It’s not quite as good as the Reuters headline Cinetrix posted this weekend, but “U’s ‘Dead’ Reckoning: With $27 mil bow, zombie remake topples ‘Christ'” leads off Variety this morning, and after finally actually seeing Mel’s medieval passion play Friday night, that was definitely the best news I’ve heard in just about three weeks.
I must admit, the “three” thing is kind of scary. I’ll bet Mel even sees this as a sign — the film tops the box office for three weeks, completing the trinity; and it’s not like most movies even hold on to the top spot that long. He’s not greedy … it’s just another sign. And all that crap. And to be fair, the damn thing still pulled in over $19 million and by this next weekend, it will have passed the $300-mil mark.
Still, there is some lovely bit of, I don’t know … something … in the fact that a remake of Dawn of the Dead took over the #1 position with over $27-million. However, I’m guessing these two films don’t really have that much of the same audience, even if Jim Caviezel probably gets more bloody and tortured than anybody in this insignificant little zombie pic.
As I mentioned at the end of my non-descriptive Eternal Sunshine post last week, I really wish at some point truly entertaining AND artistic films could also be the most commercial. Happily, Eternal Sunshine had a reasonably successful opening, for a release considered wide, but still on half the number of screens of the slasher films occupying the top two slots. Yet even were the screens equal, apparently more people still went to see a bloody Mel’s bloody J.C. rather than Charlie and Michel’s memory-challenged J.C.
And that is just plain unfortunate. Plenty of people have decried the anti-Semitism in Mel’s pic, and actually, I’m not even going to really address that — at least not too much. What I will say is I honestly believe that Mel consciously did not intend this film to be anti-Semitic. The reality that it is and the fact that he apparently is so blinded by his own beliefs and mindset, completely lacking the ability to comprehend why those offended by some of the things in his movie would react in such a way does not make me believe that Gibson actually intended to spread any form of Jew-hate. In fact, repeatedly throughout the movie, I would put money on specific lines as well as a variety of actions and other random moments that were included solely to deflect any accusations of anti-Semitism.
The problem with The Passion of the Christ is not that it is a particularly bad movie; it’s just a boring movie. And seriously, the one thing it shouldn’t be is boring.
I mean, religious implications aside, it is still part of the “greatest story ever told.” But Gibson doesn’t actually tell any of the story, he just shows the climax. The blips of Jesus’ life before this night (including the Sermon on the Mount, The Last Supper, and saving Mary Magdalene from being stoned) are all told in flashback in a manner that most film school teachers would probably try to beat out of their first-year students. Their amount of screen-time is so limited — in direct contrast to the flaying and the cross-burden and the crucifiction — that they’re almost completely forgettable. Of course, those are the scenes that explain anything Jesus’ teaching, and why he has both followers and enemies. Meanwhile, Gibson makes the scenes graphic so that the audience will realize the impact and have a taste of the extreme torture Jesus was subjected to. But ultimately, it’s so much that the impact is lost and it simply gets repetitive. Nowhere is this more true than in the journey to Cavalry as Jesus carries his cross, gets whipped by the Roman guards, falls down (in slow motion), gets whipped and beaten a bit more while also being jeered by the crowd, is forced up to continue on … all so we can move on to a different location and have it all happen again. Over and over. The argument, “Well that’s what happened,” and whether it is historically accurate is beside the point. By the time it has happened the third and fourth times, we’re bored.
I’m also incredibly troubled by all the people (mostly from the far-right, extremely-religious, Christian evangelicals) who like to say, That’s how it happened. Or, the statement that was attributed to the Pope, It is as it was (or something like that). No it’s not. It’s not even close to what it was. And I don’t make that claim because I’m an expert in scripture or know of all the historical evidence. I don’t claim either. There are three reasons alone the movie is not as it was: first, nobody watching Jesus at any moment through this 12-hour period saw anything happen in slow motion. And Mel uses a ton of slow-motion. He uses slow-motion so much, I started worrying that I was falling asleep and simply seeing everything slowed down.
Second, the movie is right around two hours long, and this supposedly makes up the last 12 hours of his life. I now, you’re probably saying I’m nitpicking, but it makes a difference. Gibson wants to claim that he is presenting things as they were; he has defended some of the more graphic scenes and the length of those scenes specifically by saying that he wants the audience to experience the impact of what happened by realizing how long Jesus was tortured. You know what? Make a 12-hour movie then, and really subject people to it; I mean, if you’re really shooting for verisimilitude, that’s what you have to do. But when you’re actually picking and choosing from those 12 hours, after a certain point, everything becomes gratuitous.
Third, J.C. is still with us. No, not Jesus Christ, but Jim Caviezel. Sure, he may have had some lightning strike him (there is so much that can be inferred by that, you know?), but the guy is still alive. He didn’t die on a cross. He wasn’t really flayed to the bone. He didn’t have huge nails pounded through his hands and feet. In fact, I’d venture to say he’s just fine, sitting in his comfortable house, reading scripts in order to find his next film. Oh, you say that’s obvious? Of course he’s just an actor? We all know that? Exactly. We all do know that the man we are watching is an actor, and everything happening is a bit of cinematic trickery. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But that knowledge automatically limits us from really experiencing and see it as it was.
I wouldn’t generally make these kinds of criticisms for a film, but this is not any ordinary film, nor has it been marketed or criticized as such. Gibson has claimed that God told him to make this movie. He puts forth (as do those who have decided they need to fight for and defend this blockbuster) that this is the definitive adaptation of the Gospels. He basically claims his film is the ultimate docudrama, including no form of interpretation but just a retelling of events.
I don’t want to get into the historical or religious argument because I am not enough of an expert in either area. But I have read enough from both sides to know there is plenty of interpretation going on here, and rightly so. Gibson as filmmaker has every right to take whatever liberties he wants with the script. He could make Jesus jump off the cross, hold it like a tennis racket and smash all the soldiers off the mountaintop. Or he could just decide to make Pontius Pilate a reluctant hero who tries to do the right thing but succumbs to the thundering mob of Jews. Either way, that’s his right. What is not justified is claiming that this is the definitive visualization of this part of the story only to have historians argue over whether the Roman soldiers spoke “street Latin” or Greek.
Another big problem I have with the film is the depiction of both the Roman and Jewish Temple soldiers. Other than their respective dress, there’s very little difference between the two. The Temple soldiers seem remarkably stupid until they basically disappear when the Roman soldiers show up to torture Jesus. The sadism exhibited by the Roman soldiers is so exaggerated that regardless of its historical accuracy or logic, they seem cartoon-like. On the one hand, it’s consistent throughout the entire film; on the other, weren’t the Romans so successful specifically because of how disciplined their army was? I mean, these guys look like they’re straight out of a violent version of a Marx Brothers comedy.
And then I just have one more question for those history experts out there to which I really don’t know the answer, but for some reason it’s been bothering me. Now, the act of crucifixion was utilized not just because it is a terribly painful and punishing way to die but also because of the humiliation involved. So answer me this: why were the condemned allowed to wear loincloths? Wouldn’t it be more humiliating to be up on a cross, limbs nailed, knees buckling, heat beating down, lungs and ribs compressing … and naked? Does anyone really think the Romans would care? I don’t know … maybe there is some proof, but if there isn’t … why isn’t Jesus blowing in the wind? Why aren’t we seeing how godlike J.C. really is? See, my guess is that the loincloth is really just an artist invention dating back to the first religious paintings of the crucifixion.
I give Gibson a lot of credit for making a movie that looks the way this one does for “only” $25-million. There are sequences and specific shots which are truly beautiful, especially at the supposed exact moment of Jesus’ death when a single raindrop (God’s tear, you see) drops from the sky. It’s not overstating things to say that this film includes some of DP Caleb Deschanel’s best work, and I’m talking about a four-time Oscar nominee. From the dark and smoky garden scenes at the beginning to the gray finale of the crucifixion and brief, bright, revealing daylight of the resurrection at the very end, the cinematography is stunning from beginning to end.
The “Pieta” moment is a particularly well-directed scene. Gibson has Mother Mary break the fourth wall and stare directly at the audience, with a pained expression which states something on order of, See what he has done for you? See what you have done to him? Yet all the time, she never quite appears accusatory. The camera pulls back and away, showing the entire scene in a living freeze. It is this moment which I believe Mel wants to last, more than the minute or so of resurrection that follows, this is what I believe he feels is his contribution to the catalogue of artistic representations of the life and death of Jesus which have been produced through the centuries. Sadly, Mel, as beautiful a mise-en-scene as that shot represents, you’re no Michelangelo.
I also briefly need to address the gore factor, because in a way, I give credit to Gibson for fooling most of the people all the time. I have heard over and over how violent and gory The Passion is, and while it is tremendously violent all the way through, the gore-factor is actually much less than I had heard described. It’s seriously like a game of Operator — which, to be fair, is how all our best literature, especially of the religious bent, came to be as well: oral tradition before written, and all that. For one thing, the scourging scene which I had heard ranged anywhere from 20-40 minutes long is about 10 minutes long (I checked my watch at beginning and end). The number of actual shots of an implement touching skin which then rips open and bleeds is probably around 10 during that 10 minute period. Yes, some of those shots are very gross, especially the famously described one of hooks and chunks of flesh. But actually, what Gibson does most of the time is practice what Alfred Hitchcock preached. The shower scene in Psycho has long been considered one of the most violent scenes in cinema, yet it is also famous for not having one single shot of the knife actually stabbing Janet Leigh’s body. Hitchcock managed to make the audience believe it was seeing something it wasn’t. Gibson does the same thing, albeit with much more gore included. However, the majority of what one sees when watching scourging sequence or the crucifixion are shots of Jesus’ pained face; or the shocked and/or disgusted expressions on the faces in the crowd; or the laughing Russian soldiers; or maybe something else entirely. The sequences are violent and, until becoming tedious, quite powerful, but they’re not really as gory as I had been led to believe.
Still, there is more gore than I’ve seen in some Freddy Krueger movies, and I also wonder why this kind of violence is forgivable, even within this context, when so much during today’s “culture wars” seems to be out of bounds. I would guess that there are plenty of kids in the Bible Belt of this country having nightmares since their church groups went en masse to see The Passion than there are who are traumatized by Janet’s nipple-shield or Howard Stern’s use of the word anal.
Basically, if I were grading this film using Entertainment Weekly’s letter grade system, I’d have to give The Passion of the Christ a solid C … maybe a C+ for effort. There is some excellent craftsmanship in this film but not much else. There are moments that will simply make no sense if you don’t have a thorough grounding in and understanding of the Gospels. And the fact is, while Gibson may be completely ignorant as to how and why his film propagates some very anti-Semitic ideas, it does. As I stated before, I have no doubt that Gibson truly believes in his heart (since that seems to be where people believe things that are true, as opposed to all those beliefs they couldn’t give a crap about) that he doesn’t hate Jews and did not make an anti-Semitic movie, maybe if he had studied the teachings of Jesus, paid less attention to looking literally at the scriptures (which historically are basically recruitment material for a new religion not unlike L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics) and creating things between the lines rather than simply reading them, this might have been a really beautiful film. Not exactly enough to make me switch from my six point icon to one with four, but a lovely and potentially educational and powerful film rather than 10 minutes of slice-and-dice and a lot of blood.
Meanwhile, we still have Eternal Sunshine. Why do I bring this up after this long rant on The Passion? Because to me, if I was a devout Christian – and I admit, I am neither devout, nor a Christian; rather, I still celebrate the holiday that Jesus himself broke bread and drank wine over on his last night — wanting to make a movie about Jesus, I would want it to be a story about love and being kind and appreciating life and finding hope even when you know there’s a good chance that everything’s going to turn to shit. That’s the lesson in one of these movies. Maybe we can base a religion on it. Everything else is too damn depressing.
Out of Focus 