The Passion is a Masterpiece
by Bud Macfarlane
The Passion of the Christ is a masterpiece. For generations to come, it will be a means, if not the primary means, for providing the popular imagination of hundreds of millions of souls on our planet with the images of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. To understand the profound gift Mel Gibson has given the world, watch this movie and then read the trial and crucifixion accounts in any or all of the four Gospels. The images from this movie will flow into your mind's eye.
For over a year and a half, I assiduously avoided screenings, images, and articles about the movie itself, waiting patiently so I could take it in on Ash Wednesday with modest detachment. After hearing reports that audiences at pre-screenings were left stunned, I had wondered if any movie could live up to such high expectations.
My reaction after viewing the movie was gratitude—to the director, his writers, the actors, the set designers, the cinematographer, the score composer, the editor, the marketing professionals, and the hundreds of artists who Mr. Gibson brought together to fashion this majestic work of the most collaborative of arts—a movie. But I was especially grateful to Mr. Gibson himself, who for decades has been centrally involved with the movie business as an actor, writer, director, and producer long enough to have anticipated the persecution he, his family, and his friends would have to endure to bring this labor of love into the world.
Catholic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, pagan, non-believer, agnostic, atheist, do, yes, go see this movie. See the Christ. See what has never before been so satisfyingly portrayed on film: God become Man.
The most surprising aspect of this movie for me was my lack of surprise. The film was almost uncannily similar to what I myself have imagined Jesus' passion to have been before ever hearing about this movie: bloody, violent, fascinating, and oftentimes sadly beautiful, especially in its emotional sensibilities.
The creation of a masterpiece requires a master. Gibson uses basic storytelling devices with stark, loving, and disciplined practicality. Seamless changes in perception by the camera and lighting give us a sometimes panoramic, mostly straightforward, and always intimate views into the familiar scenes of the last hours of Jesus' life: his capture, his trial, his scourging, and so on.
At times we view Christ through his mother's eyes; then through an apostle; later, through Pilate's eyes. Scarcely aware of the artistry required to achieve the effect, we actually see Jesus' world through his own eyes, accomplished with an almost casual precision, an assured work of a confident artist.
Gibson accomplishes all this within the limits of artistic license without compromising the essential Gospel accounts. Satan, for example, inhabits the screen as a feminine/masculine attractive/repugnant creature effectively and plausibly. The lips of Judas, having kissed Christ in betrayal, become increasingly cankerous as he approaches his own doom. Mary wordlessly places her ear to the ground, sensing correctly that her son is incarcerated below.
Perhaps other filmmakers have possessed the ability to achieve such a feat; only Mel Gibson had the courage, faith, and experience to succeed at such a bold task. He has recast historically essential images in the popular imagination as a producer and/or director in past efforts such as Braveheart, the Patriot, and We Were Soldiers. The Passion of the Christ is no fluke; it is the culmination of a lifetime of dedication to every aspect of his art—including, not unimportantly, to the marketing genius and entrepreneurial guts required to overcome the ingrained media prejudices against any authentically Christian popular work. It has been forgotten that Gibson largely bankrolled Braveheart himself when rebuffed by the studios. We Were Soldiers was not a politically correct movie. He is an artist with professional battle scars.
In short, I believe Our Lord has been preparing Gibson for this particular task since before he was knit in his mother's womb.
Although the movie accurately portrays the historical brutality of Roman torture and crucifixion, the violence did not strike me as gratuitous. The tone is set by frank beatings Jesus endures as he is dragged from Sanhedrin to Pilate to Herod, back to Pilate, though no worse than blows portrayed in other R-rated movies. These build to an early climactic bloodbath for viewers who may not be as familiar with the details of his final hours; Christ's scourging is so utterly vicious that the crucifixion itself hours later seems almost merciful, but only by contrast. After his scourging we watch his body, bloody and eviscerated, tumble virtually naked onto the cobblestones, his legs and torso aquiver like a fish thrown onto a cutting table.
For parents who are asking yourselves if you should allow your young teenagers to see this movie, I caution you to see the movie first, then decide based on the age and maturity of your older adolescents. This decision is your responsibility.
Gibson tells his story simply, patterning himself after the Gospel writers. A brilliant balance of characterization is achieved in three parts. The movie begins in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we meet the disciples Peter and John, as well the betrayer, Judas. Saint Peter denies association with his Lord (and is freshly echoed two thousand years later by another Peter who cannot seem to fully commit to publicly endorsing or not endorsing this movie). Silently, with a look, Jesus reassures Saint Peter (who will ask to be crucified inverted in Rome years later in reparation) that infallible or not, infallibility of pontiffs is enabled by God, not men.
The kangaroo court of Caiphas, Herod, and ultimately, Pilate, are not portrayed as marionettes in an inevitable pseudo-drama. Instead we watch men with power conspire to murder Jesus by bringing a real gavel down on a real man in a real world dominated by cleverly regnant Romans struggling to suppress frustrating, contradictory and revolutionary impulses in Israel two thousand years ago. We sense that the decisions of the men in authority made were not pre-ordained; each man could have chosen otherwise.
Then there are the soldiers. Most are brutal, another is quietly obedient, some are gradually drawn into the injustice, others are moved by the selflessness of the King they had earlier mocked, while others are simply putting in a day's work—all of them approaching their tasks in the same ways and with the same temptations we approach our own jobs and vocations.
On the Way of the Cross, we meet Veronica, Simon the Cyrene, and the two criminals on either side of our Lord. Yet Jesus and Mary are the foundation for this story, along with the unseen, silent, and mysterious Father who asked this of his Son in order to redeem our sins. Near the end, when Jesus looks up from the cross, we look down upon his face. What did his Father see?
Finally a movie which shows us an unsentimental Mary; a woman who accepts linens from the mortified wife of Pilate then unceremoniously uses them to soak up her son's blood on the cobblestones after his scourging. Gibson shows us in a flashback Jesus the carpenter, fashioning a table—and a sample of the light, funny, and realistic bits of conversation we can now imagine they often shared. We know she was his mother, because she is much like our mothers, and thankfully, that she was the only person in his life who truly understood, respected, and encouraged him in his mission. We are consoled that during his passion, Jesus had one person into whose eyes He could gaze and see comprehension of his gruesome task at hand. "See, Mother, I make all things new," He tells her at a crossroads during his gauntlet, and we, perhaps for the first time, are given a fresh glimpse into the paradox of the Cross, and how his private relationship with her in his flesh, from her flesh, had a genesis and continuity which will never end.
I now understand Mr. Gibson loves the same Mary I have always loved. He knows who she was and who she remains, which is why only a Catholic could make this movie. Non-Catholics might now become open to why we love her so, and why we are all called to be like Saint John, Jesus' true friend, who stayed by her side.
All things new? Loving one's enemies is new. We see Jesus, broken fingers, his flesh torn to shreds, barely able to stand much less carry two large rough-hewn beams of wood braced together, holding tight to his cross, embracing it, almost caressing it as a friend embraces a friend. He loves this wood. Bystanders and intimate comrades did not comprehend the newness of the cross, and let us not fool ourselves, neither do we. We absolutely needed Him to love the Cross for us, and still do.
My sense is that you will hear that this movie is ultimately a mirror; it will tell you who you are in relation to Jesus. This movie is certainly not a mirror. This movie is not about you or me. Looking at ourselves is dull, and this film is the arch-opposite of dull. The Passion of the Christ is, ultimately, not subjective. Its genius lies in its objectivity. Yes, it is Mel Gibson's objectivity, but I suspect he was generous enough and humble enough and confident enough to share it with us because he trusts that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John told the truth. This movie is objective because it shows, as only the verisimilitude of film can, the scandal of the particular. The scandal that Jesus was one man and that he resembled an actor named Jim Caviezel. It is about a particular man named Simon who at first did not want to help carry the cross, yet came to embrace it because it was his first and best encounter with the Christ—an encounter that Simon experienced personally, and that we can only experience in spirit, whatever forms our own crosses take. It is about a reformed prostitute named Mary Magdalene who is spared death by a firm but forgiving savior willing to die in her stead. It is about a particular politician whose name was Pilate—and about his wife. It is a movie about a coward named Peter. A friend named John. Yes, we are similar to the Cyrene, John, Veronica, the Centurion, Peter, and Herod, but we are not these people.
No, this timeless masterpiece is not a mirror. It is a doorway. Gibson's movie is a doorway into particular time at a particular place about a singular man and his mother as He sets about the task given to him by his father—and how that man's blood was spilled as a result.
Be not afraid to walk through the doorway. Enter his world. Once there, you will hear them ask this Jesus the question all of us ask (or at least, should ask): "Are you the son of God? Are you the Messiah?" We hear Jesus reply, "I am."
Do we believe him?
And, however we answer that question, as the movie ends, it may become clear to us, whether we can articulate it or not, that this man Jesus, this Christ, submitted freely to his torture and death—but not for his own sake. In this sense, as the Passion shows so graphically and beautifully, the truth about God is always a surprise.
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Bud Macfarlane, founder of CatholiCity.com and the Mary Foundation, is the author of three bestselling Catholic novels, available free of charge from Saint Jude Media. You can comment on his articles here.
