The Passion for the Passion

Orcinius weighs in on the Gibson movie..


I have a few issues here:

1. Gibson is free to make any movie about the life and death of Christ and release it to the public.
But his careful selection of prescreeners, namely right wing pundits and christian conservatives,
and his careful exclusion of regular movie critics, is indicative that he wants the movie judged by a
different standard than that of Dogma or Last Temptation. And that is bullshit..

2. There is substantive information that one of the sources for the movie is Sister Anne Catherine
Emmerich. Here is a description of her:

whose ecstatic visions offered damning and dramatically satisfying details nowhere mentioned in Scripture, such as the notion that the Jewish high priests passed out bribes and that the cross was built in the Temple. (Emmerich's influence on Gibson was at first acknowledged, then hastily denied.) The new story line dominated stage and screen Passions (one of the earliest films ever made was of this Passion) right up to, and even after, the Holocaust. It was an interpretation that Adolf Hitler singled out for praise when he attended a performance in Oberammergau, Germany, where Passion plays have been performed continuously since the 1600s. He applauded the way the Oberammergau Pilate stood out "like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry."
.

If this is a source or even an inspiration, it should be acknowledged.

3. Will critique of this move be framed as a question of faith?

Yet another nail in the coffin of modern Christianity. Why has the faith of my youth been hijacked by a gang of luddite cranks who want to bring back the bloody intercine conflicts of Christianity of previous centuries. Was the 30 years war not fucking bloody enough for these assholes. Heeelllooo, many people emigrated here so they would not have to refight these conflicts.

I keep hearing the Apostles words in my head from Dogma, and I paraphrase "What he really hates is all the shit that gets carried out his name". You go Apostle. IF Gibson was willing to just roll out his move and let the chips fall where they may, like Scorsese and Smith, then I would be a supporter, regardless of the theology, just as a matter of speech. But this stealth marketing bears the stamp of the evangelical political machine, and those assholes are already on my list for all this Creationism crap. When I see this movie, lets think about a mojowire piece devoted to it...