Let's dispense with this argument, right now.

"The gospels don't offer that much detail about the Crucifixion, so how do you get a movie out of it?"

And? This proves what? Most manuscripts of the Gospel of St. Mark don't depict a resurrected Jesus, either.

More importantly, the gospels were deliberately sparing of details because the evangelists assumed (1) the readers had the cultural background or (2) teachers would help fill in the details.

Let's try an analogy: if Jesus lived in 21st Century Metro Detroit, and went to see the Tigers play the Red Sox at Comerica, an account using the same style would simply report it as "He went to a baseball game."

The Gospel would not say that the Tigers' starting pitching collapsed after 4 and a third, that Manny Ramirez was moody, nor would it indicate when the infield fly rule was in effect. That is, of course, no argument against the occurence of each of those events, contained as they are in the spare account, "He went to a baseball game."

The Man is the Message.

Richard Cohen is a columnist I find myself reading periodically. He is one of those many syndicated columnists with whom I rarely agree--in fact, the disagreement is usually vehement. However, unlike most, our opinions have been known to be in lockstep on rare, happy occasions that leave me hoping for more. I'm usually very, very disappointed. His heart seems in the right place, but most of the time he's too trapped by his ideological commitments to follow it.

In other words, when he's right, he's perfectly right. When he's wrong: ugh.

This is one of those "ugh" moments. Mr. Cohen saw That Film, and left with a thumbs-down. I'm not going to go into depth on this one--just a couple of points. Besides, I sort of agree on the Pilate point, but again, he simply blipped over the sympathetic Jewish populace. That, and a column that uses "fascist-" like a diuretic isn't worth too much time.

I thought the movie was tawdry, cartoonish, badly acted and anti-Semitic, maybe not purposely so but in the way portions of the New Testament are -- an assignment of blame that culminated in the Holocaust.

Yes. An inevitable straight-line progression, that. If memory serves, Himmler even had the Einsatzgruppen read the Gospel According to St. John before every kill sweep. Also explains why, of all the Christianized peoples of the world in the two thousand years since the NT was written, only 1930s Germany set up extermination camps. OK.

And, in the future, please try to refrain from referring to my sacred scripture as "tawdry, cartoonish, badly-acted and anti-Semitic." Doesn't do much for interfaith dialogue.

Oh, wait--Christians are on the receiving end of the invective.

Never mind. Please proceed.

The violence was the message. It overwhelmed the message of Christ, which even a non-Christian can admire and endorse.

Here's a bigger problem--Jesus isn't Confucius, merely an admirable moral philosopher. Unlike Confucius, Jesus' teaching is inseparably bound to his own person. Oh, people understandably try to, picking and choosing--no doubt the instant columnist likes "blessed are the peacemakers," "honor thy father and mother," and related proscriptions. Unfortunately, there are all those messianic and, more scandalous--divine claims regarding his person. Even the ethics-heavy Sermon on the Mount is tied to his claim to be greater than Moses.

The message is the man.

In other words, you can't honestly start treating Jesus like a salad bar--Thousand Island yes, chickpeas no--without distorting him into, well, yourself. Like it or not, the violence done to him was because of who he was, and what he claimed to be--both vindicated by the Resurrection.

Which is why Christians are stampeding to the film.

And others are perplexed.

Another parishioner review.

Patty's is worth your time.

For those of you who might have missed it...

Greg Krehbiel explains the raven scene.

For the record, I too was more disturbed by the treatment of Christ throughout the film. But I was at least partially prepared for that, finding it in the Gospels and all. The raven was likely the most jarring extra-scriptural addition to the film.

Zach Frey's interesting Lenten sacrifice.

He's blogging, but he's not reading other people's blogs.

Technically, that means you can say whatever you want to about him at your blog, and he'll never know....

Go on over and say hi.

Thankfully, this hasn't happened to us yet.

Yet.

I'll let Pansy Moss tell you her hilarious story, involving the interaction of a 4 year old and the authorities.

"Quid est veritas?"

Est vir qui ad est.

Thanks to AMDG for the discovery of this interesting....coincidence.

The Film.

Until this morning, I wasn't able to put a finger on my emotions upon leaving the screening. It was an odd sensation that was familiar, but I couldn't categorize it.

Until today.

All of the sudden, I remembered that about three years ago, I was driving home from work. I was on the concrete slalom run known as Interstate 696 (Fun Fact: The middle 6 is upside down!) in northern metro Detroit. About two hundred yards ahead of me, some idiot in the far left lane decided she really needed to get to the exit on the extreme right hand side of the road.

So she cut across three lanes of traffic in her effort to do so. An S-10 pickup in her path tried desperately to swerve out of her way.

He failed.

They made contact at about 70 mph. Her car was knocked back toward the median, and the S-10 began, in seeming slow-motion, a perfect, nightmarish, debris-strewing barrel roll. The traffic behind them began reacting as best it could, but two more contacts were made. I managed to luge around the mess, and pulled up behind a couple of other drivers, just before where the S-10 had skidded to a stop.

The S-10 was resting on its caved-in roof.

I got out, and discovered that miraculously, not only was the driver alive, he was unhurt--apart from perhaps needing a new pair of shorts. In fact, no one in the entire mess was seriously hurt, although the police had no choice but to shut the expressway down.

As I drove away, I felt an odd surge of adrenalin-fueled relief--but for some heedless decisions resulting in a delay of a few seconds here and there, I would have been right in the middle of the accidents. Under those circumstances, who could have said whether I would have been as blessed to walk away?

I rode the rest of the way home in chastened relief and gratitude.

I had the same sensation last night, as I left. That could--by all justice should--have been me. But He took it instead.

The scenes which stand out are many, but one which has particular force occurs after Jesus arrives at Golgotha. He lays on the ground, half-dead already. The cross, too, lays upon the ground. Battered and wounded out of all recognition (Isaiah 53 in spades), he crawls to the cross, and lays upon it. Embraces that which, hours earlier, he was asking to let pass. It is a powerful moment, burning itself into the brain.

The film is filled with them--raw images that etch themselves, willingly or no, into the memory.

Three times, the "fourth wall" is broken, and either Jesus (twice) or Mary look at the audience. The first is Jesus, staring ostensibly at Peter following the third denial. The second also is Jesus, warning the disciples that they will be persecuted for His sake. And the final, most wrenching example is Mary's long, unflinching stare at the Pieta, holding her beloved and dead son. I thought I'd been numbed by that point, but it all came rushing back. I understand those reparation devotions held on the first Saturdays of the month now.

Viscerally. Sin is social, and mine was the reason for which her son died.

I could go on--there is a vision of Hell as a featureless salt flat, and a shriek from Satan in the midst of it at the instant of Jesus' death. Some have interpreted it as a howl of victory. It is definitely not that. Chilling, and it acknowledges a victory, but not the Fallen's.

As I have thought about the film, I think there is a great, ragged cross-shaped hole in American Christian spirituality. There is a tendency to try to beam to the empty tomb on Sunday, bypassing All That Unpleasantness on Good Friday. Catholicism has hardly been immune, what with a treacly, self-centered spirtuality that predominates at far too many Community Affirmation Hours, which never quite get past celebrating what wonderful folk happen to be in attendance.

But this film reminds us there is no way out but through. You can't get to the Resurrection without the Crucifixion. The letters of St. Paul, preaching Christ and Him Crucified, dying and rising with him, reminding us we were bought at a price--all have a fierce new immediacy. My already-strained tolerance of community-centered liturgy has probably frayed beyond all repair.

This film fills that cross-shaped hole in ways that forty more years of Catholicism: Wow! and Josh the Palestinian Tolerance Mascot™ never will.

Which brings me back to the initial point--this is a hard film to love--especially if you can't see the love in what happened on Good Friday. This is not a "Precious Moments" love, a Hallmark card love, a "Greatest Love of All" love. It is a depiction of love as the ultimate sacrifice--a love only God could offer. Only in that way can anyone love this film--a film that captures a seemingly harsh, but wholly redemptive, unflinching, and absolute love that cannot be earned.

Film Thoughts, Part II.

3A. Historical Accuracy and the Feud with the "Mainstream" Scholars.

I think I picked up where the vitriol toward the film from Our Masters, The Scholars, started. It begins with the opening credits, which quote from Isaiah 53. What is interesting is the dating--700 BC. For those of you not in the know, critical biblical scholarship has dispensed with the notion that the Prophet Isaiah wrote all of Isaiah. Instead, the basic view is that it was written in two or three (or even more) chunks by 2-3+ writers, during 2-3+ eras. Isaiah 53 is held to be one of the later sections. Not that this is a fringe view (though the 3+ in each category is lunging for the margins), and even those who hold to complete Isaianic authorship concede there are good arguments in favor of the opposing view. In fact, the majority of scholars hold that there was more than one author, etc.

I think the scholar-critics saw this at the head of the purloined script, snorted in contempt, and it went downhill from there. "We'll educate this Hollywood twit..." Alas, he spurned the lecture--which is unfortunate, because had there been some real orthodox mainstream scholarship offering advice and riding shotgun, most of the controversy would have been avoided. Instead, when he was hit with a fringe histo-crit broadside, he dug in his heels. Understandable, and, again, unfortunate.

4. What I Did Not Like.

In addition to the desire to see Pilate with more menace and Caiaphas humanized, a lot of people have mentioned the crow scene, and I agree. I'm not sure what Gibson was trying to do here, but it seems odd that it would happen after Jesus prayed that the others would be forgiven.

Also, some of the demonic flourishes seemed a little cartoonish, although I appreciated Gibson's effort to bring the "big realms" aspect of Good Friday into the mix.

Not so BTW, I think SAM's criticism of Jim Cork on his choice of review quotes is over the top. I don't think Jim's post can be fairly read as a blanket endorsement of everything in the Coren essay, and it's wrong to fang a guy who has been as open-minded and fair as Jim has been. He doesn't like the movie--hey, no skin off anybody's nose: this is not the Gospel, after all, it's just a depiction of an aspect of it. It's not like Jim is (unlike Coren) criticizing those who do like it, or their piety--a failing of both critics and supporters. However, I wish he'd stayed on the fence--as he notes, that would have made him pretty well unique.

5. "The Evangelical Opportunity of a Lifetime."

As with many aspects of this film, the answer is "no"--and "yes." No, in the sense that I don't think taking your heathen/apostate/fallen-away/indifferent friend or family member will lead to a Damascene conversion story. The altar call (a sacramental if there ever was one) will not necessarily follow.

However, in the sense that it will strengthen flagging believers, recharge their faith and send them boldly out into the world to witness, I think it will do that. He did that for me, so I think I could risk a little embarrassment for Him. I also think that this two hour film will build far more bridges between Catholics and evangelicals than decades of official chat-shop dialogues, with all that means for the Gospel in the world. Of course, you should pause to savor the irony of such a result coming from a product of the least "ecumenical" wing of Catholicism.

Then again, irony and providence are simply two sides of the same divine coin.

So, what did I think about the film?

"You've got strep!"

Courtesy of my one year old son (he turned 1 on February 24, which I omitted to mention--happy birthday, Dale!).

As a result, I may have the opportunity to blog today.

I saw TPOTC last night.

Part I of a multi-part review.

I wanted to see it yesterday afternoon, but it was sold out through the next-to-last showing. I think we are seeing the beginnings of a bona fide phenomenon here. I ended up seeing the last showing of the day--also sold out.

What do I think? It is hard for me to say I "love" the film--it does not lend itself easily to that characterization, but that eventually will bring me to a related point, so bear with me.

First, to the controversial points.

1. Anti-Semitism.

It's not for me to tell Jews how to react to the film. I think, though, that the wisest commentary on this issue has been from Dennis Prager, who says that Jews and Christians are seeing two different films. Honestly, I don't see how one could come to the conclusion that the film indicts all Jews of the time, let alone all Jews, in every time and place. Sympathetic Jews abound--at the Sanhedrin trial, and all throughout Jerusalem and the Via Dolorosa. You have to be trying not to notice them. More importantly, in making Caiaphas the central focus of villainy, the film takes the steam out of a collective guilt interpretation. One is left with the inclination to dislike "this guy" as opposed to "all these guys." That said, I would have like to see a more humanized Caiaphas, along the lines of Pilate, an exploration of motivations. This could have been done with a couple of lines he said in John.

When I get my $25 million, I can shoot my own film.

But perhaps the best rebuttal of the anti-Semitic charge comes in the form of one character--Simon of Cyrene, press-ganged into helping Christ carry His cross. A very reluctant figure (a father with a young daughter), he initially makes very clear for all the bystanders that he's not the condemned criminal here. Nevertheless, he quickly becomes a heroic figure, stopping the relentless abuse from the hellish Roman guards, at no small risk to himself. For all intents and purposes, he willingly bears the load up to Golgotha.

All very well and good, critics might say--how does that help?

How is Simon garbed? Throughout, he prominently wears the most common religious garb seen today on Jewish believers--a yarmulke.

Hint, hint.

2. The Violence.

It's grim, and I know I and the rest of the audience were horrified.

[Insert favorite qualifier here]

I've seen far, far worse. "Pornographic?" Puh-leez. The violence in the critics-darling Scream flicks was far worse--Drew Barrymore's character being disembowled and hung from a tree, for starters (literally). Hello? Nightmare on Elm Street 1 (another critical fave-rave), with its Johnny Depp blood geyser, anyone?

Then there's the non-slasher flicks--like those of Tarantino (who I generally like)--that are more violent. Reservoir Dogs' cop-torturing scene, along with Tim Roth virtually swimming in a spreading pool of his own blood, come to mind. Saving Private Ryan was more gruesome. And, speaking as someone who's seen Woo's Hardboiled, where the body count literally requires a digital counter, TPOTC is something of a piker in the violence department. I think S.T. Karnick at National Review Online has it nailed--the difference is, we care about this victim.

None of this is to deny that TPOTC is disturbingly violent--it most certainly is. The scourging scene is nothing short of horrific. But it would be interesting to cross-reference the negative Passion reviews with the same critics' takes on the other films mentioned above. I have a suspicion it would be very revealing.

3. Historical Accuracy.

Which brings me to one Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judea, 26-36 A.D. I thought he was a little too sympathetic. For my money, Rod Steiger's version in Jesus of Nazareth seemed to get it better. Still, let us lay to rest the notion that the Jewish leadership had no pressure points over Pilate. In 26 AD, he had the legions enter Jerusalem bearing shields with the image of the Emperor Tiberius. According to Josephus, outraged Jewish leaders protested to his superior in Syria, who ordered Pilate to remove them. According to Philo, in 32 AD following the execution of his patron, Sejanus, by Tiberius, Pilate attempted to suck up by having shields bearing Tiberius' name inside Jerusalem. This time, the leadership went straight to Tiberius, who immediately rebuked and overruled Pilate. In 33 AD, certain members of the leadership had a problem with a Galilean preacher...

Let's just say "you are no friend of Caesar" would have a special resonance under these circumstances.

A better point would be to question why the bloody Pilate would have hesitated in getting rid of another Jewish troublemaker. I look at it this way--it is consistent with human nature to take the opportunity to grind your heel into the insteps of people who irritate you. It is also fully consistent with the Roman principle of "divide and rule." Finally, it takes into account the effect our Lord had on people in his earthly ministry. Anyone else remember Jesus' effect on a particularly corrupt tax farmer named Zaccheus?

In other words, the psychology of the situation is more complex than those screaming "unhistorical" are willing to grant.

More to come.