- It's based on the Gospels, so first the good news; never
again will I have to endure another sermon from some sanctimonious God-botherer
on the inherent evils of violent cinema. As a hardcore horror fan who is
also an habitual churchgoer (unconfirmed C of E) I have never seen any
contradiction between enjoying gruesomely violent movies during the week
and then singing hymns and praying for world peace on Sunday. My opposition
to film censorship - for adults, anyway - is based partly on a belief in
the Christian principle of free will; the God-given right to make our own
choices and take responsibility for our own actions.
-
- I have never met a horror movie fan who would do anything
other than turn the other cheek in a fight - largely because we're a bunch
of physical wimps with no interest in actual bodily endangerment. But having
previously been something of a novelty ('A horror fan who goes to church...?'),
I now find myself just one of thousands of churchgoers suddenly showing
an interest in blood-splattered cinema. If nothing else, Mel Gibson's The
Passion of the Christ, which presents a gruelling, graphic depiction of
the crucifixion, should at least put paid to the notion that sensational
shockers like Blood Feast and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are the sole
prerogative of satanists.
-
- When I started working last year on a forthcoming Channel
4 documentary about Mel Gibson, The Passion was widely regarded in Hollywood
as a joke - a folly of epic proportions. Today that folly has transformed
itself into the most talked-about film of the year, with an extraordinary
Ash Wednesday opening now generating predicted US box office receipts in
excess of $100 million - the official 'blockbuster' watershed.
-
- It's a startling showing for an R-rated, subtitled film
shot entirely in Latin and Aramaic, and largely lacking in famous faces.
Crucial to the movie's success in America has been the mobilisation of
Christian groups who have block-booked screenings for their followers and
orchestrated widespread congregational support. In Dallas, Christian businessman
Arch Bonnema reserved an entire 20-screen cinema to play The Passion to
more than 6,000 viewers on its opening day.
-
- Also raising the film's profile have been the acres of
press coverage addressing grave charges of anti-semitism, prompting demonstrators
to don concentration camp uniforms outside a midnight screening of the
film in New York last week. At the heart of their complaint is the film's
portrayal of the Jewish high priest Caiphus, who is seen as effectively
instigating the crucifixion (rather than the historically culpable Pontius
Pilate) and whose depiction in the movie is described in a review from
the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as 'almost monolithically malevolent'.
-
- The conference also noted within The Passion 'a recurring
tendency to slip into horror movie conventions', a quality which they see
as a 'flaw' but which I find a blessing. Ultimately, for all the theological
bluster and intense inter-faith arguments which it has provoked, The Passion
seems to me a quintessential horror film, a visceral cinematic assault
which is no more or less 'Christian' than Ken Russell's The Devils or Abel
Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. All are examples of extreme movie-making from
flamboyant film-makers who are passionately obsessed with the mysteries
of Catholicism. But all are also rooted in the saleable aesthetic of the
carnival sideshow; promising the audience an eye-opening spectacle of grotesque
proportions.
-
- Fainthearted viewers of The Passion who have so far avoided
the fleshy shocks of gore cinema may find themselves mentally reciting
that old monster movie mantra: 'It's only a movie, it's only a movie ...'
If there is a lesson I would wish such viewers to take away from Gibson's
bloody epic it is that, contrary to the hollerings of the Daily Mail, the
pleasures of horror cinema are not primarily sadistic but masochistic.
One woman in Wichita has already reportedly expired during a screening
of The Passion, inspiring breathless Exorcist-style press stories of the
life-threatening powers of the film. All of which will doubtless add to
its crowd-pulling clout.
-
- The strange bond between exploitation cinema and spiritual
pageant is in fact far sturdier than some may expect. In 1951 former carnival
owner turned exploitation movie producer Kroger Babb struck gold with a
film of the celebrated Easter Passion Pageant which took place annually
at Lawton, Ohio. Shot by two directors whose other credits include Bela
Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla and House of the Black Death (aka Blood
of the Man Beast), The Prince of Peace was billed as 'the screen's first
great passion play - the world's finest spiritual screen production!'
-
- Fast-forward 50 years and we have The Passion of the
Christ, a religious movie directed by a star who built his reputation on
the ultra-violence of Mad Max and Lethal Weapon, and who orchestrated his
own brutal disembowelment in the sporran-waving, breast-beating Braveheart.
Elsewhere in the credits we find make-up effects stalwarts Keith VanderLaan
and Greg Cannom, horror graduates who honed their skills on shockers such
as the vampiric epic Bram Stoker's Dracula and the grisly modern-gothic
chiller Hannibal.
-
- At the West End screening of The Passion which I attended
last week,an early scene of Jesus stamping upon a snake in a ghostly Garden
of Gethsemane prompted one viewer to let out a shriek of anticipatory terror
- an unusual reaction for an allegedly 'religious' movie, perhaps, but
entirely understandable within the blood-curdling Night of the Living Dead
ambience of this ominously moonlit opening. We almost expect Jim Caviezel's
Jesus to be jumped upon by zombies, and are unsurprised when he meets an
incarnation of the walking damned replete with maggot-infested nostrils
-
- To someone who believes in the invigorating power of
extreme cinema, it seems entirely fitting that Gibson has leaned so heavily
upon the horror genre to express his clearly tortured Christian faith.
When the evangelist Billy Graham (who famously condemned The Exorcist as
'evil') likens The Passion of the Christ to 'a lifetime of sermons', I
hear a man experiencing a Damascene (if probably temporary) conversion
to the transcendent power of shocking cinema. As an unrepentant gore-geek,
I have no problem with the unremitting physicality of The Passion, and
admire the dexterity with which it ruthlessly terrorises its audience.
Yet any sense that Christianity has less to do with enduring sublime suffering
than with helping the poor and needy seems lost in the anguished howl of
the film. Personally I have found more of religious substance in the 'secular'
prison drama of The Shawshank Redemption, or the strangely comedic ramblings
of the cult psychological thriller The Ninth Configuration.
-
- In the end, Gibson has created an exploitation movie
par excellence, fittingly shot in Italy whose national cinema has produced
both Pasolini's The Gospel According to Saint Matthew and Ruggero Deodato's
Cannibal Holocaust, those twin visions of heaven and hell between which
The Passion of the Christ ultimately falls.
-
- ****************
-
- From hippie superstar to a nonentity called Brian - 40
years in the life of a celluloid saviour
-
- King of Kings (Nicholas Ray, 1961) Ray emphasises the
pacifism of Jesus (played by Jeffrey Hunter) in the face of savage Roman
rule. But unlike Mel Gibson's movie there are no scenes which depict the
torture and degradation of Christ.
-
- Jesus Christ Superstar (Norman Jewison, 1973) The final
six days in the life of Jesus Christ (Ted Neeley) are told in a rock opera
written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Although the hippie values
initially struck a chord with the early Seventies audience, the film now
looks dated.
-
- Jesus of Nazareth (Franco Zefferelli, 1977) Robert Powell
starred in Zefferelli's popular six-and-a-half hour epic. The film was
faithful to the scriptures and focused primarily on Jesus Christ's preaching
and good works.
-
- Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979) The Monty Python gang
twist the biblical story with their absurdist humour. The unwilling saviour,
Brian, played by Eric Idle, attempts to reject his destiny and lead a normal
life away from his devoted followers.
-
- The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)
In Martin Scorsese's moody drama, Willem Dafoe plays Jesus as a man tormented
by temptations and struggling to fulfil his divine mission. Based on Nikos
Kazantzakis's controversial novel.
-
- The Cross (Lance Tracy, 2001) Art-house film tells the
tale of the crucifixion entirely through the eyes of Jesus himself, so
the son of God is never actually shown on screen. Larry Salberg provides
the voice of Christ.
-
- - Tom Bragg
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
-
- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1158498,00.html
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