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March 5, 2004/Adar 12 5764, Vol. 56, No. 24
Mixed review for Gibson's 'Passion'NORBERT SAMUELSONI think "The Passion of the Christ" it is a good but aesthetically flawed film. I would give it four out of five stars. The strengths of the film are the quality of the filming (especially the beginning scenes in the Garden of Gethsemane by Caleb Deschanel) and some superb acting (especially the performance of Rosalinda Celentano as Satan). In general, Mel Gibson deserves praise for the quality of his work, which is why I would rate the film aesthetically as "excellent." Also, I loved the fact that the Jews speak Aramaic and the Romans speak Latin. Now my spoken Aramaic and Latin are not all that good, but they were good enough to derive a sense of pleasure and authenticity to hear the language spoken.Incidentally, the spoken language also enables viewers to distinguish between Romans and Jews. For the most part, the persecutors of Jesus are Romans - especially the soldiers - and not Jews. Hence, I would recommend that film-lovers see "The Passion." I simply have little patience with moralistic film censors. Shakespeare wrote plays that could arguably but reasonably be protested on moral grounds - an anti-Jew play ("The Merchant of Venice"), an anti-black play ("Othello"), an anti-woman play ("The Taming of the Shrew"), and an anti-democratic play ("Coriolanus") - all of which should be seen and discussed simply because of their aesthetic value. While Gibson is not Shakespeare, his work is sufficiently good not to pass up. The major weakness of the film is its violence. It has two problems. First, it lasts too long. Second, after the first few minutes, it ceases to be interesting. For the most part, it consists of depraved Roman soldiers lashing Jesus over and over again with little variation. Exhibiting any gratuitous emotion eventually ceases and just becomes boring, primarily because the brain tends to dull or flatten out any continuous sensation. Only someone extremely insensitive or excessively sex-craved can enjoy a mediocre film that is only about sex. Similarly, only someone extremely insensitive or excessively sadomasochistic can enjoy an extended exhibition of torture, and "The Passion" comes dangerously close to being sadomasochistic. It is true that the suffering of Jesus is a major part of the Gospel story, but it is not the entire story. What Gibson does is focus almost exclusively on the suffering, and in so doing leaves out almost everything in the story that happens before and after the suffering. The consequence is that from the point of view of the film, the suffering makes no sense. We are told that the sufferer - better, the victim - is the son of man and that has something to do with a special relationship to God which has something to do with human salvation; but unless we already know the Gospels, we are not shown anything about him to justify these spoken claims, other than the fact that he seems extremely generous about forgiving his tormentors. There is a sense in which this criticism is unfair to Gibson. It treats the movie simply as a movie, and ignores the fact that it was not intended to be only a movie. It is not accidental that the film was released on Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent, and that the Ash Wednesday showings were invitational events primarily for believing Christians. The movie is clearly intended to use art as part of Christian liturgy at the time of year that Christian worship focuses on Christ's suffering. In this case, Gibson's focus makes perfectly good sense. However, Ash Wednesday with Good Friday and Lent do not stand alone, anymore than Passover and the days of the omer (linking Passover and Shavuot) stand alone. Liturgically, Passover begins a season that culminates in Shavuot. Theologically, liberation from slavery alone is not the intended message of the early rabbis. The liberation culminates in the giving of the Torah, which both makes sense and fulfills our freedom from slavery. The freedom is not just about being free; it is being free to choose to obey the Torah. Similarly, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday culminate in Easter Sunday, which commemorates the Resurrection of the Christ. The Crucifixion is theologically a meaningless act without the Resurrection. From a Christian perspective, the religious problem of the film is that the presentation of the resurrection takes about five minutes and aesthetically is utterly forgettable. I will leave it to Christians to decide whether or not the film is good for Christians. Is it good for the Jews? My answer is mixed. The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a mixed bag. There are good times and there are bad times. By the end of the 20th century, relations between believing Jews and Christians seemed to be good, which cannot be said for the first half of the century. What will the 21st century be like? What guideposts are there to look to for indications of the future? Let me suggest that how Christians read their Gospels is one signpost. Neither the Torah nor the Gospels can be called simply an account of what actually took place. Neither is a modern, secular, academic history. Rather both are religious histories - what German theologians call Heilsgeschichte - which give history a spiritual interpretation in order to guide the present and future religious life of the audience. If many modern scholars are right, the critical event that Judeans faced at the end of the first century of the common era was to explain how it was possible that the pagan Romans could destroy the Jewish temple, contrary to the literal meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures. Many answers were constructed, all of which turned on providing non-literal interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures. One such set of interpretations is the Midrash, which provides the foundation for the development of Rabbinic Judaism. Another set of "midrash" was the Gospels, which provides the foundation for the development of Christianity. Hence, Gibson's film begins by citing Isaiah 53, which gives a firsthand report of an individual's suffering. Scholars think that the sufferer is Isaiah himself; Christians took this to be a prophecy of the suffering of Jesus; and rabbis interpreted the text to predict the suffering of the Jewish people. The point is that none of these interpretations claim to be history; they are all Heisgeschichte. As the Gospels are themselves a midrash on the Hebrew Scriptures, which is a midrash on history, Gibson's film becomes a midrash on a midrash of a midrash. If the value of a midrash does not depend on its historical accuracy, on what does it depend? Let me suggest one, particularly Jewish answer. The Gospels are a rich piece of literature. Like all good literature, they can be, and have been, read in many ways. In general, do the Gospels tell the story of a Jew named Jesus who lived as a Jew in Judea during the Roman occupation, who lived an exemplary life as a human being, so good that following his example is the best way to strive to be a human being? Or do the Gospels tell the story of the deity of the world assuming a human form to bring salvation to all of humanity? The former story is about Jesus, who is a particular Jew. The latter story is about Christ, who is any man at any time. The story can be told both ways and often has. I would suggest that the more Christians understand their central text as a particularistic tale about the Jew, Jesus, the better have been relations between Christians and Jews. The more Christians understand their central text as a universalistic tale about other worldly salvation through Christ, the worse have been the relations between Jews and Christians. In this sense, the elements of Jewish authenticity of Gibson's account speak well for the future of Jewish-Christian relations. However, the shift away from Jesus' life, which dominated most early American films about Jesus, to a basically medieval emphasis on Jesus' end, is a signpost that should concern all people about the future of the religious dialogue between Christians and Jews. Norbert Samuelson is a rabbi and professor of religious studies at Arizona State University. |
