Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Ruben (A) on August 02, 2003 at 13:38:35

From: msf@igc.org
Date: Sat Aug 2, 2003 1:38:38 PM US/Pacific
To: ruben@igc.org
Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Months Before Debut, Movie on Death of Jesus Causes Stir
Reply-To: msf@igc.org

This article from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by msf@igc.org.

hola

msf@igc.org

/-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\

Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com.
http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015
\----------------------------------------------------------/

Months Before Debut, Movie on Death of Jesus Causes Stir

August 2, 2003
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

With his movie about the death of Jesus under attack as
anti-Semitic, Mel Gibson is trying to build an audience and
a defense for his project by screening it for evangelical
Christians, conservative Catholics, right-wing pundits,
Republicans, a few Jewish commentators and Jews who believe
that Jesus is the Messiah.

Mr. Gibson has poured $25 million of his money into the
movie, "The Passion," calling it the most authentic and
biblically accurate film about Jesus' death.

Now, seven months before its scheduled release on Ash
Wednesday, the film has set off an uproar that both sides
warn could undermine years of bridge building between
Christians and Jews. The selected audiences who have seen
the film defend it as the most moving, reverential - and
violent - depiction of Jesus' suffering and death ever put
on screen. Detractors, who have read a script but not seen
the film, say it is a modern version of the medieval
Passion plays that portrayed Jews as "Christ killers" and
stoked anti-Jewish violence.

The dialogue is in Aramaic and Latin. Scholars say that
belies the assertion of total authenticity, because the
Romans spoke Greek. Mr. Gibson had said the film would not
have English subtitles. But it is being screened with them,
the marketing director, Paul Lauer, said, and they may
remain. "The Passion" has no distributor. Mr. Lauer said
"two major studios" were interested or Mr. Gibson might
distribute it himself.

The controversy has been cast by many of his supporters as
the Jews versus Mel Gibson. But it began when several Roman
Catholic scholars voiced concern about the project because
of Mr. Gibson's affiliation with a splinter Catholic group
that rejects the modern papacy and the reforms of the
Second Vatican Council, which in 1965 repudiated the charge
of deicide against the Jews.

Mr. Gibson has been screening "The Passion" for a few weeks
for friendly audiences, but has refused to show it to his
critics, including members of Jewish groups and biblical
scholars. In Washington, it was shown to the Web gossip
Matt Drudge, the columnists Cal Thomas and Peggy Noonan and
the staffs of the Senate Republican Conference and the
White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
and others. In Colorado Springs, the capital of evangelical
America, the film drew raves. A convention of the
Legionaries of Christ, a conservative Roman Catholic order
of priests, saw a preview, as did Rush Limbaugh.

Audiences wept, and many were awestruck.

"Mel Gibson is
the Michelangelo of this generation," said the Rev. Ted
Haggard, president of the National Association of
Evangelicals.

"It's going to be a classic," said Deal W. Hudson,
publisher of Crisis, a conservative Catholic magazine.
"It's going to be the go-to film for Christians of all
denominations who want to see the best movie made about the
Passion of Christ."

Mr. Gibson has said his movie will be true to the Gospel
account of the last hours of Jesus' life. But Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John differ greatly, presenting
Rashomon-like accounts of the roles of the Romans and Jews
in the Crucifixion.

A committee of Bible scholars who read a version of the
script said that it was not true to Scripture or Catholic
teaching and that it badly twisted Jewish leaders' role in
Jesus' death. The problem, the scholars said, is not that
Mr. Gibson is anti-Semitic, but that his film could
unintentionally incite anti-Semitic violence.

One scholar, Sister Mary C. Boys, a professor at Union
Theological Seminary in New York, said: "When we read the
screenplay, our sense was this wasn't really something you
could fix. All the way through, the Jews are portrayed as
bloodthirsty. We're really concerned that this could be one
of the great crises in Christian-Jewish relations."

Mr. Gibson, who directed and was a co-author of the script,
is vehement that any criticism is based on an outdated
script that was stolen. He declined an interview, and his
company, Icon Productions, said it was showing the movie
just to selected journalists and critics.

Mr. Gibson said in a statement: "Anti-Semitism is not only
contrary to my personal beliefs; it is also contrary to the
core message of my movie. `The Passion' is a film meant to
inspire, not offend."

The furor began in March, when the committee of scholars,
five Catholics and four Jews, asked Icon Productions to
show them the script. Five scholars hold endowed chairs at
their universities, and all have long been engaged in
interfaith dialogue. The group was assembled by officials
of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

Those organizations were wary, because they had spent years
drafting guidelines for ridding Passion plays of
anti-Semitism. Some of the same scholars had consulted on
the overhaul of the most famous Passion play, at
Oberammergau, Germany.

The scholars say the other reason for concern was Mr.
Gibson's strain of Catholicism. He built and belongs to a
church in Los Angeles that is part of a growing but
fractured movement known as "Catholic traditionalism."
Considered beyond the pale even by conservatives, the
traditionalists reject the Second Vatican Council and every
pope since then, and they conduct Mass in Latin.

Mr. Gibson also set off alarms among the scholars when
reports quoted him as saying his script had drawn on the
diaries of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, a 19th-century
mystic whose visions included extrabiblical details like
having the Jewish high priest order that Jesus' cross be
built in the Jewish temple.

Icon did not respond to the request to see the script. But
someone leaked a copy to one of the scholars, the Rev. John
T. Pawlikowski, a professor of social ethics and the
director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies program at the
Catholic Theological Union. Father Pawlikowski said in an
interview that the script came from a friend who got it
from another person whom he did not know.

The scholars sent a report to Icon complaining about the
script, again receiving no response. After excerpts of the
report appeared in the news media - both sides say the
other leaked it - the scholars circulated their complaints.

"This was one of the worst things we had seen in describing
responsibility for the death of Christ in many many years,"
Father Pawlikowski said.

In particular, the scholars objected that the Jewish
priest, Caiaphas, was depicted as intimidating Pontius
Pilate, the Roman governor, into going along with the
Crucifixion. Several people who saw the film last month
said the version they saw had that portrayal. The scholars
said that section distorts the fact that the Romans were
the occupying power and that the Jewish authorities were
their agents.

Mr. Lauer, marketing director for Icon, said Mr. Gibson's
rendering was not anti-Semitic, but simply followed the New
Testament. "There are some sympathetic to Christ and some
who clearly want to get rid of this guy," he said. "And
that's clearly scriptural. You can't get away from the fact
that there are some Jews who wanted this guy dead."

The script that the scholars read was dated October 2002,
when, Mr. Lauer acknowledged, filming began. But scripts
often change after shooting starts, he added.

Icon threatened to sue the scholars and the bishops'
conference. The bishops soon apologized and said it had
neither authorized the scholars' panel nor the report.

Mr. Gibson has sought to mend fences with the bishops. He
met recently in Washington with officials of the conference
and has shown the film to Cardinals Anthony Bevilacqua of
Philadelphia and Francis George of Chicago, as well as
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver.

But the scholars and the Anti-Defamation League have not
backed down. They are pressing Mr. Gibson to show them the
rough cut that he has been screening.

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League,
Abraham H. Foxman, said, "If you say this is not
anti-Semitic and this is a work of love and reconciliation,
why are you afraid to show it to us?"

"There is no way on God's green earth," Mr. Lauer said,
"that any of those people will be invited to a screening.
They have shown themselves to be dishonorable."

People who have seen the movie say it is brutally graphic,
dwelling at length on a scourging scene that renders Jesus
a bloody piece of flesh before he is even nailed to the
Cross. He is beaten with a leather strap studded with metal
points that, when slapped across a tabletop, stick in the
wood like spikes.

Roman soldiers administer the beating in the film, Mr.
Hudson, the Catholic publisher, said. "By the time the
Romans get through with him," Mr. Hudson said, "you've
forgotten what the Jews might have done."

Mr. Gibson's vision "pays tribute to Judaism," Mr. Lauer
said, by underscoring Christianity's roots. The
controversy, he added, has built a considerable buzz about
the movie. "You can't buy that kind of publicity," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/national/02GIBS.html?ex=1060856718&ei=1&en=2bf38818544c6376

---------------------------------

Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine
reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like!
Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy
now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here:

http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html

HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters
or other creative advertising opportunities with The
New York Times on the Web, please contact
onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to
help@nytimes.com.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

• http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/national/02GIBS.html?ex=1060856718&ei=1&en=2bf38818544c6376   (Open in New Window)