Not all agree on Passion

By Barney Zwartz Religion Editor

February 26, 2004

Relentless. Melodramatic. Meaningless. But some deeply moving moments… The Age’s panel of two theologians, a rabbi and a philosopher have given The Passion of the Christ a qualified thumbs down.

The unremitting portrayal of suffering in Mel Gibson’s controversial movie of the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life leaches the theological meaning from the crucifixion, the panel felt.

Rabbi John Levi, president of the Australian Union for Progressive Judaism, said the film was undoubtedly anti-Semitic. “I shudder to think of the effect the film will have on the uninitiated,” he said.

The film opened across the world yesterday, Ash Wednesday. It has been widely criticised as anti-Semitic, but Pope John Paul II was reported as saying after a private screening that “it is as it was”.

It is based on the Gospels – the first four books of the New Testament, which recount Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. But it includes extra-biblical material, particularly visions of an 18th-century German mystic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich.

Rabbi Levi said: “I liked the first five minutes in the garden of Gethsemane. Then the villains came on the scene and I began to hate it. I guess practically every piece of Jewish history was violated as the story was told.”

Rabbi Levi criticised the accuracy of the depiction of the Jewish authorities and crowds, their costumes, their activities on Passover eve, the Jerusalem setting and the confusion of Jewish factions (especially mistaking Saducees for Pharisees).

“I suspect it has a great deal to do with Oberammergau and the depiction of Jews in the passion play Hitler loved so much,” Rabbi Levi said.

But Catholic theologian Brendan Byrne, while acknowledging the historical distortions, said the film, like the Gospels, did not purport to be a historical reconstruction. “I don’t think the film was intended to be realistic,” Father Byrne said. “It was more like a meditation or opera, and that is going in the right direction because it is more faithful to the Gospels.”

He said he was grasped by the film’s opening scene and remained grasped. The treatment of Pontius Pilate and his wife was moving, though the historical Pilate was a cruel and bloodthirsty Roman governor.

“The main point, paradoxically, is that it’s not the film that’s the biggest problem for Christian interpreters, it’s the Gospels. If this film can make Christians realise how carefully they have to interpret the gospel it will do a service.”

Father Byrne said he kept seeing images of the way Jews were treated in the Holocaust. “Jesus’ humiliation is the humiliation of a Jew,” he said.

The panel agreed that, in contrast to the film, the Gospels underplay the violence.

“The circumspection, understatement and subtlety, understatement and subtlety of the Gospels were swept aside,” said Dorothy Lee of the Uniting Church Theological Hall.

Professor Lee said the film was muddled and massively overstated. There were times when the violence almost reached farce.

Moral philosopher Christopher Cordner, head of philosophy at Melbourne University and a non-believer, damaged hopes that the film will be a tool for evangelism by saying he found the display of suffering simply tedious. “I couldn’t take it seriously; I didn’t find the film moving at all.”

Dr Cordner said it was unclear whether the film tried to be a historical record, a work of art or a religious event.

“It was like World Championship Wrestling, where you had endless displays of simulated violence and injury, layered upon layer.”

He said the film shared a contemporary misconception that intensity and graphic detail were crucial in developing understanding.

“The attempt to make real and palpable Jesus’ suffering, as if one has to understand it in a deeply visceral way to understand the crucifixion, did not give me a deeper sense at all.

“If I were a believer I hope I would not attach any significance at all to the film.”

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/25/1077676832637.html