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Thursday, Jul 9, 2009
The "Mad Max" and "Braveheart" star says his new Jesus biopic "The Passion" could never be anti-Semitic because it's historically correct -- a dumb, and dangerous, claim to make.
Aug 14, 2003 | Think of it as "Mad Max Meets His Maker." Only this time the bad guys are Jews -- and lots of them -- donning the vestments of holy men. It's been a while since Hollywood's bad guys wore sidelocks and yarmulkes instead of funny little mustaches or bedsheets. In fact you'd have to time-travel back to 1947, when the U.S. Motion Picture Project was set up to prevent negative portrayals and stereotypes of Jewish characters in films.
The film that has so stirred so much feeling among Jewish and Christian scholars is Mel Gibson's "The Passion," a retelling of the execution of Jesus of Nazareth, with apparently all the usual Gibson gore. Following a recent screening of the film, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) voiced concerns that Gibson's film, which he co-wrote, produced and directed, "will fuel hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism," and could kick off another round of bloodshed by disconsolate Christians who had just about gotten over their savior's death.
Rabbi Eugene Korn, the ADL representative who was present at the private screening at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, accused the filmmakers of portraying Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob as "forcing the decision to torture and execute Jesus; of weaving a narrative that oversimplifies history; and of committing numerous factual and historical errors, including relying on the visionary writings of a 17th century anti-Semitic nun."
The fact that an ADL representative was allowed to see the film at all is somewhat surprising, and comes only after months of pressure by pro-Jewish groups and intense media scrutiny. Until this week, the film had been screened only by a handpicked traditional Catholic audience and a few Jewish Gibson supporters, many of whom report that the Jews do indeed come off looking rather guilty of deicide. (The film itself won't be released for another seven months, but trailers for "The Passion" are already popping up on various Web sites.)
But it is not only the sometimes touchy ADL that is troubled. The Guardian newspaper this week quoted a panel of three Jewish and six Catholic scholars who translated and studied a draft script, and concluded that the film is indeed anti-Semitic and theologically inaccurate, portraying "The Jews" as bloodthirsty and vengeful. "All the way through, the Jews are portrayed as bloodthirsty," said Sister Mary C. Boys, one of the panelists and a professor at New York's Union Theological Seminary. As for stirring up anti-Semitic passions, Sister Mary told the New Republic that she has already begun receiving "vicious letters filled with personal attacks and anti-Semitic drivel." Confronted with these accusations, Gibson, a fundamentalist Catholic who has bankrolled an obscure Los Angeles sect that refuses to accept the Second Vatican reforms, including the Vatican's apology for Jewish persecution, readily admits the film may ruffle a few Jewish feathers, though it is not meant to. "It's meant just to tell the truth." Besides, he says, the Holy Spirit was dictating what really went into the film.
Of course, anything an Academy-Award winning actor and director produces is going to have an air of legitimacy about it, whatever the facts may be. But is "The Passion" an innocent Hollywood entertainment or a medieval passion play of the sort that in the Middle Ages stirred up the passions of the Christian mob and led to the butchering of the local Jewry?
Gibson has bragged about the historical veracity of his script, going so far as to film the movie in the Aramaic and Latin languages without subtitles. Scholars, however, have been quick to point out the film's obvious historical inaccuracies, which, it turns out, are legion. Indeed, any theological or biblical scholar could have told Gibson that few Roman soldiers were in Jerusalem, and rather were local draftees who would have spoken one of the local dialects, Mishnaic Hebrew or, based on funerary evidence, Greek. Similarly Pilate and the chief priest Caiaphas would have communicated in Greek, not Latin.
But Gibson's biggest sin, critics charge, is his portrait of Jewish culpability in Jesus' execution.
