Passion of Christ by Mel Gibson - Movie Review Example

I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as ‘twas said to me. Sir Walter Scott Film scenes can offer a visual portrayal of theories and concepts taught in organizational behavior and management courses as well as psychology topics. Inexperienced students will likely benefit from the use of film because of a greater feeling of reality. Showing concepts through different film scenes also shows the application of these concepts in different situations. Videotaped films are now widely available for inexpensive rental or purchase making it an accessible resource for classroom use. Before the 1980s, instructors could get films only through audiovisual centers, educational film sources, film distributors, and private organizations. The rental process was slow, cumbersome, and expensive, reducing films accessibility as a resource (Smith, 1973). Films now available from a video store include contemporary films, classical films, foreign films, documentaries, and some television series. About 22,000 such films are available on videotape, laserdisc, and Digital Video Disc (Connors & Craddock, 1998; Maltin, 1998; Martin & Porter, 1998) and can be accessed anywhere. This review of film highlights some unique aspects of film and film making and how it relates to leadership theories and let this medium portray various organizational behavior and management concepts and other topics in an uncommonly powerful way. Understanding these aspects of film will help understand the examples of scenes discussed later. It also will help guide the selection of other film scenes to show concepts of interest to related to a particular field of study. For this film review, the selected movie is the highly controversial “Passion of Christ” by Mel Gibson. A renowned actor, not one scene was shown that celebrates his thespian talents but he chose instead to “man the helm” by working in the production and creative direction the film took. It is startling to watch it for its relentless, shockingly moving eroticized cruelty – prompting one to think if this is because it is loyal to the anti-Semitic conventions of “Hitlerian" ideals or does Gibson purposely challenges a certain religious sect (in this case the Christians). An analysis by Robert Jay Lifton, who is visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, even concluded that: "The problem of The Passion of the Christ goes far beyond the individual psyche of Mel Gibson, or even questions of biblical interpretation. The crucifixion here becomes a vehicle for a contemporary mentality that is absolute and polarizing in its starkly violent vision of world purification -- a vision that fits well with an apocalyptic, all or nothing "war on terrorism." While many will be moved by this vision, there may also be a backlash of revulsion and a reasoned rejection of the zealotry and love of violence the film promotes". This maybe where Gibson practiced the “Transactional theories”) focusing on the role of supervision, organization, and group performance. Since he headed the production, his leadership took on a system of reward and punishment. This theory is often used in business; when employees are successful, they are rewarded; when they fail, they are reprimanded or punished. Although we have yet to see and hear reports about employee punishment from Gibson, he did not however, fail to lash out relentlessly on all who criticized his work on this film. Frank Rich, a New York Times columnists says: "If you criticize his film and the Jew-baiting by which he promoted it, you are persecuting him — all the way to the bank. If he says that he wants you killed, he wants your intestines on a stick and he wants to kill your dog — such was his fatwa against me in September — not only is there nothing personal about it but its an act of love. And that is indeed the message of his film". This film may have attacked the Christian religion but the Christian church or more specifically, the Vatican II did not question the Gospels. It did not disavow its own central story. It took responsibility for it, and for the baleful history it had spawned. Recognizing that all words, even Gods words, are necessarily subject to human interpretation, it ordered an understanding of those words that was most conducive to recognizing the humanity and innocence of the Jewish people. The Vatican did that for good reason. The blood libel that this story affixed upon the Jewish people had led to countless Christian massacres of Jews and prepared Europe for the ultimate massacre -- 6 million Jews systematically murdered in six years -- in the heart, alas, of a Christian continent. It is no accident Vatican II occurred just two decades after the Holocaust. Which is what makes Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ such a singular act of interreligious aggression. He openly rejects the Vatican II teaching and, using every possible technique of cinematic exaggeration, gives us the pre-Vatican II story of the villainous Jews. As an agnostic with atheistical prejudices, but who believes that Mans spiritual nature is an essential fact in a really huge cosmos, and as someone of Anglo-Scottish descent (a wee bit of Braveheart in there) and in real life and the real world, masterfully created not a pale and tepid Jesus movie but controversy aside, extremely talented and well-made effort of a film. What exactly has been accomplished here...? A routine mischaracterization of American culture, suggesting that 70 percent or so, of Americans believe in the literalism of Revelations? This is so patently absurd that it is just not true unless a study comes out to refute it. It is irresponsible and a phenomenal twist of logic that had little to do with that specific assertion. This movie made people frustrated and believed that their faith had been demeaned but to respond, simply pull out a convenient quote from Einstein, not a particularly perceptive statement, that suggests that the faithful were somehow lesser, weaker men, than himself. Of course it is unfair and irresponsible, to Einstein to use him flippantly. But after debating about religion here, men and women of faith who are not close-minded zealots, know that any Christian and Jewish existentialists believe that faith need not exclude a man or woman from insight. Knock down the walls and let the whole diapason of thought prevail. Human responsibility; responsibility in its truest sense, must always be strived for. Any benignly motivated commonwealth would collapse in its absence. Especially moving is when the scene played the actors nailing his hands to the cross. The screens’ pretend violence has got more real. The movie tells you not to strike back, even while it raises the desire to the point where it becomes more likely that one will and should. It is difficult to explain why it has come to that simply because it was felt not thought. Perhaps Christians can make good out of this. What you make of it depends on what you bring to it, because it barely offers anything hopeful – just brief flashbacks of a good man preaching love, some grieving women, a good man who helps carry the cross, and a mere glimpse at the end of Jesus mysteriously walking, healed, from his tomb. The rest is torture and a reduction of all human thought and feeling and personhood to mere flesh. This is why the great man theory of leadership best relates to this because only a great man could ever suffer the way the actor as Christ suffered. It assumes that the capacity for leadership is inherent – that great leaders are born, not made. These theories often portray great leaders as heroic, mythic, and destined to rise to leadership when needed. The term “Great Man” is used because, at the time, leadership was thought of primarily as a male quality. The center-piece of the movie is an absolutely intense and moving piece of sadism that has no real basis in any of the Gospels. It shows a man being flayed alive – slowly, methodically and with increasing savagery. The brilliant writing of simultaneously showing Christians their Saviour being tortured and killed and showing Jews that it is Jews who arranged the killing and torture, is simply phenomenal. But why is it so popular, especially among evangelical Christians who might have been expected to dislike its old Catholic emphasis on flogging, the devil, Mary? Why would anyone want to see this? Because it portrays the worst suffering, and apparently offers hope. There is sickness and death, poverty, loss, divorce, depression, terrorism. Worse, there is assault on meaning. We fear our children may get lost in the moral miasma, and shoot heroin. In this film review, leadership per se unfolds as an art of influencing others in the manner desired by the leader (Christ to his followers). Under such a broad definition it is possible to assume that effective leadership may be dependent on the leader, the follower, the situation, or any combination of these factors (being in Jerusalem during the time of Pilate and the increasing popularity of Christ). Since interest in leadership increased during the early part of the twentieth century, leadership theories focused on what qualities distinguished between leaders and followers, while subsequent theories looked at other variables such as situational factors and skill level. In this movie, te leadership theory most often displayed by Christ is contingent reward behaviour that includes the clarification of what is expected of followers in order to receive rewards (eternal life). It is used as an incentive to motivate followers to perform. Utilization of corrective criticism, negative feedback, and negative reinforcement through afterlife rewards sometimes also is active or passive. Jesus, in the movie is always on the lookout for problems and takes corrective actions immediately (by forgiving) following a minor mistake or rule violation by a follower. He is always acutely aware of what his/her followers are doing. So here is a movie that shows the suffering our culture denies. This is why we have heavy-duty religion: to give us hope when faced with real suffering. Holiness found in suffering. References Connors, M., & Craddock, J. (Eds.). (1998). VideoHounds golden movie retriever. Detroit: Visible Ink Press Icon Productions. Gibson, Mel.(2004). The Passion of Christ. USA: Twentieth Century Fox Studio Maltin, L. (Ed.). (1998). Leonard Maltins movie & video guide. 1998 Edition. New York: Signet. Martin, A., & Jones, E. (1994). Comparing interactive videodisc instruction with traditional methods of social skills training. Education and Training Technology International, 31, 187-195. 17 Smith, D. D. (1973). Teaching introductory sociology by film. Teaching Sociology, 1, 48-61. Smith, D. D. (1982). Teaching undergraduate sociology through feature films. Teaching Sociology, 10, 98-101. Smith, J. (1996). Unheard melodies? A critique of psychoanalytic theories of film music. In D. Bordwell and N. Carroll (Eds.), Post-theory: Reconstructing film studies (Chapter 11). Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Van Wagner, Kendra.(2005). Leadership Theories. Retrieved on October 2008 from About.com website at http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/p/leadtheories.htm Read More