02-29-2004, 01:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-29-2004, 01:36 PM by Occhidiangela.)
Doc and Nystul and Van.
Once again, if you see the film, you will see how the punctuation mark of the story, the ending that is beyond the action on and around the cross, as well as the flashbacks that bring up points in the teaching (eg like the Sermon on the Mount, and the "love thy neighbor and thy enemy") bring a great deal of "The Message" out. Of course, that fact the film was released around the beginning of Lent is not an accident. ;)
I do not believe the film was made with the intent of dividing people, nor to convert them. Doc, you are right that there being other films to be made or seen about "what happened next" but I will point out that a great many have already been made, and I have been seeing them on film and on TV for about the last 30 years. Your comment that few would make great success in Hollywod says more about your buying into the Hollywood assumption than about what someone could make with enough backing.
The divisiveness seems to me to have come from those who object to the story in the first place, and possibly from Mr Gibson's public comments on his very Old School Catholocism. The whinging seems to come from folks who either hate the Bible or who consider it an unworthy text, not from those who made the film. A great many assumptions appear to be made by anti-Christians, or maybe anti-Catholics, or maybe anti-pre Vatican II Catholics, who infer intents that did not appear to me, as I watch the film, as having been the message being sent. Maybe I am opaque, but as I am not a card carrying Christian, I can see this more objectively than those who polarize on that topic.
I am guessing that film was made for an audience of folks who to one degree another find the teachings and the premise of the Crucifixion and Resurrection either profound or at least appealing, if not The Truth.
Doc, your comment on the focus on gore is at odds with what I saw on film. This is simply an incorect assumption:
No pornography present, at all. Sexual Fetish? Not even close. Nothing sensual or titillating at all about the scourging. Raw cruelty, man's inhumanity to man. Three deaths on crosses and a suicide. A pretty low body count, compared to a great many Hollywood films, for example "The Wild Bunch" or most of what Clint Eastwood made.
The cruelty, which was depicted in two perspectives, particularly in the cases of some, not all, of the Roman soldiers, and the fear and hate expressed by some other characters, are depicted in counterpoint to the act of willing self sacrifice. Simon's assistance in carrying the cross ends up as a powerful illustration of one man helping another in a lousy situation.
There is no question, in that film, that Jesus knows from about minute one that he's about to go through incredible suffering. He does it anyway. What that tells us about martyrdom in a general sense is of interest. Again, nothing in this film is done with a light touch. But as to the characterization of a willing martyr, there is no bravado, no false glory, but something more akin to a stoic realization that what is about to occur has meaning beyond death.
Like war and the rawness of the events that inspired "Saving Private Ryan" the "glory" is absent. In a larger sense, the echoes of Glory come from the mouths of others than those who were in the grist mill of man inflicting death and pain on his fellow man.
There is a pointed underscoring of how Jesus asks and prays for forgiveness for those who put him through that trial. Painted on the face of some of the Romans is a registering of the power of the Message being sent. You want Message? It's all over the film. And the gore was not as rough as I had been led to believe.
For those who are not Christian, this film could raise the bar on trying to understand why that particular execution of a "rabble rouser" made such an impact for the next 2000 years, but I don't think that was the aim. The aim, I am guessing, was to give greater meaning to one word central to all Christian teachings:
Sacrifice.
I wil offer the example of later teachings, Ephesians 5:22, which discusses marriage and where in Christian Doctrine a man and woman should aim their efforts. The charge to men to "love your wife as He loved the Church" takes on a different meaning when you see what he went through for that purpose, for "The Church." (In laymans terms, that means, for example, "No, your Friday night poker game is not the path to a strong marriage, unless you are doing it together.") But enough on that, I am hardly a preacher, neither by qualification nor by predilection.
See it, or don't, but if ya don't see it, the comments boil down to talking about the Bible.
Which, perhaps, was the real intent in the first place! Who knows?
Once again, if you see the film, you will see how the punctuation mark of the story, the ending that is beyond the action on and around the cross, as well as the flashbacks that bring up points in the teaching (eg like the Sermon on the Mount, and the "love thy neighbor and thy enemy") bring a great deal of "The Message" out. Of course, that fact the film was released around the beginning of Lent is not an accident. ;)
I do not believe the film was made with the intent of dividing people, nor to convert them. Doc, you are right that there being other films to be made or seen about "what happened next" but I will point out that a great many have already been made, and I have been seeing them on film and on TV for about the last 30 years. Your comment that few would make great success in Hollywod says more about your buying into the Hollywood assumption than about what someone could make with enough backing.
The divisiveness seems to me to have come from those who object to the story in the first place, and possibly from Mr Gibson's public comments on his very Old School Catholocism. The whinging seems to come from folks who either hate the Bible or who consider it an unworthy text, not from those who made the film. A great many assumptions appear to be made by anti-Christians, or maybe anti-Catholics, or maybe anti-pre Vatican II Catholics, who infer intents that did not appear to me, as I watch the film, as having been the message being sent. Maybe I am opaque, but as I am not a card carrying Christian, I can see this more objectively than those who polarize on that topic.
I am guessing that film was made for an audience of folks who to one degree another find the teachings and the premise of the Crucifixion and Resurrection either profound or at least appealing, if not The Truth.
Doc, your comment on the focus on gore is at odds with what I saw on film. This is simply an incorect assumption:
Quote:To much death, hate, and near sexual fetish violent pornography.
No pornography present, at all. Sexual Fetish? Not even close. Nothing sensual or titillating at all about the scourging. Raw cruelty, man's inhumanity to man. Three deaths on crosses and a suicide. A pretty low body count, compared to a great many Hollywood films, for example "The Wild Bunch" or most of what Clint Eastwood made.
The cruelty, which was depicted in two perspectives, particularly in the cases of some, not all, of the Roman soldiers, and the fear and hate expressed by some other characters, are depicted in counterpoint to the act of willing self sacrifice. Simon's assistance in carrying the cross ends up as a powerful illustration of one man helping another in a lousy situation.
There is no question, in that film, that Jesus knows from about minute one that he's about to go through incredible suffering. He does it anyway. What that tells us about martyrdom in a general sense is of interest. Again, nothing in this film is done with a light touch. But as to the characterization of a willing martyr, there is no bravado, no false glory, but something more akin to a stoic realization that what is about to occur has meaning beyond death.
Like war and the rawness of the events that inspired "Saving Private Ryan" the "glory" is absent. In a larger sense, the echoes of Glory come from the mouths of others than those who were in the grist mill of man inflicting death and pain on his fellow man.
There is a pointed underscoring of how Jesus asks and prays for forgiveness for those who put him through that trial. Painted on the face of some of the Romans is a registering of the power of the Message being sent. You want Message? It's all over the film. And the gore was not as rough as I had been led to believe.
For those who are not Christian, this film could raise the bar on trying to understand why that particular execution of a "rabble rouser" made such an impact for the next 2000 years, but I don't think that was the aim. The aim, I am guessing, was to give greater meaning to one word central to all Christian teachings:
Sacrifice.
I wil offer the example of later teachings, Ephesians 5:22, which discusses marriage and where in Christian Doctrine a man and woman should aim their efforts. The charge to men to "love your wife as He loved the Church" takes on a different meaning when you see what he went through for that purpose, for "The Church." (In laymans terms, that means, for example, "No, your Friday night poker game is not the path to a strong marriage, unless you are doing it together.") But enough on that, I am hardly a preacher, neither by qualification nor by predilection.
See it, or don't, but if ya don't see it, the comments boil down to talking about the Bible.
Which, perhaps, was the real intent in the first place! Who knows?
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete