The Passion of the Christ (2004): Comparison to the Gospels - Essay Example

?Client’s The Passion of the Christ (2004 Comparison to the Gospels The four gospels give perspectives on the events of Christ’s life, especially those moments when one of the most important events in history occurred. The betrayal and death of Jesus began a period of trial in which his conviction, torture, and execution performed the function of being the sacrifice for all the sins of man. Whether or not one believes this as fact or myth, the shift in ideological belief systems about the relationship of man to God profoundly changed the nature of the human morality system throughout the world. The film The Passion of Christ takes these events and places them into a biopic about those last days of his life, causing controversy over the interpretation and creating an emotional film that is at times difficult to watch. In comparing the gospels to the film, The Passion of Christ shows some adaptation, but also some authenticity in interpreting for film the last hours of the life of Christ. The film is a chronicle of the last twelve hours of Jesus’s life on the day that he was crucified in Jerusalem. The story begins with Jesus praying in the Garden of Olives after having experienced the event of the Last Supper. With the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, Jesus is charged with having claimed to perform miracles and making declarations that He was the Son of God, He is brought before the Pharisees who confront Him for what they consider His blasphemy. Pontius Pilate is confronted so that He can be sentenced. Deferring to King Herod at first, Pilate is ultimately made responsible for the execution. In the end, Jesus is tortured and killed. The scenes of torture are brutally executed and a stark reality is placed over what is often sanitized in Christian churches. The film is powerful and startling in its depiction of these last hours before the most important historic event takes place (IMDB). The Four Gospels by John, Mathew, Luke and Mark all tell the events of the death and resurrection of Christ from their personal perspectives. John focuses on the concept of Jesus as a diety, something that is not as pervasive in the other four gospels. Mark presents his perspective through the idea of Jesus as servant to mankind who gave his life in service to the will of God and for the protection of humans in order to fulfill prophesies of salvation. Mathew presents Jesus as a King who fulfills the old prophesies about a savior who would come for the Jewish people. Luke gives to Jesus His humanity. In Luke’s version of the events of His death His benevolence is felt more strongly and He is seen for compassion and vulnerably in His mortality. Although differing slightly, the four gospels give a relatively clear historical account through which the events can be studied and understood for how they have impacted history from that point forward The accounts of the four writers of the Gospel are anecdotal and told from the perspective of their witness to this event. In having four perspective Christians have had a basis from which to get a multi-dimensional view of Jesus and the way in which He affected those who followed Him. Burridge describes this by saying “Four pictures, all different – each with its own story evoking its own atmosphere and provoking its own response in the viewer – yet all are of one and the same man” (2). This has provided a framework for following Christ for the multitudes who have been converted since that time. The differing perspectives have allowed for followers of Christ to approach their faith based on the way in which His story and sacrifice best affects the individual. Through looking at the perspectives of the Gospels, Mel Gibson produced a film in which His story was told in a way that Gibson felt would best portray the reality and meaning of those events. The film was not without controversy. There were many accusations of anti-Semitism in the film. As well the violence of the film disturbed some when put in context with the subject matter. One reviewer, James Carroll quoted by Fredriksen, wrote that it was “a pornographic celebration of suffering” suggesting that it humanized the events too much in relationship to the spiritual value of what happened (10). The concept of the glorification of pain is not too harsh of a criticism. It is a difficult film to watch and there are many liberties that are taken that do not come from the Gospels. Gibson’s film comes from his choices in relationship to the Gospels from which he gathered the core of his material. The film begins in the Garden as he is praying that this trial may bypass him. He goes to find his disciples three times but finds them sleeping, which is in contrast to the Gospels of Mark and Mathew in which he goes twice and in Luke where he only goes once. As in some versions of Luke he is praying so hard that he begins to sweat blood. When he is arrested there is violence and as a result one of the men has damage to his ear which Jesus heals, and adaptation from Luke (Fredrickson 52). At this point there are some supernatural events that are not in the Gospels. Jesus is confronted by Lucifer who questions the need for these events to occur, tempting Him from His fate. He asks the quintessential question in that he states as a challenge that no single man could bear the weight of all of the sins of humankind. This scene includes a quick wiggle of a worm in the nose of the evil creature and a snake that comes out from underneath his robes. The symbolisms of evil are rampant, but are not taken from Gospel sources. In a refusal of Satan, Jesus stomps on the snake. The soldiers are brutal to Jesus as they take him away. At one point he is tossed from a bridge and caught short by his chains. He sees Judas Iscariot whose clear regret is seen across his face. As Jesus is pulled up from the fall, Judas turns to see a demon is occupying the space with him as it confronts him with a terrifying face. At this point the film does seem more like a horror film than a retelling of the pain of Christ, although he is definitely in pain. The emotional content of the events, however, shows the moment as it is filled with the essential supernatural elements of the story. What is about to occur is profoundly spiritual so this is balanced by the evil representations of those who would come from Hell to witness it as well. In the books of Mark and Mathew there is a discussion of a trial at night in front of the council. Luke describes that it takes place the next morning and John narrates a story of Jesus being questioned by two high priests by the names of Annas and Caiaphus. As the disciples may not have been given the privilege of the details of who judged Jesus before taking him to Pilate, it does make sense that there would be discrepancies on this point. Gibson looks to Mark and Mathew to define his drama. He portrays the council as being very hostile to Jesus, which is not specifically in the Gospels. Fredrickson challenges that choice, but in order to have worked them up to the point to make the charges that they make and to bring Jesus in it is not unreasonable to think that they had been angered by His actions and would respond with hostility. One point that Fredrickson makes is that the film confuses pre-resurrection in Mark’s Gospel with post-resurrection philosophy. Jesus never made claims to divinity and this is never brought up before his resurrection. It is after his resurrection that Mark implies that Jesus is the Son of God, not before his resurrection (54). The charges that are brought before Pilate are based on this confusion of philosophies about divinity. Jesus is charged with “being a malefactor (John), curing the sick on the Sabbath (not in the Passion narrative), forbidding the tribute to Caesar (Luke), being the leader of a large and dangerous sect that hails him as the Son of David (non-Biblical) and claiming to be the Messiah (Luke)” (Fredrickson 54). Two other factors, which include Pilate’s wife as she had dreamed of His righteousness which is in Mathew and a non-Biblical idea that Pilate thought that Caiaphas would revolt if Pilate did not crucify Jesus are included, although the idea of the revolt is also not historical (Fredrickson 55). When Pilate offers up a beating to try to satisfy the crowd, Satan once again appears as a witness to this event in the crowd. Reasons for these non-Biblical or non-historical elements may vary. One of the reasons that the film is seen as anti-Semitic is because of the hostility and violence with which the Jewish authorities approach Jesus. Although history has since shown that Gibson has in a drunken rage spoken with anti-Semitic language, the film does not necessarily have to be interpreted that way. The hostility of the Jewish people in the film matches the murder of Christ. To send a man to this kind of fate would require passionate conviction of His guilt, which would likely include fervor that brought them to this point. This is about human reaction to what is seen as threatening rather than specific hatred placed against the Jewish people. The Romans are no less violent in their physical destruction of the body of Christ and they are far crueler. The discussion made of the guilt that is felt by Judas is a detail that adds to the humanity of the accounts. Judas is shown as being slowly deconstructed because of his betrayal. To a lesser degree, his own body becomes battered and bruised as the stain on his soul begins to take its toll. He hangs himself as is written after suffering from his great sin. His devolution is portrayed through scenes that show him spiraling down from a place of fearful righteousness as he believed that his betrayal was just to a sense that he immediately understands his mistake and has no idea how to reconcile what he has done. Judas is symbolic of the shame and guilt that human beings experience and how being separated from God creates a sense of despair over sins that cannot otherwise be forgiven without connection to the divine. The scene of the scourging is devastating. The barbs at the end of the whip tear the skin from his body, revealing bone in some instances because they go so deep before tearing away his flesh. The accounts do speak of him being scourged. Nothing compares to seeing this horrific assault upon the body. That humankind creates this kind of suffering for each other, creating the tools of torture and being able to disrespect the body in this way, creates a sense of sorrow and shame in front of the sight of God while watching this film. The execution scene compares to the accounts on most levels, although to add to the brutality for some reason Gibson feels the need to embellish with visual elements such as dislocating his arm in order to line it up with the nail hole in the cross, something that is not mentioned in the Gospels. Gibson further creates horrific violence from non-Biblical narrative as a raven pecks out the eye of another man on a cross who had mocked Jesus (Frederick 55). When Jesus dies, a drop of water that symbolizes a tear from heaven hits the ground which is an element that is not from the Gospels. This causes an earthquake which is a narrative from Mathew. Two additional elements, the destruction at the center of the Jewish Temple and a scream from Satan as he is defeated and the righteous souls he holds freed, are not from the Gospels. The additional elements are largely from the narratives of visions by an Augustinian nun from Westphalia Germany who lived between 1774 and 1824 named Anne Catherine Emmerich. The idea that Pilate was fearful of a revolt by the High Priest Caiaphas is from her visions. Frederich claims that this was not the dynamic of the time period as Caiaphas was dependent upon Pilate for his power in his community (57). As well, the presence of Satan is based upon her dreams and visions rather than on Biblical accounts. Using her experiences was not a bad choice for Gibson, but it was a choice and some of the film did not portray historical accuracies as he recounted the events. As an example, Jesus is singled out for brutality while the other two that are crucified with him are not brutalized in the same way. Anyone crucified during that period was scourged, thus they would have been as brutalized as Jesus. The portrayal of Jewish leadership as petty and cruel is based on Emmerich’s interpretations of her dreams and visions, not specifically on the Gospel narratives. The Passion of the Christ is an artistic retelling of the story of the ordeal that Jesus went through in order to make his sacrifice. While there are those that believe that it is too brutal, the facts of torture and the effect on the body of such traumatic abuse should be clearly understood which is poignantly clear in a time period when torture has become a part of policy. To say someone has been tortured and to see its effects are very different. Experiencing the horrors committed against Jesus places the story into context with its realities. The anti-Semitism in the film was unnecessary, but in fairness the Roman soldiers come across as brutes without any sense of morality or duty so no one on that side of the conflict comes across as human. In addition, the characters in the film speak Latin when Greek would have more likely been the spoken language of the time (Fredrickson 57). However, having to read the film gives it a textual element that brings the Bible into the retelling so that it has context within the film. Most of the film is based upon scriptural narratives that are then enhanced by the histories of the visions and dreams of Anne Catherine Emmerich. This choice is also not a bad one creatively because it does not diverge from history or Biblical Gospel and it adds some interesting elements to the story. The presence of Satan is creepy yet subtle, which allows for a contrast between the brutality of the human race and the realistically portrayed battle between Heaven and Hell. In spirit the film accomplishes to tell both the human and supernatural elements of the story without falling into a trap of taking it too far. Although his sub-sequential anti-Semitism rants make the film a questionable choice, creatively Gibson accomplished a goal of expressing philosophical concepts about the event of the crucifixion while maintaining a sense of realism, even in its abject brutality. Works Cited Burridge, Richard A. Four Gospels, One Jesus?: A Symbolic Reading. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2005. Print. Fredriksen, Paula. On the Passion of the Christ: Exploring the Issues Raised by the Controversial Movie. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Print. Gibson, Mel. (Director) (Perf.) Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Cristo Jivkov, Francesco de Vito, and Monica Belluci, Icon Productions, 2004. iTunes. IMDB. 2013. Web. 6 May 2013. Read More