kombat and watch Chun Li's roundhouse kick in slo-mo, etc. The stuff I liked may have been tamer, but it generally didn't rank high on the artistic merit scale. (Then again, neither do some of the rom-coms that I watch nowadays, but I don't rank them as the greatest ever - I've learned to differentiate between good art and mindless fun.)

Further, there is no way in hell my parents would have let me watch a splatter film.  It's as if the parents have completely abdicated their posts.

I tend to assume that a lot of the parents out there slack of on their responsibilities, and that it was that way when we were kids, too, even if some of us had better examples of that. Most of my friends' parents in high school seemed to be "whatevers" about what they watched - I know because when my Mom made us stop watching stuff like The Simpsons, I'd just go over to their houses and watch taped episodes. The difference now seems to be a higher prevalence of media that is rated for adult enjoyment, but that is designed to look cool enough for teens to want to seen/heard it. So the parents can be the same amount of "whatevers" about stuff, but now there's more crap for them to be exposed to.

NP: "Something Greater", Olivia the Band

[who me?]

Do you have a citation for that? Everything I've read consists mostly of speculation. I have seen nothing, for example, that indicates the flogging was nearly as severe as the movie depicts. For one, I was incredulous that a human could actually stand after receiving the flogging shown in the movie, let alone carry--by himself--a cross that later a perfectly healthy man could barely hold by himself. All that's mentioned in the Bible is a single line (repeated, I believe, in three of the four gospels) that Jesus was "flogged", but it is left up to historians to say to what degree such a flogging would typically be administered. Ultimately, whether the punishment went to the sadistic extreme that it did in the film is difficult to say definitively one way or the other.

I went and did a bit of research and Isiah 52:14 says
... his apearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness.

So while that doesn't specificaly state that was from the flogging, it is just before the passage which says

But he was crushed for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquties, the pnishment that brought us peace was laid on him and by his stripes we are healed.

I belive that they are related.

[Vlad!]

Fair enough, I suppose.

From the direct scriptural account, there is like one sentence devoted to the flogging of Jesus, but it felt like at least a quarter of the film was devoted to the same scene. Furthermore, it was the one part of the movie that I would describe as "uncomfortably gory", not necessarily because of the amount of blood shown but because of the violent sadism shown by the soldiers.

I can certainly believe that the torture and death of Jesus was as violent as was shown; if you recall my original post took exception to Gibson's claim that the PotC was tame in comparison with what actually went down.

[who me?]

Also fair enough. What rating did it get in America? I believe it was an R-13 here. My mum went to see it, then brought the DVD home and said that it should have been lower. Whatever, I wouldn't want my 11 year old sister seing it.

[Vlad!]

It was R (17+/18+ depending on where you live in the US). I remember reading somewhere that according to the MPAA guidelines it "should" have been NC-17 for violence and disturbing images, but I don't know if that's true or not.

[who me?]

Wow. That's really high.

 You know, thinking about it I couldn't have been more than twelve when I saw it, and The two sisters down from me saw it too. Renata would have been ten and Christiana must only have been eight or nine.

[who me?]

Hmm. According to Dr. Frederick T. Zugibe, you're closer to the truth than Mel Gibson.

Of course, some of his statement is probably sour grapes, he wrote to Gibson offering his help and was simply ignored. But mostly it makes sense. Here's what he said:

Forensic Summary of The Passion of the Christ's inaccuracies
In the end, there were eight main points at which this film failed to accurately demonstrate the Crucifixion of Jesus. To begin with, the movie failed to show Jesus' severe mental suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, which would have rendered Him limp. Second, the lancinating pains across the face due to trigeminal neuralgia from the effects of the crowning was neglected entirely. Furthermore, the severe caning 932 times0 with rods followed by the almost ten minutes of brutal scourging (front and back with a flagrum containing sharp scorpiones rendered by big, burly soldiers using full swings) would have caused His death after several lashes. Yet another oversight was severe difficulty breathing, splinting with every breath and gasping for air. Moreover, a person in this condition certainly would not have been able to carry a 175 -to 200-pound cross. Totally absent was the effect of the nailing of the hands and feet. This would have caused a medical condition called causalgia, one of the worst pains experienced by man, causing the victims to scream out in severe agony. The suppadenum (foot rest) depicted in the film was an invention of later-century artists, and as such did not belong in a realistic portrayal of the Crucifixion. Contrary to the film's depiction, the 'blood and water' phenomenon would not occur as a spray, but instead would have gently flowed out of the chest wound for a moment after the spear was withdrawn since the level of pleural effusion surrounding the lungs would drop due to the collapse of the lungs. Finally, the large amount of blood that Mary Magdalene and Jesus' mother cleansed from the pavement was inconsistent with the type of injuries sustained.

Haha, that was just the conclusion of one chapter. This guy is such a show-off.