24. The Passion of the Christ (2004, Directed by Mel Gibson)
A controversial movie in all the best ways, “The Passion of the Christ” is one of the most unique pieces of American film making ever. Gibson’s legacy as an actor is debatable to me; he’s unquestionably talented, but he brings few new ideas to his craft. As a director, however, he has been a consistent trailblazer, fusing the daring subject matter of independent cinema with the high-budget, high-visibility mainstream. “Braveheart” was arguably a warm-up lap, more conventional than his later work, but I dare you to find another actor who so gracefully made the leap into the director’s chair (we’ll ignore “The Man Without a Face” for now). He took on sweeping battle scenes, intimate romance, and political intrigue, and by any reasonable standard aced it. Plus, he brought a distinctive style to the action film, merging the sweeping grandiosity of David Lean with the bloody grit of Peckinpah. Traditionally, a visceral movie is also quite cynical, maybe to offer the audience some emotional protection, but Gibson charges in with both hands, compromising neither sentimentality nor carnage. It doesn’t sound like an appealing mix, but he chooses his stories carefully, creating movies that are suited to both. He looks right into the eyes of violence and refuses to flinch or fall back on cynicism to try and soften the blow. It is what it is.
He has directed four movies so far, and three of them have been masterpieces, but the crown jewel is also his best-known and most controversial work, “The Passion of the Christ.” Dogged by ridiculous charges of anti-Semitism, usually by people who couldn’t bother to actually watch the damned thing, “The Passion” pulls quite literally from all four gospels to create the film equivalent of an epic poem. Its beats and structure are classical, its plot is not comparable to 90% of Western cinema, but it speaks with brutal clarity that transcends genres. This is one of the most difficult types of films to make, and rarely has it been accomplished so successfully.
Although “The Passion” has a Scriptural debt to the Gospels (John in particular), the movie that I think it owes the most to is “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Both are films that seek to escape the conventional, character-arc based plot structures that dominate Western fiction. They are designed as experiences, sustained moments of philosophical inquiry meant to elicit extreme (and almost unpleasant) waves of emotion. And they are also both profoundly filmic; reading the script for either would get you nowhere near the experience of the movie (you’ll hear me say that a lot on this list).
“The Passion” is strangely at odds with reality: its depiction of Roman culture, slavish adherence to ancient dialects, and refusal to stock Jerusalem full of white people like everyone else, make it a uniquely sharp view of history. And yet its pace and tone are deliberately surreal: its use of music, exaggerated lighting, slow motion, and dramatic hyperbole land it squarely in the realm of dream-like (or nightmarish). This is not a documentary-style film. I believe the events it depicts to be historical fact, but I do not consider the movie even slightly “realistic.” Were I to go back in time, this is not how the events would look, and that is one of the highest compliments you can pay to the film. Gibson is not content to roll the camera on a blank reading from the King James, and the movies that have done that are mostly forgotten. Instead, he dips the story in myth and hyperbole, elevating Jesus from a suffering man to a unified Godhead carrying the weight of sin on His back. The story isn’t particularly concerned with Christ Himself, but with the people around Him, and how His sufferings serve to reflect the content of their souls.
Of course, no discussion of “The Passion” is complete without acknowledging that the film is hugely unpopular in some circles. It’s not a coincidence that its astronomical box office success has been followed with almost no imitators of any kind, because like the success of Tyler Perry, Hollywood liberal culture simply doesn’t want to hear it. They saw the numbers like everyone else, but they have elected to plug their ears and sing “lalala.” Most people I know in the film community have open contempt for the picture, either because of its honest spirituality, its unrelenting violence, or personal problems with Gibson himself. I find these reactions to be defensive and culturally motivated, built from negative associations with Christianity and Mel Gibson, not an intelligent discourse on the content of the picture. The movie makes a lot of people uncomfortable simply by existing, which is a sign that it’s probably doing something right. “The Passion” has become some kind of symbolic battleground, a target to take aim at, and even though that’s a kind of compliment, it’s frustrating when one tries to make a case for its value as a piece of art.
And art it is. Every previous attempt to depict Jesus on celluloid looks hopelessly flaccid by comparison. Scorsese tried admirably to personalize Christ, but aside from a breathtaking climax that really should have been a short film of its own, the rest of the movie creates a man that simply would not warrant the legendary status Jesus has achieved. “The Passion” avoids trying to make a Western-style character of Christ, He’s a force of nature more than anything else, and for this reason His mystique and power remain intact. We look at Him and sense that He’s playing every situation close to the chest, like His view of what’s happening is unique from ours. Meanwhile, His disciples struggle with betrayal and cowardice and His movement falls apart around Him, leaving some dejected and some furious. With every blow He takes, the magic and meaning of the words He convinced so many to believe is destroyed. The hard, cold reality of Roman occupation has won again, and seeing how each disciple handles this crisis of faith reveals the deepest parts of their humanity. The two Marys are the only ones who never lose hope; their grief is personal, the death of the message is beside the point, they are trying to weep for Christ the man. But Jesus won’t let them, He is distant from their sorrow, because a man is simply not the totality of what He is. They are mourning an incomplete version of the truth.
It’s relevant to notice that the Resurrection, which is the most important part of the Christ story, is saved for a single shot at the very end. It’s bizarre to think of a movie about Jesus where His conquering of death is shoehorned in such a way, but hope is not the subject of this movie. “The Passion” is about the victories we win that we cannot feel, the blows we strike against evil that sting us as much as our target. Not even Jesus can elevate His perspective above the suffering He is enduring; He must constantly ready His heart for it, and He comes desperately close to breaking several times. His story arc is a protracted fight for survival, to cherish and retain the soul as the body is scourged. Jim Caviezel’s selfless performance shows us every step of the battle: sometimes He takes the pain, sometimes the pain takes Him. What is that part of Him, we wonder, that endures even as His body fails? What in this man makes Him push forward when every fiber of His being has failed? What is He if not His body? These are questions we may all ask of ourselves, because in our better moments, we too can violate the walls of our corporeal existence. It is in these moments that Jesus is paradoxically the most divine and the most human.
Like “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “The Passion” should not be viewed by everyone. It is a harsh experience to put it mildly, probably the most horrific thing I have ever watched. But the singular achievement of Gibson’s masterpiece is its ability to use incredibly old story techniques to find a visual language for Christian philosophy. There’s a place for Cecil B. Demille, don’t get me wrong, but the Bible has thus far rarely been effectively translated into an American movie. Perhaps this is because the Bible refutes many basic storytelling conventions, relying on a more surreal and subconscious form of storytelling that thrives on being vague. Or perhaps it’s because so few filmmakers set out with the real intention of doing the Book any credit. Mel Gibson is an exception to that rule: he set out to make a Christian movie about sin and death, and he succeeded.
A compelling analysis here. Bravo!