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Post by buff on Dec 16, 2008 10:01:36 GMT -5
As for Mel Gibson's Braveheart, it did not win several Oscar awards for nothing. My childhood best friend lives near William Wallace's statue in Inverness. I might as well offer flowers in his memory.
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Post by dipsydoodle on Dec 16, 2008 12:37:50 GMT -5
There's several problems with defending "The Passion of Christ":
1. The violence depicted in the movie is almost entirely lacking in the New Testament accounts. He's dragged in chains and thrown over a ledge but the chains keep him from hitting ground but do so with a huge jolt that would kill a human being. Try bungee jumping with a chain and let me know how it goes. One of the two malefactors has his eyes gouged out by a crow as he hangs crucified. Aside from the fact that crows don't feast that way, it's NOT in the gospels! 2. The idea that Mel was trying to depict "the enormity" of Christ's sacrifice destroys itself by merely acknowledging that 90% of violence and torture didn't happen in the original narrative. It basically says that Jesus didn't really suffer enough for our tastes. After all, perfectly innocent people have been horrifically tortured--no one hails them as paying for all our sins. 3. The Christian scheme of salvation is such that Jesus' purpose for incarnating on earth was to die for our sins. Since we all suffer torments of one kind or other and we all die anyway, it would have made no difference whatsoever in what manner Jesus died since it was the death itself and not the manner of death where the Atonement lies--to torture him without killing him would not have been enough. His manner of death could have as easily been old age as anything else thereby making the violence all the more gratuitous.
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Post by betahat on Dec 16, 2008 17:44:46 GMT -5
I think what Paddy is pointing out is that Mel Gibson uses violence in his movies as a substitute for complexity, ideas, and exposition . Rather than delving into the complicated politics of Scottish-English relations, British-American relations, Leopard/Big Mayan tribe-Small Mayan tribe relations, or Jesus-Jewish/Roman relations , his goal is to make us empathize with one side specifically and exclusively (Jesus, the Scots, small Mayan tribes and the American revolutionaries). And he doesn't do that by developing the characters and helping us understand their deeper motivations - rather, he has one side act incredibly evil with incredible displays of visual cruelty. And of course the good guy is always fighting against the cruelty, and his own cruelty is minimized and diminished because the bad guy started it. This is a knock on Hollywood in general, but Gibson's movies are all too typical of that tradition. When you don't have the prowess as a story-teller or actor to draw the audience in more subtly, just shock them with some torture or random murder or rape (along with some bagpipe music or something suitably stirring) and you get a strong emotional reaction and identification with the victim. There are plenty of films that follow these standard Hollywood tropes that I love - I really enjoyed Braveheart, thought Apocalypto was decent, and confess I haven't seen Passion - so I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this style of film-making from an enjoyment point of view. But those kinds of movies rarely make you think - you are just supposed to feel.
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Post by Altan on Dec 16, 2008 19:16:59 GMT -5
It's a work of art.
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Post by buff on Dec 16, 2008 19:17:17 GMT -5
I grew up watching hundreds of films about the Passion of the Christ (without the beatings) since I was little and the beatings in Mel Gibson’s film is the most credible (with or without chains).
Proof: Year after year during Holy Week in the Philippines, true to life incidents are being done including the whipping, cross hauling, hanging and nail piercing of hands on the cross and rib cage piercing similar to the ones shown in less violent movies and yet nobody died of it. The same people would do it year after year and yet they are still alive - so how on earth did Jesus die a quick death being a bigger man that he is unless violent beatings happened. You don’t need to be a DOCTOR to figure that out. I already questioned it as child. So I wonder why some adults here would question the occurrence of real beatings - is it like rocket science for your brains.
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Post by Paddy on Dec 16, 2008 19:30:11 GMT -5
I grew up watching hundreds of films about the Passion of the Christ (without the beatings) since I was little and the beatings in Mel Gibson’s film is the most credible (with or without chains). Proof: Year after year during Holy Week in the Philippines, true to life incidents are being done including the whipping, cross hauling, hanging and nail piercing of hands on the cross and rib cage piercing similar to the ones shown in less violent movies and yet nobody died of it. The same people would do it year after year and yet they are still alive - so how on earth did Jesus die a quick death being a bigger man that he is unless violent beatings happened. You don’t need to be a DOCTOR to figure that out. I already questioned it as child. So I wonder why some adults here would question the occurrence of real beatings - is it like rocket science for your brains. Who knows what really happened? There's not a single eyewitness report. At least, those who wrote the books of the New Testament never saw Jesus. Oh yeah - Mel was there.
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Post by buff on Dec 16, 2008 19:36:02 GMT -5
It's not even a question of witness.
But it is a question of how a man like you will die or not die when subjected to a lesser or severe beating. Real people are copying the suffering depicted from the less violet films - they are as healthy as you. They have the scars but they do it year after year without tetanus.
The books were written based on the writings of the disciples themselves; Matthew, Mark, John, Luke. Most were written in the later 1st century AD, though none can be dated precisely. Only two authors are known for certain: St. Paul, credited with 13 epistles; and St. Luke, writer of the third gospel and the Book of Acts ( but their writings tell similar accounts).
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Post by dipsydoodle on Dec 16, 2008 22:17:19 GMT -5
As someone else pointed out, it's a movie about the Passion narrative. It's not about the life of Jesus or the teachings of Jesus. So it's about what he suffered. But because it's Hollywood, it has to be exaggerated, overblown, larger-than-life, in your face. Because it is supposed to depict violence and is being peddled almost exclusively to an American audience, the violence has to be way over the top. American movie violence has so desensitized us to violence that if it isn't horrific, it isn't interesting. This is the same American movie violence that Christians can't shut up about how immoral it is until it's unleashed on their savior to prove how divine he was and then it miraculously becomes "beautiful and uplifting"--a work of art as someone here said.
Typical of Mel, it isn't factual. In Braveheart, we have Robert the Bruce and William Wallace speaking to each other despite the fact that neither of them ever met. Wallace certainly did not ever meet or lay Edward II's wife much less get her pregnant and Longshanks was actually a pretty benevolent king as kings go. Also the part where the English lord gets to deflower the Scottish subject's wife on their wedding night is pure fiction. It was propaganda put out against the English but there is no evidence it ever happened at least on a systematic basis. But Mel wouldn't research that because that's something he can use to villainize the English whom he clearly wants to paint as the bad guys. He fails to bring up that William Wallace was almost a serial killer--he would go around in disguise and knife English soldiers to death in alleyways and darkened streets.
Now someone else here tries to make a case that Jesus must have undergone a horrific beating or he wouldn't have died so fast. This is problematic simplybecause not only are the horrific beatings not mentioned in the gospels, the gospels don't even agree with one another on exactly what beatings Jesus did receive. For those who think the gospels are not at odds with another, tell me the final sentence that Jesus speaks before dying.
Couple this with the fact that even if we accept Jesus Christ as historical (and shall do so here to avoid unnecessary controversy), the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The earliest of them, Mark, could not have been written earlier than about 4 decades after the death of Jesus. The earliest copies we have were written more than a century later. None were mentioned by any other writer (Papias) until maybe 130. Irenaeus was the first to mention all 4 in about 185 or so. Mark makes references to the destruction of Jerusalem which didn't begin until 68 and makes references to the temple being brought down which occurred in 70. So that's the absolute earliest Mark was written. Matthew and Luke copied from Mark so they were not eyewitnesses. John calls Jesus the Logos made flesh which was a concept invented by Philo and it is impossible that the Christians could have had this concept in the 1st century so John is a 2nd century gospel. Not being eyewitnesses and not agreeing with one another means we can't be certain of anything in their narratives.
So to say that Jesus died quickly and so must have been beaten is to contrdict the gospels themselves and to further call into question their accuracy. Since they are responsible for the Passion narrative in the first place, this is an unwise thing to do. The 2nd problem is how bad was bad? We're not sayiing he wasn't beaten, the accounts say he was. We're saying the beating shown in the movie is over the top and way beyond the narrative and eyewitnesses would not have passed up the opportunity to tell us about it. Since they were not eyewitnesses, neither they nor we really know what or how it all played out. Conclusion: It couldn't have happened.
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Post by buff on Dec 17, 2008 0:43:48 GMT -5
Jesus suffered under the ruthless Pontious Pilate. Pilate led Jesus to be scourged by his Roman soldiers notoriously known for their barbaric ways. He suffered 1.5 hours of physical torture from the blood thirsty Roman soldiers. They physically beat him beyond recognition to satisfy Jewish leaders until the Jewish leaders demanded that He be crucified. Prior to that, Jesus also suffered 1.5 hours of initial physical abuse by the high priests and 2 hours of imprisonment; then 1.5 hours of torture from Pilate and his soldiers plus 3 hours of cross hauling. No film has ever depicted physical torture that caused his death. Mel Gibson tried to differentiate his movie from all the earliest movies that did not even show the extent of violent enough for a man to die in 7 hours with 1.5 hr of severe beatings beyond recognition.
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Post by Subuatai on Dec 17, 2008 3:04:29 GMT -5
Jesus suffered under the ruthless Pontious Pilate. Pilate led Jesus to be scourged by his Roman soldiers notoriously known for their barbaric ways. He suffered 1.5 hours of physical torture from the blood thirsty Roman soldiers. They physically beat him beyond recognition to satisfy Jewish leaders until the Jewish leaders demanded that He be crucified. Prior to that, Jesus also suffered 1.5 hours of initial physical abuse by the high priests and 2 hours of imprisonment; then 1.5 hours of torture from Pilate and his soldiers plus 3 hours of cross hauling. No film has ever depicted physical torture that caused his death. Mel Gibson tried to differentiate his movie from all the earliest movies that did not even show the extent of violent enough for a man to die in 7 hours with 1.5 hr of severe beatings beyond recognition. Actually Pilate only tortured Jesus trying to appease the crowd so that he may live, as he saw in his eyes that Jesus was innocent.
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Post by Roam'n on Dec 17, 2008 3:20:52 GMT -5
Haha I thought you guys were talking about Martin Scorsese's excellent "The Last Temptation of Christ".. which Peter Gabriel's soundtrack is called "Passion".. hence my confusion. Never saw Mel Gibson's version. Wow what a way to give away my age.
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Post by dipsydoodle on Dec 17, 2008 23:15:50 GMT -5
I'll repeat my question: Why is the depraved brutality and torture that would have condemmed "American Psycho" as a movie not only OK in a movie about Jesus but is actually called "beautiful and uplifting" ? Isn't that a bit of a double standard? Isn't that glorifying gratuitous violence in movies? Can you imagine an audience of Buddhists munching popcorn in a movie theatre while watching a movie about the life of Buddha that shows a bunch of guys kicking the living sh*t out of him?
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Post by alphamikefoxtrot on Dec 18, 2008 0:00:50 GMT -5
^ Seriously? I thought that was a rhetorical question...
Well, because the violence in American Psycho is fictitious versus the violence in Passion of the Christ which is [allegedly] a historical account. And it is a tenet in Christian faith that Christ's suffering and death paid for your sins. By depicting it graphically, I'm sure they (Mel) was trying to drive home the point that "hey, this guy really suffered for you".
I don't know if anyone actually kicked the s*** out of Buddha.
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Post by dipsydoodle on Dec 22, 2008 15:03:03 GMT -5
>>Well, because the violence in American Psycho is fictitious versus the violence in Passion of the Christ which is [allegedly] a historical account.<<
Historical or not, it is STILL fictitious. The beating is a good 90% made up. Nothing of the like was described in the gospels. There are no descriptions of people punching Jesus in the face. There are no descriptions of him bound in chains and then being thrown over a precipice and then hauled up again. There are no descriptions of him being beaten savagely on the legs with wooden staves. There is no description of him being scourged with a cat o' nine tails with little spikes on the end. There is no description of a crow landing on the cross of one of the malefactors and pecking out his eyes while he screams in agony. There is also a scene where Jesus crushes a snake. Where is that incident in the gospel story??
Of all the horrific things I described in the book, American Psycho, none of it appears in the movie. But they could have put it in and justified it by saying, "It was in the book and we followed the book." It still would have been condemned. Yet, Mel inserted extremely brutal, bloody violence into scenes that are NOT described in the book he allegedly took the story from--simply to spice it up. Now,
ISN'T THAT THE VERY DEFINITION OF GRATUITOUS VIOLENCE?
I'm not yelling, I'm emphasizing. When you ramp up the blood, death and violence simply to make it juicier (bad choice of words, sorry), then you have inserted gratuitous violence. And Mel can't even say he was following the book because he clearly wasn't.
>>And it is a tenet in Christian faith that Christ's suffering and death paid for your sins.<<
And if we want to say "his suffering and death" fine but the suffering was described in the gospels and it contained none of the brutality displayed in Mel's movie. So was it necessary? The answer is unequivocally NO. If it had been necessary it would have been in the original story. It was added by the people who made this movie for no other reason than to titillate the audience and that is the very definition of gratuitous violence.
>>By depicting it graphically, I'm sure they (Mel) was trying to drive home the point that "hey, this guy really suffered for you".<<
Again the problem with that kind of thinking is that it plays into OUR MODERN definition of violence. It's NOT depicting what was told to us in the gospels. It's depicting what American moviegoers have come to expect when we say, "This movie depicts graphic violence." Anyone who thinks crucifixion by itself is not a torturous enough way to die is simply not thinking and not understanding what they themselves say when they talk about what Jesus went through.
The truth is, simply to watch Jesus get knocked around a little and then nailed up would have been called the boringest Jesus movie ever. Mel wanted it to be remembered in the only way Americans would: by ramping up the violence way past acceptable standards of good taste and knowing he'd get away with it because it's about Jesus. Yet, if I'd made a movie showing Jesus getting kicked in the nuts, I'd be called a blasphemer. In all the over-the-top violence they show being lavished on Jesus, I find it amazing that they left his nutsack alone. We didn't he get whacked in the balls with that spiky cat o' nine tails and then watch the torturer have to rip it loose. It would have been hilarious to see every male in the movie audience rocking back and forth in his seat, gripping his crotch and moaning, "Ohhhh-ohhhh, man, that's SO sick!"
>>I don't know if anyone actually kicked the sh*t out of Buddha.<<
It doesn't matter if anyone did. You won't find Buddhists salivating in a darkened theatre while watching it reenacted and then taking their dates home and screwing their brains out now that they've been titillated.
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Post by alphamikefoxtrot on Dec 22, 2008 20:28:35 GMT -5
Do you know 89.32% of statistics are made up? I mean, how granular do you want to get with the details? The gospels didn't say Jesus shat his pants when he died, but he most likely did, unless he had a blessed sphincter that was bound tight by the grace of God. Then you're getting into the whole "existence of God" thing, and that's another can of worms. What can I say? Different writers/screenwriters, directors, producers, production companies, distributors, etc. Different agendas, different biases, and different outcomes. I'm guessing that there isn't going to be an answer to satisfy you, except maybe that "You've won the moral high ground by pointing out hypocrisy in America!" Yay. Gold star.
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