The Case Against The Passion

Daniel Larison, never short on words, history or invective, tags me (and Ross Douthat) for some explanation regarding my dismissive remarks about The Passion the other day. This is complicated, of course, in part because I seem to be the only politically conservative Christian of any breed who strongly disliked the film. And perhaps more to the point, it is a film that, at least conceptually, I would like to see succeed—if only for the ways it could change the modern secular and Christian filmmaking paradigms for the better.

So the first thing I should say is that there are ways in which the film succeeds, or at least impresses. It generates a rather remarkable sense of place. Most other films covering roughly the same period feel either trumped up with Hollywood gloss (Gladiator), old-fashioned and manufactured (the majority of films about the period released before 1980), or just outright stagy and dreamlike (Satyricon). Additionally, it represents one of the purest artistic visions to make it into movie theaters in years. Forget the Wachowski brothers’ juvenile sci-fi whine fest—allegedly “an uncompromising vision of the future”—Gibson’s film, whatever its flaws, is the movie that actually deserves to be labeled “uncompromising.”

As for its anti-Semitism, let me clarify. Jew-hatred is not its primary purpose, nor even a dominant one. The film doesn’t make a point to lash out at Jews, but, I think, it does manage to caricature them when it has an opportunity. The anti-Semitism is not overt—it’s not what the film’s about—but the simplistic, cartoony stereotypes of sniveling, power-hungry, money-obsessed Jews it gives us certainly smack of classic anti-Semite portrayals of Jews. It's not so much what we see them do; rather, it's how we seem them do it.

This leads me to one of my two larger complaints about the film, which is that it just doesn’t work as a standalone movie, separate from all the Biblical context most of its supporters bring to it. (Too many of the film’s boosters argue from this perspective, treating the movie as, essentially, an addendum to years of Bible-reading and Sunday school. Considering that it is a mass-market film for a popular audience, this seems absurd. Also, the fact that it’s not, you know, canon.) The villains, Jew and Roman, are all bug-eyed caricatures, sneering, cackling manifestations of unhinged evil. To call them flat characters is an understatement; they are not people at all, just whooping, stereotyped manifestations of mad rage.

Worse, Jesus—the central figure in Western civilization for two thousand years—is similarly lacking in depth. We get a few flashbacks, and a few pivotal scenes are dramatized, but the film offers us nothing about Jesus as a dramatic character, as history’s only sinless man, as the sovereign Lord of man and son of God. Surely Jesus, of all the people who ever lived, should be a gripping, infinitely compelling onscreen character.

But no, the film ignores all of this, and it does so in favor of one thing and one thing only: physical suffering. The film is not merely marked by graphic depictions of physical pain, it is entirely and purely about it. This is not to say that its depictions are too intense, too gory, or excessive in the way that so many have claimed; instead, I would argue that its violence is too much because it squashes all else. The film has little to no story arc, little in the way of dramatic tension, and precious little insight beyond its insistence that this was indeed the most grueling bit of physical punishment ever put on a man. No story, no characters, just a cinematic sledgehammer built of out bloody flesh.

I see this not merely as a flaw from an artistic perspective, but also from a spiritual perspective. As a Christian, I obviously consider Christ’s death and resurrection the central event of human history, and it would be one thing if the film were actually about those two events and why they matter: But again, it cares little for theological or historical significance, at least when there’s more blood to be spilled. Gibson's, erm, passion is for pain and pain alone.

More importantly, I would argue that the primary element--or at least the most common one--of most believers’ Christianity is not Christ’s pain, or even his death—but their individual relationship with the Son of God. By ignoring all but Jesus’ physical suffering, Gibson didn’t just give us a dramatically worthless character, he gave us a hollow, non-relational—but good'n bloody as hell!—Lord.

As I mentioned, there are a few short flashbacks in the film in which we see Jesus as a carpenter, doing His work and, subtly, taking joy in creation and craftsmanship. These moments are a revelation, capturing Jesus in the revealing, personal manner at which film excels. But Gibson always shifts quickly back to the gore; as a filmmaker, he’s content to barely scratch the skin of Jesus’ character--and decimate His flesh instead.