14 • Metro Magazine No. 140 BRIAN MCFARLANE In view of the

For weeks there seemed to be extraordinary lead-up scarcely a day when the papers weren’t fuelling the publicity surrounding the film by drawing to The Passion of the attention either to the inflamma- tory outbursts of various interest groups or to the secrecy relating Christ, it has been harder to its pre-release screenings. We usually acquire some sort of baggage from the hype attached to major films: it is in the producers’ interests to try to ensure this: but than usual to approach what went on before The Passion actually hit the screens was something else again.

this film cold. It isn’t just a matter of anticipation. Plenty of films rouse this: think back to the mina- tory if ungrammatical 1963 ad that warned filmgoers that ‘The Birds is coming’ or to the pram sinisterly silhouetted in the publicity for Rosemary’s Baby (1968), or more recently the whipping up of aficionado madness for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) or

Metro Magazine No. 140 • 15 It will be interesting to see what sort of longer�term commercial legs ‘The Passion’ will prove to have. I’d suggest that it is quite difficult to decide exactly what kinds of audience it is expected to attract when the white heat of the controversial preliminaries begins to cool and the film has to stand on its own two feet, to extend the anatomical metaphor.

long way here from the cosy pieties of Father Bing Crosby or Sister Ingrid Berg- man in Leo McCarey’s Going My Way The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But with (1944) or The Bells of St Mary’s (1945), The Passion it has been a matter of con- or from the awesome vulgarities of Cecil troversy with too many people of differ- B. deMille’s The Ten Commandments ent religious persuasions (or none) being (1956), or from such CinemaScopic spec- ready to pronounce about it, sight unseen taculars as Quo Vadis? (1951, Mervyn in most cases presumably. LeRoy), The Robe (1954, Henry Koster) and Ben Hur (1959). The last-named A cynic might almost wonder if this had works its way up to the Crucifixion but not been skilfully orchestrated. The film’s it is interesting to note that the figure of release on Ash Wednesday in a number Christ is scarcely visible in its incarna- of countries, including the US and tion by little-known actor Claude Heater, Australia, then becomes the climax to all and in The Robe Christ doesn’t appear the fanfare and anger. The film was not but His voice was heard (actor Cameron Marxist Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel shown to the media until the day before Mitchell’s). There had always been a wari- According to St Matthew (1964), in which its release, and the general build-up of ness about the clear physical imaging the life of Christ (Enrique Irazoqui) is public interest (on the basis, one as- of Christ on the screen, but in the 1960s presented in near-documentary style, and sumes, partly of genuine there were two large-scale versions of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation fascination with the sub- Christ’s passion. First was Nicholas Ray’s of Christ (1988) in which Christ (Wil- ject, partly because of the King of Kings (1961), much derided at the lem Dafoe) is tempted with visions of a controversy) has led to huge time, with Jeffrey Hunter as a normal life. box-office returns in the first Christ with shaven armpits and few days of screening. Is the giving rise to the unfairness of The latter film roused some Ash Wednesday opening a the tag I Was a Teenage Jesus; controversy, though nothing to sign of the seriousness of in later decades, auteurists have compare with the barrage that the enterprise or a gesture been kinder to this film, Ray has ushered Mel Gibson’s film of calculated shrewdness? having become one of their he- into the cinemas. The Pasolini roes. So far, no one has sought and the Scorsese had clear Why should Icon, the production com- to reclaim George Stevens’s lumbering angles of purchase on their material; they pany, not have wanted critics to have ac- The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), were not interested in offering sanitised cess to the film in advance of its general which astutely cast Max Von Sydow—the approaches to the Gospels’ story of release? It is probably true to say that Swedish actor then unknown outside the betrayal and suffering. Nor, I think, is religious films have not in general been art house screenings of his films for Ing- Gibson. The mild scratchless body of sure-fire box-office successes. It will be mar Bergman—as Christ, thereby launch- the crucified Christ which one sees in so interesting to see what sort of longer- ing his prolific international career. More much art, on the page or canvas or in term commercial legs The Passion will arresting than either of these were Italian stained glass, is not the kind of presence prove to have. I’d suggest that it is quite any of these three wants to dramatise. difficult to decide exactly what kinds of audience it is expected to attract when Gibson himself is a key element in our the white heat of the controversial pre- preliminary knowledge about The Passion liminaries begins to cool and the film has and his film persona, honed over several to stand on its own two feet, to extend decades, seems to me to hover over the the anatomical metaphor.

Think of some of the earlier representa- tions of religion in the cinema. We’re a

16 • Metro Magazine No. 140 It will be interesting to see what sort of longer�term commercial legs ‘The Passion’ will prove to have. I’d suggest that it is quite difficult to decide exactly what kinds of audience it is expected to attract when the white heat of the controversial preliminaries begins to cool and the film has to stand on its own two feet, to extend the anatomical metaphor.

Metro Magazine No. 140 • 17 image of Christ his film presents. Surely who may or may not have said, ‘It is as it the flares and the soldiers, in the filming he would have played Christ himself if was’—since denied) had not been invited of the sequence that leads to Christ’s he were not now, at forty-eight, too old. to comment on it, before and/or after it confrontation with Judas, and to the (Among the others, Hunter, thirty-four, had been screened? repairing of the Roman soldier’s severed Von Sydow, thirty-six and Dafoe, thirty- ear. The prevailing hue shifts to brown as three, at the time of their films’ release, And what is the film itself like? Is it pos- the scene moves to a courtyard with talk were much nearer the historical age of sible to adopt the usual stance of critical of trouble brewing; there are claims of the crucified Christ.) In the kinds of hero objectivity before the fact and consider blasphemy among the gathering crowd; figure Gibson has played there has very The Passion of the Christ purely as an and Peter’s denial of Christ is picked out often been an element of the martyr; aesthetic artefact: that is, how far do briefly, though it cannot be said that the he has never been the uncomplicated both the hype and the subject itself pre- disciples are seriously differentiated. protagonist who settles things with fists clude such a stance? It would be much or guns without a powerful sense of inner easier if the film were either an unequivo- Much of the talk about The Passion has warring. One needs only to recall Frank in cal masterpiece or a risible dog. It is focused on its violence and it is impos- Gallipoli (1981), Guy in The Year of Living neither. It is much easier to be memora- sible to skirt the issue in any discussion Dangerously (1982), Martin Riggs, the ble than to be judicious, to be relentlessly of the film. Violence is now so prevalent haunted Viet vet detective, still mourning ‘witty’ like some of the writing about it, in contemporary cinema that it becomes his wife, in Lethal Weapon (1987), (direct- than to assess what Gibson seems to be more than ever important to ask what ing himself as) William Wallace, Scottish attempting and how far he succeeds. It is function it is serving. In general I have folk hero in Braveheart (1995), let alone a far from negligible achievement though a low tolerance for the more explicit Hamlet (1991) and the most obvious case I have to admit it is not one to which I images of violence, whether it is the of all: the ‘Mad Max’ figure, bereft of wife wish to subject myself again. prolonged rape sequence of Irréversible and child in the first of the series (1979). or for the mindless mayhem of, say, Once He may now be too old to play the role Gibson uses the Gospels, especially Upon a Time in Mexico, both screening that might have been for him the apothe- ‘St John’, as his source, along with The in Melbourne as I write. The former film, osis of this strain of wounded protago- Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus alarming as it is, can argue serious pur- nist, but he is certainly a powerful enough Christ, by the eighteenth-century nun, pose; it is clear that the viewer is meant media figure to get the film made, to get Anne Emmerich, whose vision Gibson to react with horror to the attack; and the it made as he wants it, and to ensure that claims ‘completely meshes with the long take in which it is enacted forces the result is a major media event. four gospels’1, a fact disputed by many one to respond to its violation. In the commentators. And part of the basis of latter, the fantastically repetitive and con- However, Gibson is not only a potent criticism of the film is that it doesn’t ad- trived ways in which myriad damages are name and possessor of high charisma as here to the gospels for its whole narrative inflicted on cast members seem merely star and director, but he is also a devout length, and that it has to imagine in detail silly and tedious, and perhaps therefore Christian, committed to a certain kind of what the Gospels do not spell out in the more reprehensible. (Serendipity: while traditional Catholicism which, as every way of Christ’s tribulations. Gibson goes writing this piece, I was reading Shirley newspaper reader must now know, has on to insist that ‘we’re telling the fact’ Hazzard’s Greene on Capri, in which she led him to build a US$4.5 million church as if he is treating the last twelve hours recalls Graham Greene as saying, ‘I’m for worshippers of like mind, known as of Christ’s life as having biographical not against violence. What I can’t stand sedevacantists. This breakaway con- authenticity. This is important to grasp is brutality posing as fun’. Violence ‘pos- servative group, of which Gibson’s father, in any appraisal of the film, especially ing as fun’ neatly sums up my objection Hutton Gibson, is the driving force, is in regard to the harrowingly unrelenting to a lot of what passes for modern action at odds with the Catholic thinking that physical violence that may be the most cinema. 2) embraced Vatican II. The latter proclama- powerful response many will bring away tions did away with the Latin mass and from it. In The Passion the unremitting violence with the idea of Jewish guilt for Christ’s of scourgings and the like is undoubtedly death. To stand against the tide of such The film opens in the Garden of Geth- wearing on the spectator, and also risks liberalizing thought was to invite charges semene, and this sequence, bathed in a tedium, but at least one can see that it is of anti-Semitism, which Gibson has blue night light, has considerable visual part of a considered realist agenda: an denied though he has not repudiated his and affective power as, first, Christ prays agenda that wants us to acknowledge the father’s denial of the Holocaust. How far while His disciples sleep (‘Could you not sheer physical torment to which Christ is the controversy surrounding the film a wake one hour with me?’ He asks them). must, in any realist assessment of His matter of the known religious background This episode is intercut with Judas’s passion, have been subjected, along with of its key maker? And how far does the receiving the bag of money thrown the spiritual agony to which the film first film itself seem to set about inflaming contemptuously at him, then leading the makes us privy. I think the point would predictable if over-excited responses? soldiers to the garden. Christ’s fears and have been more trenchantly made with a Would the film alone have stimulated agony of mind are apparent in James less insistent attention to rendering every cries of ‘anti-Semitism’ if so many Caviezel’s performance at this stage and lash. Some will find an element of sadism religious big guns (including the Pope, there is real drama in the approach of in the way the camera compels attention

18 • Metro Magazine No. 140 to the details of floggings, to the lash- much for actors in this film. Caviezel is an austerely alarming figure, but it is ing with chains, to the driving in of the makes what he can of the intervening clear that he is also waging a political as nails, to the upturning of the cross so that moments I’ve just referred to but they well as a religious campaign, and, if the Christ’s body is dragged along the stony are too brief to ensure major impact. This crowd is generally depicted as beastly, so path, to the vicious laughter of the perpe- is, as its title spells out, a film about the too are the Roman soldiers who carry out trators, and I can sympathize with such passion or suffering of Christ but if this is the flagellations and other punishments. a response even though I do not feel it is not to reduce the character to passivity, to Christ is betrayed by some Jews—and he any part of Gibson’s overt intention. the status of carcass for stripes, then the is supported by other Jews. It is hard to actor needed more scope to suggest why make a case for anti-Semitism out of this, The intention seems genuinely to be to this last dreadful, most ultimate of experi- and it is of no consequence to the film that make the physical texture of the passion ences was to have such huge significance, Gibson’s old dad sounds like an irreclaim- as excruciating as the spiritual, but in the arching over several millennia. He needed able bigot or that so many commentators balance it must be said that the former more time, in the memory sequences, to have decided, mostly in advance of the dominates. The film doesn’t adequately create a complex sense of Christ as man film’s release, that it is anti-Semitic. If the address the issue of why Christ must die, and teacher as well as Son of God with film inflames such feeling, it may well be why a loving God should require this of ineluctable destiny. His body displays the the work of those commentators, who will His son. Gibson makes, in my view, an wounds graphically, but no sense of how have more to answer for than Gibson, and aesthetic miscalculation in this matter: it ‘by his wounds you have been healed’ in today’s political climate in the Middle is one thing to want to make the audi- (1 Peter, 2:24). Mary the Mother of God East that would be a terrible moral burden. ence aware of the intolerable punishments (Maia Morgenstern) and Mary Magdalene inflicted on Christ; it is another to create (Monica Bellucci) are played by hand- I plan never to see this film again. Like some kind of dramatic rhythm that will some European actresses and required to Macbeth, ‘I have supped full with hor- ensure, by contrasts, that the gruelling be no more than conventionally beautiful rors’, but this does not mean that I find it physicalities are seen in a broader context. bystanders at the drama. Has Gibson ever merely tedious or irresponsible. It is too seen Donatello’s incomparably moving long, too literal at certain key moments; There are signs that Gibson has been sculpture of the ravaged Magdalene in it is short on the kinds of tonal variety we aware of this need. First, there are several Florence? Surely not, or he could never are used to in film; it is visually and au- intimate moments interspersed with the have allowed such bland vacuity here. The rally over-insistent, almost to the point of more pervasive sequences of crowds disciples are not distinct enough to have inducing anaesthesia; but its earnestness either appalled or appalling. For instance, the sort of interest we normally expect of purpose does not pass for nothing. It those between Pilate and his wife Claudia of ‘character’ in film, except that Judas’s will be easier for non-believers to deal bring in a quieter more personal interest, guilt is imbued with a brief poignancy and with it as just another film; believers may an interest in character that is not gen- his hanging is registered with unusual find it short-changes them on theological erally one of the film’s preoccupations. restraint. Perhaps because the Bible has rigour, but they may also be moved by These moments are rare and certainly, the given him a start in the way of complexity, being confronted with the often-under- scenes involving the two Marys and John the troubled politician Pilate emerges as played nature of Christ’s suffering. make little contribution to such emotional the most humanly responsive character. nuancing. Second, Christ’s memories P.S. Having deliberately refrained from in ‘flashbacks’ (the term is not strictly Two other elements that have caused reading reviews until after writing the accurate) offer some respite from the widespread discussion are the film’s above, I’d like to commend readers to violence. There is an unexpected touch language and whether or not it is anti- Philippa Hawker and Jim Schembri’s of humour in the carpenter’s workroom Semitic. As to the first, I’d say that the even-handed accounts of the film in The when Mary wonders if there is any future decision to use Aramaic and Latin con- Age, 26/2 and 27/2 respectively. It was in making such high tables; as the sacri- stitutes no barrier to understanding. This good to read something considered after ficial procession mounts Golgotha, there gives the film an appropriate suggestion the generation of so much proleptic heat is a brief memory of the Sermon on the of a remote time (remember John Wayne had produced so little light. • Mount; and, from the Cross, Christ recalls intoning ‘Truly this man was a Son of God the Last Supper. These occasions sug- [pronounced, Gard]’ in The Greatest Story Endnotes gest that Gibson and his co-screenwriter, Ever Told?), and the subtitles, drawing 1 In an interview with Ken Duncan, ‘The Benedict Arnold, were alert to the value often on the language of the Gospels, are Passion of Mel’, The Sunday Age, of such breaks but perhaps underesti- in a strong idiomatic English. Gibson’s Agenda, 22 Feb 2004, p. 8. mated how much was needed and failed choice in this matter is no doubt, like 2 Shirley Hazzard, Greene on Capri to invest these antithetical moments and the insistent brutal violence, made in the (New York, 2000), p.90. sequences with a power of their own, suf- cause of realism, and the decision can- ficient to highlight the flanking atrocities of not have been made with an eye on the behaviour, and thereby reduce the need box-office. for so much explicit gore. On the issue of anti-Semitism, the High On an associated matter, there is not Priest Caiaphas, baying for Christ’s blood,

Metro Magazine No. 140 • 19