The Passion of Christ

OK, I saw the movie last night. Didn't know whether I should start a new thread -- since I won't specifically address most of the previous posts -- or stay here. Since, I'm averse to starting threads, I'm here be default.

Here's your spoiler warning: I won't refrain from telling you Jesus dies in the end. If you want to avoid other revelations, read no further.

I went to a pre-screening hosted by a Christian group. I had to put up with a little evangelism, but I did get to watch it for free. Anyway, here are my impressions coming away from the movie:

1. The main thing that struck me was related to Gibson's 'additions.' I had previously thought of the movie as a simple retelling of the story from the 4 Gospels -- a sort of translation to video. I think now that is a mischaracterization. I would call this a work of fiction based on the story of the Passion. That's not a bad thing, but it is a different thing than some sort of video-translation. What gives me this impression is that Gibson takes some allusions in the Bible and expounds on them to flesh them out. For example, you know from the Bible that Jesus is a carpenter's son; though you don't hear of him being a carpenter himself, one could make the assumption that he did do some carpentry work. So, the movie shows him doing some. The purpose I understand. If he stuck rigidly to the text, the movie would have been very stark (and you could say artistically uninteresting). By making things implicit in the Bible explicit, he fleshes out the story and humanizes it. If it were me, I wouldn't have done it that way, but it's fine. I don't think it is better or worse this way, just that's it's a different sort of work than I expected. It is not a telling, it is a retelling and has Gibson's own stamp on it.

2. In an interrelated facet, Gibson does some exposition of the Bible in doing the movie. Not only does he show the events but, with the use of imagery (and extra characters), he tells you what the significance is. For example, from early on, Satan has a physical presence in the story, even though he doesn't actually show up in the Gospels. Gibson is showing his work in the crucifixion in graphic form when it is only derived theology in the Bible. I'd liken this role to the role of Paul's (and others') letters in the New Testament -- they serve to explain the theology behind the events described in the Gospels. Some of it was heavy-handed. Other parts would require some familiarity with the Bible to understand.

3. Despite the added scenes and the theological exposition, the movie seemed true to the spirit of the Gospels. While I occassionally had a hey-that's-not-in-the-Bible feeling, I never had a where-the-hell-did-he-get-that-from feeling. I always recognized some impication in the Gospels that he has unpacked a bit. And, while some of the dialogue was made up, the most important lines out of Jesus' mouth comes straight from Scripture. He also doesn't seem to have made a heretical movie. The role of Satan might be disputed by some denominations, I suppose, but it doesn't seem like some freak fringe position. Otherwise, I don't think it gets into very many issues that could be denominationally divisive. It focuses on the story of the crucixion and doesn't get into a lot of the other unessential stuff. Mary is featured prominently, but it only seems strange because you know Gibson's coming at it from an old-school Catholic position. I also wonder if he's explaining the creation of some artifacts (cloth with Jesus' blood, etc) but I'm not Catholic enough to realize it.

4. So, is it anti-semitic? As I suspected, watching it didn't change my mind. I don't think it is anti-semitic. I'm not sure how to measure and quantify it, but I'll give it a shot:

a. Did it make me feel like killing some Jews? No. Nor did it seem to have that effect on my wife who is a believer. Maybe just rough some up? Again, no.

b. On the whole, did it make me feel like the movie was suggesting we should begrudge the crucifixion? Maybe it is just my own predisposition, but I felt there was a huge historical divide between the people shown in this movie and anything in modernity. With the great job they did in setting and costuming, it feels like a long time ago with the antagonists not being important any longer. Besides that though, the movie dwells (perhaps overmuch) on the inevitability of the crucifixion, on God's plan and on forgiveness for the perpetrators.

c. On the whole, did I get the sense the movie put the blame for his crucifixion on the Jews as a group? (I'll preface this by saying I don't think this is a good measure of anti-semitism. Faulting someone and hating them are 2 different things. And faulting Jews then and Jews now are also different. The movie certainly had nothing at all to say about the Jewish 'race' or modern-day Jews.) Not really. I felt that the blame was put on the religious leaders specifically (which they did a good job highlighting with costuming. The Sanhedrin are set apart by their robes and headgear).

There are scenes where the rabble seem to be pretty bloodthirsty -- notably when they call for Jesus' crucifixion befor Pilate and during part of Jesus' march with the cross. But, it also has a pretty clear implication that the Sanhedrin have rallied the crowd into this frenzy. During the march, there is some Jewish cruelty as well, but it seems to be a continuation of the same crowd and really pales in comparison to the cruelty of the Romans.

And, these scenes are balanced with countervailing scenes of support. Further in the march, the abusive crowds are gone and the most onlookers seem to be stunned but reluctant to intercede with a bunch of Romans with whips. There is some wailing in sorrow and a character who tries to bring Jesus water. The feeling here among the crowd is mostly resigned pity. There are also earlier scenes of support. When he's first arrested, the commoners are milling about outside the Temple in obvious distress over what might happen to Jesus. One where a religious leader tries to speak in Jesus' defense during his religious trial and gets shouted down. There's also reference to Jesus' triumphal entry and the Jewish crowds' jubilation then. So, I'd say that it is a mixed-bag as far as Jewish reactions to Jesus.

One thing I'd point out is that there is a line or two that points the finger at the people who handed Jesus over, most notably when Jesus tells Pilate that those who handed him over were more to blame than Pilate is for condemning him. But, the most controversial lines are verbatim from the Gospels, so what are you to do with that?

5. Jesus was buff. My wife tells me Gibson did this on purpose in reaction to a pretty wussy-looking Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ. I noticed in the credits that Jim Caviezel (Jesus) had a personal trainer for the movie.

6. Lost in all the anti-semtism talk was the pallor of the actors. After watching a preview a while back, my wife lamented that everyone looked so white, especially Jesus. You would think that nowadays they'd have made more of a focus on authenticity in this regard. After seeing the movie, I feel marginally better about it. Some people looked way too white, but others had a good middle-eastern look to them. Most notable was the white Jesus. I tend to be somewhat forgiving on that since it was likely a choice made more for very personal religious reasons than a regular casting decision. Plus, they did make efforts to make him less white with makeup. But, perpetuating a white Jesus is probably the last thing Western Christianity needs.

7. Gibson goes to some lengths to make Pilate a sympathetic character and perhaps tries a little too hard. He really fleshes out a lot on his reluctance to sentence Jesus and how his hand is forced by politics. Pilate is almost the only Roman character that shows any pity. Most of the others are either loyal bureaucrats or rather merciless torturers. In general, the Romans do not look very good coming out of this movie.

8. And finally, I would say that the movie was a success artistically. Gibson shows his own take on the Bible with some musings about motivations and emotions and backroom events, while remaining true to a pretty traditional understanding of the Gospels. His craftsmanship is fairly good, though the movie could be heavy-handed or over-dramatic at times. He does a good job of pulling in other ideas and events of the Bible and showing their relevance to the crucifixion itself.

 

thanks for the report, JV!

 

I do not think you are correct. The earliest Gospels MSS are all second century and fragments at that.

 

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this long, long long thread, but it seemed, earlier on at least, a lot of the anti-semitism thing was engineered by Mel Gibson himself, for reasons of paranoia and/or publicity.

 

I would not disagree with the characterization that it is heavy on the violence and light on spirituality. I don't think that's exactly a bad thing. Given the work that's been put into the religion for the last several millenia, there is a lot of material to cover and you can't really tackle every subject in a 2-hour movie. As Gibson had said himself, he wanted to focus in on what Jesus had suffered and paid for the sins of mankind. That's what he does. It focuses on his suffering and the resulting defeat of Satan in the crucifixion. It shows some of the sin that necessitates the sacrifice, but I wouldn't say it goes too deep into the full redemptive nature of that sacrifice, or what the defeat of Satan means in the grand scheme of things. I think much of it is assumed background. If you're relying on this movie to educate you on what it is to be a Christian, you're in some trouble. It set its focus narrow on the price Christ pays and it does a good job in treating that subject.

If they mean that it isn't clear the spiritual purpose of all that violence was for, they didn't watch the movie or something. The movie was pretty heavy-handed in showing his death was a sacrifice for our sin. He didn't pull out the sin offerings of Deuteronomy or Abraham nearly sacrificing his son to give a full-bore picture of sacrifice, but the intent is pretty clear.

I was a little disappointed in the character of Jesus. Really, for a good half of the movie, he is too beaten up to say much of anything. But, the rest of the time, he seems to lack charisma.

 

That sound like a fairly bad shortcoming, no?

 

The movie is certainly violent. I was afraid it would be strictly a moment by moment account of the crucifiction and, consequently, two hours of gore. It's not that bad. But as well as I know the story I have never dwelt on just how violent the crucifixion was and this movie brings that reality home pretty hard.

As for the emotional/spiritual depth of Jesus I partly agree with JV. I think that the brief Sermon on the Mount scene was so gentle it was hard to see why huge crowds would be drawn to hear him. He just doesn't come off as particularly charasmatic and I didn't care for the way he delivered those lines. Also, I can only remember one miracle in the movie (apart from the resurrection) and in that sense he doesn't display a lot of spiritual power.

On the other hand, I tend to unduly focus on Jesus' divine nature than his human nature and this movie has a focus on the latter. There are some incredibly human moments that display a great deal of emotional power.

 

With the exception of one Jewish leader who had seen the movie, I have not any of the other Jewish critiques of the movie label it anti-semitic. There is concern over backlash, and maybe labeling Gibson as irresponsible, but not anti-Semitic.

May go to what SamFisher mentioned and what I quoted above (WRT Mel raising the issue on Fox, before it was one).

 

Yeah, I was posting that based on my recollection of Frank Rich's response to when Mel said he wanted to kill him, posted here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/110553.html

 

I try to refrain from posting in here, but great review JV!

 

I did say I was disappointed, didn't I? It doesn't detract too much though because it only comes up in flashback scenes. The rest of the time -- how much charisma can you have when someone's beating you half to death with a whip?

Pole, thanks.

 

I don't think it's that simple. Overall, there are thousands of manuscripts, and yet there's no evidence for the kind of significant changes you mentioned earlier. The fragments from the second century are consistent with the manuscripts of the subsequent centuries. If any of the New Testament books had been changed, certainly you could expect there to be some indication of it. Most likely, there would be some of both--some like the originals and some like the changed copies. However, you don't see that. They're consistent.

More often than not, criticism of this kind follows this pattern: "What we have in the New Testament today can't be what was originally written, so there must have been significant changes made to the New Testament books somewhere along the way." It's not based upon overwhelming evidence; it's based on overwhelming bias and underwhelming evidence. Usually, nothing more than assertions.

 

I'm planning to go see this after work...I tend to not listen to critics and judge for myself...

 

Well you didn't say how disappointed, nor whether that would be a very important issue for you.

Sheesh.

 

Here is the New York Times review by A. O. Scott. I don't think there is anything you would call a "spoiler" in it, considering, as JuanValdez notes, we all know what happens, but don't read it if you are the least bit concerned about that.


February 25, 2004
MOVIE REVIEW | 'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST'
Good and Evil Locked in Violent Showdown
By A. O. SCOTT

There is a prophetic episode of "The Simpsons" in which the celebrity guest star Mel Gibson, directing and starring in a remake of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," enlists the help of Homer Simpson, who represents the public taste (or lack of it). Homer persuades Mr. Gibson to change the picture's ending, replacing James Stewart's populist tirade with an action sequence, a barrage of righteous gunfire that leaves the halls of Congress strewn with corpses. The audience flees the theater in disgust. I thought of Homer more than once, with an involuntary irreverence conditioned by many years of devotion to "The Simpsons," as Mr. Gibson presented his new movie, "The Passion of the Christ," to carefully selected preview audiences across the land, making a few last-minute cuts, and then taking to the airwaves to promote and defend the film. It opens on Wednesday nationwide.

Given the Crucifixion story, Mr. Gibson did not need to change the ending.

"The Passion of the Christ" is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it. Mr. Gibson has constructed an unnerving and painful spectacle that is also, in the end, a depressing one. It is disheartening to see a film made with evident and abundant religious conviction that is at the same time so utterly lacking in grace.

Mr. Gibson has departed radically from the tone and spirit of earlier American movies about Jesus, which have tended to be palatable (if often extremely long) Sunday school homilies designed to soothe the audience rather than to terrify or inflame it.

His version of the Gospels is harrowingly violent; the final hour of "The Passion of the Christ" essentially consists of a man being beaten, tortured and killed in graphic and lingering detail. Once he is taken into custody, Jesus (Jim Caviezel) is cuffed and kicked and then, much more systematically, flogged, first with stiff canes and then with leather whips tipped with sharp stones and glass shards. By the time the crown of thorns is pounded onto his head and the cross loaded onto his shoulders, he is all but unrecognizable, a mass of flayed and bloody flesh, barely able to stand, moaning and howling in pain.

The audience's desired response to this spectacle is not revulsion, but something like the cowering, quivering awe manifested by Mary (Maia Morgenstern), Mary Magdalen (Monica Bellucci) and a few sensitive Romans and Jerusalemites as they force themselves to watch. Disgust and awe are not, when you think about it, so far apart, and in Mr. Gibson's vision one is a route to the other.

By rubbing our faces in the grisly reality of Jesus' death and fixing our eyes on every welt and gash on his body, this film means to make literal an event that the Gospels often treat with circumspection and that tends to be thought about somewhat abstractly. Look, the movie seems to insist, when we say he died for our sins, this is what we mean.

A viewer, particularly one who accepts the theological import of the story, is thus caught in a sadomasochistic paradox, as are the disciples for whom Jesus, in a flashback that occurs toward the end, promises to lay down his life. The ordinary human response is to wish for the carnage to stop, an impulse that seems lacking in the dissolute Roman soldiers and the self-righteous Pharisees. (More about them shortly.) But without their fathomless cruelty, the story would not reach its necessary end. To halt the execution would thwart divine providence and refuse the gift of redemption.

Anyway, this is a film review, not Sunday school. The paradox of wishing something horrible to stop even as you want it to continue has as much to do with moviegoing as with theology. And Mr. Gibson, either guilelessly or ingeniously, has exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore for what he and his allies see as a higher end. The means, however, are no different from those used by virtuosos of shock cinema like Quentin Tarantino and Gaspar Noé, who subjected Ms. Bellucci to such grievous indignity in "Irréversible." Mr. Gibson is temperamentally a more stolid, less formally adventurous filmmaker, but he is no less a connoisseur of violence, and it will be amusing to see some of the same scolds who condemned Mr. Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" sing the praises of "The Passion of the Christ."

Mr. Gibson, from the moment he began speaking publicly about this project, emphasized his desire to make his "Passion" as realistic as possible. To that end the dialogue is in Aramaic and a dialect of Latin, which takes some getting used to but which dispenses with the stilted, awkward diction that afflicts so many biblical epics. The absence of identifiable movie stars (with the exception of Ms. Bellucci, who comports herself with fitting modesty) also adds an element of verisimilitude. But the style and tone of "The Passion" are far from what is ordinarily meant by realism.

The first part, which takes place in the murk and gloom of night (shot by the superb cinematographer Caleb Deschanel), has the feel of a horror movie. As Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane, the camera tiptoes around him like a stalker, and John Debney's score is a high-toned creep show of menacing orchestral undertones and spine-jabbing choral effects. A slithery, effeminate Satan (played, the end credits reveal, by a woman named Rosalinda Celentano) slinks around like something in a Wes Craven nightmare, and Judas, reeling from his betrayal, is menaced by demon children with pointy teeth and milky eyes.

When daylight dawns, the mood shifts from horror-movie suspense to slasher-film dread. Throughout, Mr. Gibson lays on Mr. Debney's canned sublimity with the heaviest possible hand, and he indulges in equally unsubtle visual and aural effects. Judas's 30 pieces of silver fly through the air in slow motion, and the first nail enters Jesus' palm with a thwack that must have taken hours of digital tweaking to articulate. The thuddingly emphatic storytelling (along with the ancient languages) makes the acting almost beside the point, though it is hard not to be impressed by Mr. Caviezel's endurance.

The only psychological complexity in this tableau of goodness and villainy belongs to Pontius Pilate and his wife, Claudia, played by two very capable actors, Hristo Naumov Shopov and Claudia Gerini, who I hope will become more familiar to American audiences.

Is "The Passion of the Christ" anti-Semitic? I thought you'd never ask. To my eyes it did not seem to traffic explicitly or egregiously in the toxic iconography of historical Jew hatred, but more sensitive viewers may disagree. The Pharisees, in their tallit and beards, are certainly shown as a sinister and inhumane group, and the mob they command is full of howling, ugly rage. But this on-screen villainy does not seem to exceed what can be found in the source material.

Mr. Gibson a few weeks ago reportedly expunged an especially provocative line of dialogue that referred to the Jews: "His blood be on us, and on our children." That line comes from the Book of Matthew, and it would take a revisionist to remove every trace of controversy and intolerance from a story that rests squarely on the theological boundary separating Christianity from Judaism.

That Mr. Gibson did not attempt to transcend these divisions may be regrettable, but to condemn "The Passion of the Christ" for its supposed bigotry is to miss its point and to misstate its problems. The troubling implications of the film do not arise primarily from its religious agenda: an extreme, traditionalist Roman Catholicism that has not prevented "The Passion" from resonating, oddly enough, with many evangelical Protestants.

What makes the movie so grim and ugly is Mr. Gibson's inability to think beyond the conventional logic of movie narrative. In most movies — certainly in most movies directed by or starring Mr. Gibson — violence against the innocent demands righteous vengeance in the third act, an expectation that Mr. Gibson in this case whips up and leaves unsatisfied.

On its own, apart from whatever beliefs a viewer might bring to it, "The Passion of the Christ" never provides a clear sense of what all of this bloodshed was for, an inconclusiveness that is Mr. Gibson's most serious artistic failure. The Gospels, at least in some interpretations, suggest that the story ends in forgiveness. But such an ending seems beyond Mr. Gibson's imaginative capacities. Perhaps he suspects that his public prefers terror, fury and gore. Maybe Homer Simpson was right after all.


.......................

I wouldn't say Scott gave it an unfavorable review... I guess you might call it a mixed bag. I doubt that I'll see it. I may change my mind, but while I'm not shy about violence in the movies, I don't think this is very appealing to me. From the sound of it, I would have wished for more of the good works of Christ in the film to have some balance with the unrelenting violence. But that's just me.

 

Ask a Christian which is more important, the life of Jesus or the death of Jesus.

You'll get interesting answers. I was surprised by my own.

 

I have to revise my estimate. I think the film will gross $170 million to $230 million in the United States alone.

 

This is a very interesting read and it might sway my opinion on whether I'll see it or not.


NEW YORK Then Gibson expressed his feelings about Rich. "I want to kill him," he said. "I want his intestines on a stick. … I want to kill his dog." - The New Yorker, Sept. 15
.
Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may be relieved to learn that I do not have a dog. As for the rest of Mel Gibson's threats, context is all: The guy is a movie star. Movie stars expect to get their own way. They are surrounded by sycophants, many of them on the payroll. Should a discouraging word somehow prick the bubble of fabulousness in which they travel, even big-screen he-men can turn into crybabies.
.
My capital crime was to write a column on this page last month reporting that Gibson was promoting his coming film about the crucifixion, "The Passion," by baiting Jews. As indeed he has. In January, the star had gone on "The O'Reilly Factor" to counter Jewish criticism of his cinematic account of Jesus's final hours - a provocative opening volley given that no critic of any faith had yet said anything about his movie (and wouldn't for another three months). Clearly he was looking for a brawl, and he hasn't let up since. In the New Yorker profile, Gibson says that "modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church," a charge that Abraham Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, labels "classic anti-Semitism." Gibson also says that he trimmed a scene from "The Passion" involving the Jewish high priest Caiaphas because if he didn't do so "they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come to kill me."
.
Who is this bloodthirsty "they" threatening to martyr our fearless hero? Funny, but as far as I can determine, the only death threat that has been made in conjunction with "The Passion" is Gibson's against me.
.
His over-the-top ramblings are, of course, conceived in part to sell his product. "Inadvertently, all the problems and the conflicts and stuff - this is some of the best marketing and publicity I have ever seen," Gibson told The New Yorker. That's true - with the possible exception of the word "inadvertently" - and I realize that I've been skillfully roped into his remarkably successful p.r. juggernaut. But I'm glad to play my cameo role - and unlike the conservative author Bill O'Reilly, who sold the film rights to one of his books to Gibson's production company, I am not being paid by him to do so.
.
What makes the saga of "The Passion" hard to ignore is the extent to which his combative marketing taps into larger angers. The "Passion" fracas is happening in an increasingly divided America fighting a war that many on both sides see as a religious struggle. While Gibson may have thought he was making a biblical statement, his partisans are turning him into an ideological cause.
.
The lines are drawn on seethepassion.com, the most elaborate Web site devoted to championing Gibson. There we're told that the debate over "The Passion" has "become a focal point for the Culture War which will determine the future of our country and the world."
.
All this is not lost on critics of "The Passion." As the Anti-Defamation League's Rabbi Eugene Korn has said of Gibson to The Jewish Week, "He's playing off the conservative Christians against the liberal Christians, and the Jews against the Christian community in general."
.
To what end? For the film's supporters, the battle is of a piece with the same cultural chasm as the conflicts over the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courthouse, the growing legitimization of homosexuality and the leadership of a president who wraps public policy in religiosity and called the war against terrorism a "crusade," until his handlers intervened. So what if "modern secular" Jews - whoever they are - are maligned by Gibson or his movie? It's in the service of a larger calling. After all, evangelical Christians can look after the Jews' interests in Israel, at least until Armageddon rolls around and, as millennialist theology would have it, the Jews on hand either convert or die.
.
Intentionally or not, the contentious rollout of "The Passion" has resembled a political campaign, from its start on "The O'Reilly Factor." Since the star belongs to a fringe church that disowns Vatican II and is not recognized by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic archdiocese, his roads do not lead to Rome so much as Washington. It was there that he screened a rough cut of the movie to conservative columnists likely to give it raves - as they did.
.
The few Jews invited to "Passion" screenings by Gibson tend to be political conservatives. One is Michael Medved, who is fond of describing himself in his published "Passion" encomiums as a "former synagogue president" - betting that most of his readers will not know that this is a secular rank falling somewhere between co-op board president and aspiring Young Men's Hebrew Association camp counselor. When non-right-wing Jews asked to see the film, we were turned away - thus allowing Gibson's defenders, in a perfect orchestration of Catch-22, to say we were attacking or trying to censor a film we "haven't seen." This has been a constant theme in the bouquet of anti-Semitic mail I've received since my previous column about "The Passion."
.
I never called the movie anti-Semitic or called for its suppression. I did say that if early reports by Catholic and Jewish theologians alike were accurate in stating that "The Passion" revived the deicide charge against Jews, it could have a tinderbox effect. The authorities I cited based their criticisms on a draft of the movie's screenplay. I have since sought out some of those who have seen the movie itself, in the same cut praised by Gibson's claque this summer. They are united in believing, as one of them puts it, that "it's not a close call - the film clearly presents the Jews as the primary instigators of the crucifixion."
.
Gibson would argue that he is only being true to tradition, opting for scriptural literalism over loosey-goosey modern revisionism. But by his own account, he has based his movie on at least one revisionist source, a 19th-century stigmatic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, notable for her grotesque caricatures of Jews. To the extent that there can be any agreement about the facts of a story on which even the four Gospels don't agree, his movie is destined to be inaccurate.
.
If the film does malign Jews, should it be suppressed? No. Gibson has the right to release whatever movie he wants, and he undoubtedly will, whether he finds a studio to back him or rents theaters himself. The ultimate irony may be that Jews will help him do so; so far the only studio to pass on the movie is Fox, owned by a conservative non-Jew, Rupert Murdoch. But Gibson, forever crying censorship when there hasn't been any, does not understand that the First Amendment is a two-way street. "He has his free speech," Foxman says. "I guess he can't tolerate yours and mine."
.
As for Gibson's own speech in this debate, it is often as dishonest as it is un-Christian. In the New Yorker article, he says that his father, Hutton Gibson, a prolific author on religious matters, "never denied the Holocaust"; the article's author, Peter J. Boyer, sanitizes the senior Gibson further by saying he called the Holocaust a "tragedy" in an interview he gave to the writer Christopher Noxon for a New York Times Magazine article published last March. Neither the word "tragedy" nor any synonym for it ever appeared in that Times article, and according to a full transcript of the interview that Noxon made available to me, Hutton Gibson said there was "no systematic extermination" of the Jews by Hitler, only "a deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they would all get out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to fight the Arabs."
.
Mel Gibson has told the press that he regards "The Passion" as having actually been directed by the Holy Ghost. If the movie is only half as fanciful as its promotional campaign, I'd say that He has a lock on the Oscar for best director. A Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for Gibson himself, though, may be something of a reach.