I went and saw...
Feb. 25th, 2004 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agilebrit"The Passion of the Christ" today. I went to the first showing at one of the local theaters, at 11:45am. And, for an early showing on a weekday, the theater was about 2/3 full, which is a respectable turnout.
I'm not sure what I can say about the movie itself. I thought going in that the subtitles would be a distraction, but they're not. I knew that it was going to be very violent, and I expected to be moved by it.
I didn't expect to be as moved as I was. Okay, I confess, I cry at commercials--but I probably spent 1/3 of this movie in tears. This is far more than a dry retelling of the Gospel story. Jim Caviezel does an amazing job, sometimes conveying more with just a look than with words. And Maia Morgenstern, who plays Mary, deserves an Oscar nomination for her role as His mother. She's incredible.
And, oh, yes. This film is not for the faint of heart or stomach--or children. Don't bother buying popcorn; you won't eat it. The torture inflicted on Jesus is graphically and violently protrayed in excruciating, horrifying detail. How many people really know what being scourged entails? You will, after seeing this.
Anti-Semitic? Um. No. Emphatically no. How can it be? Okay...the Jewish leaders of the time were the ones clamoring for His death. But this is a historic fact. Were they supposed to gloss over it somehow? Calling this movie "anti-Semitic" ignores the fact that the people who defended Jesus--such as Simon of Cyrene, who carries the cross, and finally loses his temper completely at the way Jesus is being treated; and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the Council members who stood up for Him, and got summarily kicked out for their pains--were Jews. And, HELLO...Jesus was a Jew too. I realize that this is an inconvenient fact for the ADL, but it's something that they should maybe think about before screaming "anti-Semitism" at a movie that is anything but. Their knee-jerk reaction to this film, which has a Jew as its central sympathetic character, has not helped their cause at all. Frankly, it's made them look rather silly. They should concentrate their energies more on things that really are anti-Semitic, such as the KKK and Neo-Nazis.
If anything, the Romans come off the worst in this. They're the ones laughing and having fun while they're torturing Him. But, hey, wow, imagine this....I didn't have the impulse to go to Italy and burn down the Colosseum or anything.
Anyway. Go see this movie. It deserves to make scads and scads of money.
I'm not sure what I can say about the movie itself. I thought going in that the subtitles would be a distraction, but they're not. I knew that it was going to be very violent, and I expected to be moved by it.
I didn't expect to be as moved as I was. Okay, I confess, I cry at commercials--but I probably spent 1/3 of this movie in tears. This is far more than a dry retelling of the Gospel story. Jim Caviezel does an amazing job, sometimes conveying more with just a look than with words. And Maia Morgenstern, who plays Mary, deserves an Oscar nomination for her role as His mother. She's incredible.
And, oh, yes. This film is not for the faint of heart or stomach--or children. Don't bother buying popcorn; you won't eat it. The torture inflicted on Jesus is graphically and violently protrayed in excruciating, horrifying detail. How many people really know what being scourged entails? You will, after seeing this.
Anti-Semitic? Um. No. Emphatically no. How can it be? Okay...the Jewish leaders of the time were the ones clamoring for His death. But this is a historic fact. Were they supposed to gloss over it somehow? Calling this movie "anti-Semitic" ignores the fact that the people who defended Jesus--such as Simon of Cyrene, who carries the cross, and finally loses his temper completely at the way Jesus is being treated; and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the Council members who stood up for Him, and got summarily kicked out for their pains--were Jews. And, HELLO...Jesus was a Jew too. I realize that this is an inconvenient fact for the ADL, but it's something that they should maybe think about before screaming "anti-Semitism" at a movie that is anything but. Their knee-jerk reaction to this film, which has a Jew as its central sympathetic character, has not helped their cause at all. Frankly, it's made them look rather silly. They should concentrate their energies more on things that really are anti-Semitic, such as the KKK and Neo-Nazis.
If anything, the Romans come off the worst in this. They're the ones laughing and having fun while they're torturing Him. But, hey, wow, imagine this....I didn't have the impulse to go to Italy and burn down the Colosseum or anything.
Anyway. Go see this movie. It deserves to make scads and scads of money.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 05:35 pm (UTC)And now I'm hearing the movie is not anti-Semetic, but could "inspire" anti-Semetism. What a bunch of bullcrap. I'm Jewish and I couldn't get that worked up over a movie if it proclaimed "Jews are Evil," because, frankly, it's a movie. Nobodies going to watch POTC and say, "Hey! I think I'll nail my wrists to a cross so I can be like Jesus!" (And I now just realize that the acronym of Passion of the Christ is the same as the acronym for Pirates of the Carribean. And now I'm imagining Jesus as a pirate saying, "You forgot one thing mate: I'm Jesus Christ!" My mind is freaky.)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 06:11 pm (UTC)And, hey, I like your mind. :-)
You might be surprised; you should check and see if you can get in an afternoon matinee during the week. I mean, if it wasn't full here at Mormon Central on opening day, you could probably get in, there in California. Especially if you went by yourself.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 07:16 pm (UTC)And in related news, I was skimming Yahoo!News and saw that a a woman died while watching the crucifixion scene.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-26 07:57 am (UTC)The reaction to this film has been interesting to me. When Martin Scorcese made "The Last Temptation of Christ," and Christians were up in arms because of the attack on our faith (among other things), we were all pooh-poohed as intolerant bigots--while the movie bombed at the box office. Now that someone has made a film that is true to the Biblical account and is designed to build up our faith, the left, rather than showing off their vaunted "tolerance," has come down like a ton of bricks on Mel Gibson and everyone involved in this movie.
But I don't think it's going to bomb at the box office.
I've heard about whole churches booking theaters too...But I can't go four blocks in this town without tripping over an LDS church, and I got in easily enough. All you can do is try. They can't have booked every show in every theater.