THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
A Chronology
Source:
NewsMax.comhttp://www.newsmax.com/hottopics/Mel_Gibson_Passion.shtml
This chronology setsforth a study of Mel Gibson's challenges in getting his movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, produced in an industry that is dominated by liberal, not-very-religious Jewish males of European heritage. See http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/control.htm#execlist
Saturday, Sept. 7, 2002 12:36 a.m. EDT
Mel Gibson Plans Film on Passion of Jesus
Zenit.org reports that Mel Gibson is in Italy to finalize details for the filming of a movie on the passion and death of Jesus.
Variety magazine said the Australian actor-producer sought advice from Vatican experts for "Passion," which will be produced by his Icon Productions. The film will be faithful to Gibson's Catholicism, the magazine added.
Gibson has decided on actor Jim Caviezel to play the role of Jesus. Caviezel, also a Catholic, is acclaimed for his roles in "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "High Crimes."
The Spanish newspaper La Razón reported that the filming will begin in mid-September, coinciding with the Roman fall, which in Gibson's words will bring "the right light to re-create the particular atmosphere I want."
Gibson and two aides traveled to Sassi di Matera early last month in preparation for filming. Sources speculate that filming may take place in the nearby town of Craco.
Pier Paolo Pasolini filmed the "Gospel According to St. Matthew" in Sassi in 1964. Its ancient neighborhood of Sasso Caveoso has an old center abounding in cave-houses excavated from limestone. "Passion" is due out in 2003.
Friday, Sept. 13, 2002
Mel Gibson Attacks Vatican
Actor Mel Gibson, a staunchly orthodox Roman Catholic who will play Christ in an upcoming movie, says the Vatican is a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and that he doesn't believe in the present-day Church as an institution.
Gibson, who calls himself an "old-fashioned Catholic" devoted to the Latin mass and pre-Vatican II Catholicism told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale that he believes in God and is happy that his only daughter has decided to become a nun.
In Rome to film "Passion," a new film about the final hours of Christ's life, Gibson, 46, recalled that he had a stern Catholic upbringing as a youngster in Australia, where he attended Catholic school.
"My love for religion was transmitted to me by my father," he told the newspaper. "But I do not believe in the Church as an institution." Gibson said he has a private chapel at his home in Malibu, Calif., at which mass is celebrated every Sunday in Latin.
The replacement of the Latin liturgy by vernacular languages has caused many Catholics such as Gibson to seek out parishes where the Latin mass is celebrated on Sundays. The Vatican allows Latin masses but they are rare in the U.S.
Vatican II rules permit local bishops to apply for so-called "indults" -exceptions that allow celebration of the pre-Vatican II Tridentine liturgy. In recent years there has been a growing movement to restore Latin as the language of the mass. Adherents point to the fact that the pope continues to say his private daily mass in Latin.
Gibson's objections to the post-Vatican II church echo those of the members of the Society of St. Pius X, which broke away from Rome partially because of the abandonment of the Tridentine liturgy. It has chapels scattered around the U.S., where the liturgy is the pre-Vatican II Tridentine mass celebrated in Latin.
In the U.S. the Society claims it has 43 priests, 60 seminarians, 15 priories, 98 chapels and 26 schools.
According to Britain's Times, Gibson and his wife, Robyn, have been married for more than 20 years. He is fiercely protective of his seven children (six sons and one daughter, who he says wants to be a nun, which he is very happy about). He says he was attracted to the story of Christ's last hours before the crucifixion because it is "the drama of a man torn between his divine spirit and his earthly weakness."
In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the road to Calvary and at Golgotha, Gibson said, Jesus is often described as being calmly resigned to his suffering and death despite St. Luke's account of Christ's agony in the Garden of Olives, where he underwent an attack of hematidrosa - where victims sweat blood as a result of profound emotion or great fear.
Gibson says, "my Jesus will be shaken by his human suffering. Real blood will flow from the wound in his side, and the screams of his crucifixion will be real as well."
Catholic sources told the Times that Gibson sought the advice of theologians and prelates in Rome for his film and that the actor has strong views on divorce, abortion and contraception.
Lay Off Mel Gibson
James Hirsen, NewsMax.com
Mel Gibson stands out in Hollywood like an oak tree in a field of ragweed. You see he doesn't share the values, beliefs or lifestyles of the left in Tinseltown. He actually makes meaningful films with messages that celebrate family, faith and freedom. And worst of all for the entertainment libs, he's super successful at it.
Gibson has really gone and done it this time. Some folks in the liberal establishment are extremely uncomfortable with the actor/director/producer's latest project. It turns out that his company has underwritten a film that Gibson himself is directing. The working title is "The Passion," and it's about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
This is completely unacceptable to some. Not only is this film not going to demean Christianity, as other flicks like "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Jesus of Montreal" have done, but Mel is actually using Scripture as his guide and telling the literal truth.
"Tolerant" liberals can't stand for this type of material being disseminated. The anti-Christian types may have already begun their opposition research. In fact, it appears as if the snoop troops are out in full force.
Gibson went on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor" and indicated that a print reporter is nosing around his family, friends and even his 85-year-old father. There's apparently an attempt to dig up some dirt in hopes of harming Mel and his project.
In answer to O'Reilly's questions, the filmmaker responded with the directness of a faith-filled individual.
Gibson referred to Christ's death as a "sacrifice willingly taken."
When speaking of those who might appreciate the film, Gibson said, "I think anybody that is in the know about Jesus as God – and they believe in that – realize that he was brutalized and that I'm exploring it this way." That's the statement of an unabashed believer in the deity of Jesus.
Gibson spoke of the actual suffering that will be displayed in the film in this way: "When you look at the reasons behind why Christ came – why he was crucified – he died for all mankind and he suffered for all mankind, so that, really, anybody who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own culpability."
We all pretty much know this isn't the usual theology of Hollywood. The film will utilize languages of the New Testament period – Aramaic and Latin. Gibson believes that a filmmaker can "transcend language with the message through image."
It looks like the worldview of some folks is seriously threatened by the combination of Gibson's talent and Christ's story. Whatever the case, it's a sure bet that a lot more Americans are grateful to Mel Gibson and won't take kindly to some lefty-led filth-finding expedition. Maybe it's time for such so-called journalists to get a new hobby. Or maybe even find religion.
Mel Gibson Does Jesus Movie the Hard Way
Story missing.
Mel Gibson's Great Passion
NewsMax Wires
ROME --Zenit.org-- Oscar-winning actor-director Mel Gibson is in Rome these days, working on a film on the passion of Christ at the Cinecittà studios.
The movie focuses on the last hours of Christ's life and stars Jim Caviezel ("The Thin Red Line," "Angel Eyes," "The Count of Monte Cristo") as Jesus.
Q: What made you decide to do this project?
It's been slowly coming on for about 10 or 12 years now. I'm a pretty old guy, but if you go back 12 years I was 35. That's when I started to investigate the roots of my faith. I had always believed in God, that he existed, and I was brought up to believe in a certain way.
But in my middle years, I kind of drifted, and other things took center stage. At that point, I realized I needed something more if I was going to survive. A closer investigation of the Gospels, of the story, of the whole piece, was demanded of me.
That's when the idea started to percolate inside my head. I began to see it realistically, re-creating it in my own mind so that it would make sense for me, so I could relate to it. That's what I want to put on the screen.
Q: So many movies about the life of Christ have already been made. Why make another one?
I don't think other films have tapped into the real force of this story. I mean, have you seen any of the others? They are either inaccurate in their history, or they suffer from bad music or bad hair. This film will show the passion of Jesus Christ just the way it happened. It's like traveling back in time and watching the events unfold exactly as they occurred.
Q: How can you be sure that your version is so accurate?
We've done the research. I'm telling the story as the Bible tells it. I think the story, as it really happened, speaks for itself. The Gospel is a complete script, and that's what we're filming.
Q: This seems like a switch from the usual Mel Gibson productions. Your specialty is action, adventure and romance. What made you decide to do a religious film?
I'm doing what I've always done: telling stories I think are important in the language I speak best: film. I think most great stories are hero stories. People want to reach out and grab at something higher, and vicariously live through heroism, and lift their spirit that way.
There is no greater hero story than this one – about the greatest love one can have, which is to lay down one's life for someone. The Passion is the biggest adventure story of all time. I think it's the biggest love-story of all time; God becoming man and men killing God – if that's not action, nothing is.
Q: Who will want to see a film like this?
I think everyone will. The story has inspired art, culture, behavior, governments, kingdoms, countries – it has influenced the world in more ways than you can imagine. It's a pivotal event in history that has made us what we are today. Believers and nonbelievers alike, we have all been affected by it.
So many people are searching for meaning in life, asking themselves a lot of questions. They'll come looking for answers. Some will find them, some won't.
Q: So this film isn't only for Christians?
"Gandhi" was a blockbuster hit, but it wasn't just for Hindus. This film is for everyone. For believers and nonbelievers, Jesus Christ is undoubtedly one of the most important historical figures of all time. Name one person who has had a greater impact on the course of history.
Q: But if this film is focused on bringing the Gospels to life, won't it be offensive to non-Christians? For example, the role of the Jewish leaders in Jesus' death. If you depict that, won't it be offensive?
This isn't a story about Jews vs. Christians. Jesus himself was a Jew, his mother was a Jew, and so were his Twelve Apostles. It's true that, as the Bible says, "He came unto his own and his own received him not"; I can't hide that.
But that doesn't mean that the sins of the past were any worse than the sins of the present. Christ paid the price for all our sins.
The struggle between good and evil, and the overwhelming power of love go beyond race and culture. This film is about faith, hope, love and forgiveness. These are things that the world could use more of, particularly in these turbulent times. This film is meant to inspire, not to offend.
Q: Even so, some people are going to think that you just want to "push your beliefs on others." Is that true?
I didn't invent this story. I do happen to believe it. It's something that just gets inside of you and has to come out. I'm just trying to tell it well, better than it's ever been told before. When you're dealing with non-fiction, a director's responsibility is to make it as accurate as possible. Open-minded people will appreciate it for what it is.
Q: What about the violence? Won't people find some of the more graphic scenes inappropriate?
Some people might, but, hey, that's the way it was. There is no gratuitous violence in this film. I don't think anyone under 12 should go see it – unless they're a very mature 12-year-old. It's pretty heavy.
I think we have gotten too used to seeing pretty crucifixes on the wall and we forget what really happened. I mean, we know that Jesus was scourged, that he carried his cross, that he had nails put through his hands and feet, but we rarely think about what this means.
Growing up I didn't realize what was involved in this. I didn't realize how hard it was. The full horror of what Jesus suffered for our redemption didn't really strike me. Understanding what he went through, even on a human level, makes me feel not only compassion, but also a debt: I want to repay him for the enormity of his sacrifice.
Q: What about the language barrier? You're filming in two dead languages – Latin and Aramaic – and you're not planning to use subtitles. Won't that be a turnoff?
Caravaggio's paintings don't have subtitles, but people get the message. The Nutcracker Ballet doesn't have subtitles, but people get the message. I think that the image will overcome the language barrier. That's my hope.
I'm just trying to be as real as possible. There is something kind of startling about watching it in the original languages. The reality comes out and hits you. Full-contact. I know we are only re-creating, but we are doing the best we can to simulate an experience of really being there.
And I think it's almost counterproductive to say some of these things in a modern language. It makes you want to stand up and shout out the next line, like when you hear "To be or not to be" and you instinctively say to yourself, "That is the question."
But if you hear the words spoken as they were spoken at the time, it can kind of stun you. I've seen that happen when we're working. It gets a clarity to it through the acting, through the nuances of the characters, the movement of the camera – it's the movement, it's the timing, it's everything. All of a sudden it's very, very clear to me. That's when I cut and move on.
Q: When you finish this project, will it be a letdown to go back to less sublime subject matter?
No, it will be a relief to do something that's a little lighter. There is a tremendous burden of responsibility in this one, not to sell anything short. I just hope I can do justice to the story. You can't please everybody, but then again, that's not my goal.
Attack on Mel Gibson Continues
James Hirsen
THE LEFT COAST REPORT A Political Look at Hollywood
He hadn’t seen the film yet. He hadn’t read the New York Times Magazine article yet. But that didn’t stop Rabbi Marvin Hier from expressing trepidation about Mel Gibson’s new film, "The Passion."
The dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center apparently found out that the magazine article described Gibson as a Catholic opposed to the reforms of Vatican II.
Heir told Reuters, "Obviously, no one has seen ‘The Passion,’ and I certainly have no problem with Mel Gibson's right to believe as he sees fit or make any movie he wants to." But then he added, "What concerns me, however, is when I read that the film's purpose is to undo the changes made by Vatican II."
The rabbi went on to say, "If the new film seeks to undo Vatican II ... it would unleash more of the scurrilous charges of deicide directed against the Jewish people, which took the Catholic Church 20 centuries to finally repudiate."
There are no indications from Gibson’s production group that the purpose of the film is to undo anything. Still, Hier apparently figured that Gibson’s misgivings over the changes of Vatican II were somehow causing him to distort the historical treatment of Christ’s death.
There’s more to this story than meets the eye, though. The rabbi’s comments appear to have been a prelude to the New York Times Magazine’s piece. The article seemed to have suggested that Gibson is some kind of a conspiracy theorist.
New York Times Magazine reporter Christopher Noxon wrote that Gibson’s brand of Catholicism is supported by a "splinter group of conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected conservatives."
Noxon also went after the actor’s 85-year-old father, Hutton Gibson, and was able to obtain controversial quotes to use in the piece. Mel, of course, loves his dad but like most offspring doesn’t agree with all of his father’s ideas.
Just a little aside. Mel Gibson has plans to build a church on a 16-acre site in Malibu. It just so happens that Noxon’s father lives in the area near the proposed church.
The Left Coast Report thinks we haven’t seen this kind of journalism since Connie Chung manipulated Newt Gingrich’s mother.
Crucifying Mel Gibson
Phil Brennan
The left is targeting Mel Gibson. They are using his new movie as their vehicle to smear this good and decent man.
The New York Times magazine fired the first shot – a shoddy, thoroughly dishonest – and largely disjointed – story that concentrated on Gibson's father’s rather bizarre views as a way of attacking Gibson, who avoided the writer, from the rear.
The author, some guy named Noxon, appears to have taken up the cudgels on behalf of his own father, who is unhappy that the tranquility of his California neighborhood has been disturbed by a Roman Catholic chapel Gibson has built on an 11-acre tract near Noxon's father's home.
In other words, the attack seems to have been sparked by a case of NIMBY (Not in my Backyard).
In his Washington Post column, Lloyd Grove got to the point: Gibson is making a movie about the last 12 hours of Christ. For reasons I fail to understand, this upsets the left, a largely atheistic bunch who are fixating on spreading the rumor that the movie blames the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ. Ergo, Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite.
Gibson of course denies this, as well he should. The man is a very devout traditional Catholic, steeped in Roman Catholic doctrine, and he says quite correctly that to blame the Jews of Christ's time for crucifying Jesus is to misunderstand and distort the meaning of the crucifixion.
To begin with, Jesus was scourged, crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross by Roman soldiers, most probably Syrian auxiliaries. He was condemned to crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator. There wasn't a Jew in the bunch.
Now, Jesus was brought to Pilate by the Temple authorities, who wanted him crucified because they believed he threatened their tight grip on the people of Israel but were forbidden by Roman law to do the job themselves. They were of course, Jews, but they were not ordinary Jews. They ran the place and, as Christ charged, misused their authority and, allied with the Roman occupiers, ground their own people under their heels.
But they did not crucify Christ. Nor did the Romans.
Says Gibson, "I crucified Christ." And in that he is absolutely correct. He did, I did, you did. Christ died in expiation for sin – your sins, my sins, everybody's sins going back to the dawn of creation.
We're all sinners and we all crucified Christ, and continue to do so, day in and day out, by our sins. And among those sins is to proclaim that the Jews crucified Christ.
To blame Christ's death on the Jewish people would be like blaming the Iraqi people for the excesses of Saddam Hussein. They are Saddam's victims, just as the people of Israel were the victims of the Temple bureaucracy.
Christ's mother was a Jew. His disciples were Jews. All of the first Christians were Jews. None of them crucified Christ.
Mel Gibson is making a movie that portrays, in all its horror, Christ's agony in his final hours. Gibson himself has been shocked by what he has learned about Christ's terrible sufferings, just as I was when I researched our Lord's passion and death for my little book on the Shroud of Turin. The extent of that suffering is almost beyond human comprehension.
Gibson believes, as I do, that it is important to understand the extent of Christ's sufferings because by so doing we get a very slight idea of the extent of Christ's love for all of us miserable sinners. Mel is willing to back his belief with his own money and time, $25 million and several years of effort, so that we can understand what he has learned.
He deserves better than the New York Times and its liberal allies are throwing at him.
Hang in there, Mel.
* * * * * *
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute. He can be reached at
phil@newsmax.com.
A Mere Christian Commends Mel Gibson’s Traditional Catholic Beliefs
Dr. Ted Baehr
Recently, the New York Times ran a featured article by Christopher Noxon in the prestigious New York Times Magazine entitled "Is the Pope Catholic ... Enough?" (March 9, 2003)
This article, which was listed as news on the New York Times Web site, dripped with sarcasm as it sliced and diced Mel Gibson for directing a movie on the last 24 hours of Jesus’ life entitled "The Passion." The article was pointedly aimed at poisoning people’s attitude about Mel’s movie "The Passion" and about Mel himself.
On March 11, 2003, Fox News concluded that "Sunday's New York Times Magazine didn't do a heck of a lot for Mel Gibson. In fact, there's a good chance it may have wiped out his career."
Mr. Noxon’s article was so biased and inaccurate that I felt I should respond even though I am a Christian, but not a Roman Catholic, and even though I have heard that Mel Gibson does not support our efforts to redeem the values of the mass media of entertainment through our Annual Movieguide Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to Hollywood, where we have awarded his movies with several Crystal Movieguide Awards year after year going back to his version of "Hamlet."
The article opens by painting Mel as the leader of "a group of conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected conservatives – including a seminary dropout and rabble-rousing theologist who also happens to be Mel Gibson's father."
This should have been phrased more accurately that Mel is supporting a church for Catholics who share a love for the Latin Mass, vibrant Christian faith, traditional values and remnant theology.
Mr. Noxon goes on to say that the Mass will be "conducted entirely in Latin." "Latin, however, is just the beginning – traditionalists refrain from eating meat on Fridays, and traditionalist women wear headdresses in church."
In other words, these believers prefer the Latin Mass, which is beautiful; fasting, which is biblical; and hats, though Mr. Noxon makes it sound as if these are some strange group of natives who like "headdresses" (really!).
The next line is a hoot: "The movement seeks to revive an orthodoxy uncorrupted by the theological and social changes of the last 300 years or so." Every revival is an attempt to get back to basics. In many ways, this sounds like a good idea.
Then Mr. Noxon quotes a book entitled "The Smoke of Satan," by sociology professor Michael W. Cuneo, to cover a large leap into pure presumption and defamation.
According to the quote, Mr. Cuneo contends that traditionalists "would like nothing more than to be transported back to Louis XIV's France or Franco's Spain, where Catholicism enjoyed an unrivaled presidency over cultural life and other religions existed entirely at its beneficence."
The inference, of course, is that this is what Mel wants, but Mr. Noxon has not asked Mel if this is what he wants. Rather, Mr. Noxon has unfairly associated Mel with the horrendous "Smoke of Satan" and Louis XIV’s France. This is bias in the extreme.
But it gets worse.
Mr. Noxon then turns to smearing Mel’s 84-year-old father, Hutton, whom he calls "a well-known author and activist who has railed against the Vatican for more than 30 years." His most scathing attack on Mel’s elderly father noted that Hutton Gibson dismisses "historical accounts that six million Jews were exterminated." Of course, Noxon quotes Hutton Gibson's views without providing any evidence that Mel Gibson shares them.
Finally, Mr. Noxon turns to Mel’s movie project "The Passion" and suggests that it will inflame anti-Semitic feelings. Mr. Noxon "reports" that "a friend of the Gibson family has his own ideas about how traditionalist thought is informing ‘The Passion.’ Gary Giuffre, a founder of the traditionalist St. Jude Chapel in Texas, says Gibson told him about his plans for ‘The Passion’ on a recent visit. … It will graphically portray the intense suffering of Christ, perhaps as no film has done before. … Most important, he says, the film will lay the blame for the death of Christ where it belongs … which some traditionalists believe means the Jewish authorities who presided over his trial and delivered him to the Romans to be crucified."
After insinuating that the movie is anti-Semitic, Mr. Noxon admits, in a nod to civility that shows how unbalanced his writing is: "In his conversation with Bill O'Reilly ..., Gibson was asked whether his account might particularly upset Jews. ‘It may,’ he said. ‘It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible. But when you look at the reasons why Christ came, why He was crucified … He died for all mankind and He suffered for all mankind. So that, really, anyone who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own culpability.’ "
Mr. Noxon may not understand what Mel is saying, but all of us bear the responsibility for the death of Jesus, since He died for our sins and was resurrected to guarantee us eternal life in the Kingdom of God.
To add insult to injury, Mr. Noxon sets Mel’s fellow Catholics against him by reporting "that Gibson made a … scathing attack against the Vatican, calling it a ‘wolf in sheep's clothing,’ " even though Mr. Gibson has consulted the Vatican about the movie of Jesus Christ and travels frequently to Rome to confer on theological details.
Fox News concluded on its Web site: "Sunday's New York Times Magazine didn't do a heck of a lot for Mel Gibson. In fact, there's a good chance it may have wiped out his career."
However, the words of Gamaliel 2,000 years ago in Acts 5:38-39 (NIV) sound more accurate when he stood up in the Sanhedrin and said: "Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."
Mr. Noxon may want to consider the words of Gamaliel as he rails against Mr. Gibson, "The Passion" and the other Christians who have the courage to proclaim their beliefs in the mass media of entertainment.
Moreover, he may want to consider that the world needs more movies about Jesus Christ, who loved mankind so much that he was willing to die for those who set themselves against him as his enemies.
Dr. Ted Baehr's MOVIEGUIDE ENewsletter (http://www.movieguide.org) is published by the Christian Film & Television Commission.
Archbishop Defends Mel Gibson's 'Passion'
Zenit.org
DENVER – Though Mel Gibson's latest film "The Passion" isn't scheduled to appear in theaters for eight months, it is already arousing heated debate.
This week Archbishop Charles Chaput devoted his column in the Denver Catholic Register to defending Gibson's movie from those who charge that a cinematic portrayal of Christ's passion and death could stir up flames of anti-Semitism.
"I find it puzzling and disturbing that anyone would feel licensed to attack a film of sincere faith before it has even been released," Archbishop Chaput writes. "When the overtly provocative 'The Last Temptation of Christ' was released 15 years ago, movie critics piously lectured Catholics to be open-minded and tolerant. Surely that advice should apply equally for everyone."
The column follows on the heels of a string of recent attacks on Gibson's film, culminating in an 18-page report of an ad hoc committee of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs criticizing the script of the movie.
The ad hoc scholar's group that produced the report was assembled by Eugene Fisher of the bishops' conference and Rabbi Eugene Korn of the Anti-Defamation League, and comprised a mix of nine Jewish and Christian academics. One of the signers, Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University, describes herself as "a Yankee Jewish feminist ... with a commitment to exposing and expunging anti-Jewish, sexist and heterosexist theologies."
The group's report, dated May 2, criticized everything from the size of the cross used for the crucifixion scene, to the languages spoken, to poor character development. The document's central complaint, however, is that "a graphic movie presentation of the crucifixion could reawaken the very anti-Semitic attitudes that we have devoted our careers to combating."
The report takes issue with director Gibson's decision to focus on Christ's passion rather than presenting a broader vision of "the ministry of Jesus, of his preaching and teaching about God's reign, his distinctive table companionship, his mediation of God's gracious mercy."
The report furthermore disapproves of the film's treatment of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' passion as historical facts. According to the signers, Gibson disregards exegetical theories that the Evangelists' accounts represent later efforts of the Christian community to "shift responsibility from Pilate onto Jewish figures," and accuses the script of utilizing the four distinct passion narratives "without regard for their apologetic and polemical features."
Yet Gibson has recently received support from the Jewish sector as well.
Writing in the New York Jewish weekly Forward, Orthodox Jewish author David Klinghoffer defended Gibson's efforts and chided his co-religionists for adhering to the historically dubious account of Jesus' death handed down by Jewish officialdom.
Such an account absolves the Jews from complicity in Jesus' death and places the blame on the shoulders of the Romans. "Our loyalty should be to Judaism and to truth," Klinghoffer writes, "not to an officially sanctioned, sanitized version of Judaism or the truth – which may be neither Jewish nor true."
The ad hoc group report follows on a series of stories that appeared in different news media across North America, criticizing the movie along similar lines.
Boston Globe columnist James Carroll, for example, denounced Gibson's film for its literal reading of the Biblical accounts of Christ's passion. According to Carroll, "Even a faithful repetition of the Gospel stories of the death of Jesus can do damage exactly because those sacred texts themselves carry the virus of Jew hatred."
Such opinions are not shared by other scholars in the field. Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, National Endowment for the Humanities professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, not only read the script, but translated it into Aramaic and Latin.
In a recent Los Angeles Times article, Father Fulco points out that "the Jewish community portrayed in the film consists of people both sympathetic to Jesus and hostile to him, just as the Roman community is portrayed. Indeed, if anyone does not come off well in this film, it is the Roman community and governing establishment. ... I would be aghast at any suggestion that Mel is anti-Semitic."
This is not the first time the bishops' committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs has gone out on a limb in its interpretation of scriptural texts.
Last August, the committee published "Reflections on Covenant and Mission," which stated that Jews' witness to the Kingdom "must not be curtailed by seeking the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity." The document immediately came under heavy fire from Catholics and Protestants alike, as betraying the message of the New Testament.
Cardinal William Keeler, the U.S. bishops' moderator for Catholic-Jewish relations, was quick to point out that the committee's findings did not represent a formal position of the bishops' conference.
Given that no one has yet viewed the film, Archbishop Chaput recommends prudence. "We'll get a chance to love or criticize 'The Passion' soon enough," he writes. "In the meantime, between a decent man and his critics, I'll choose the decent man every time – until the evidence shows otherwise."
| With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff |
| For the story behind the story... |
Friday, June 13, 2003
Mel Gibson Defends 'The Passion'
Actor-director Mel Gibson says some in the Jewish and Catholic community are misinterpreting his "The Passion," which depicts the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ.
"To be certain, neither I nor my film is anti-Semitic," Gibson said in a statement issued to Daily Variety this week.
"'The Passion' is a movie meant to inspire not offend. My intention in bringing it to the screen is to create a lasting work of art and engender serious thought among audiences of diverse faith backgrounds (or none) who have varying familiarity with this story."
Gibson's comments follow criticism from a committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Anti-Defamation League, which haven't seen "The Passion," starring James Caviezel and scheduled for release in April 2004.
Gibson said: "If the intense scrutiny during my 25 years in public life revealed I had ever persecuted or discriminated against anyone based on race or creed, I would be all too willing to make amends. But there is no such record.
"Nor do I hate anybody - certainly not the Jews.
"They are my friends and associates, both in my work and social life. Thankfully, treasured friendships forged over decades are not easily shaken by nasty innuendo. Anti-Semitism is not only contrary to my personal beliefs, it is also contrary to the core message of my movie," Gibson said.
According to the statement, an ad hoc group of Jewish and Catholic scholars that advise the bishops and ADL distributed an earlier draft of the script obtained from what they called a "Deep Throat."
"While we respect everyone's right to their opinion about the film," said producer Steve McEveety, "no one has a right to publicly critique a film that has not even been completed, let alone base their critique on an outdated version of the script which has been illegally obtained."
A sight-unseen campaign against "The Passion" began after the scandal-ridden, fiction-publishing New York York Times ran an article about the controversial traditionalist beliefs of Gibson's elderly father, Hutton Gibson.
"We regret that this situation has occurred and offer our apologies," Mark Chopko, general counsel for Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in the statement. "I have further advised the scholars group that this draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment. When the film is released, the USCCB will review it at that time."
According to the statement, "The group of scholars convened via email and the Internet had intended to read the confidential script in order to request revisions of the film that conform to their ideas of history and theology."
Gibson dismissed claims that his movie would be heretical in the eyes of the Vatican.
"For those concerned about the content of this film, know that it conforms to the narratives of Christ's passion and death found in the four Gospels of the New Testament," he said.
"This is a movie about faith, hope, love and forgiveness - something sorely needed in these turbulent times."
Gibson's troubles may not lie with his interpretation of the biblical account of the death of Jesus, which his film closely mirrors.
As it turns out, the "scholars" who have criticized his film are feverishly working on a rewrite of the New Testament. These scholars claim that the Gospel writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - wrote the New Testament Gospels to curry favor with the Roman authories that ruled the known world at that time. They are unhappy that Gibson stuck to the original text.
Critics Used Stolen Copy of Gibson's 'Passion'
James Hirsen, NewsMax.com
Just imagine a story line like this. With the help of an individual who has been called "our Deep Throat," some academics get their hands on a stolen draft of a confidential script. Next, using ideas and notes from the pilfered preliminary screenplay, a report is generated that distorts and twists the film’s message. Then a bunch of news stories and commentaries spring up.
That is
what has been going on with Mel Gibson’s upcoming film called "The Passion." There has been an effort to kick up a dust storm of controversy over a movie from Icon Productions on the last hours in the life of Jesus Christ, before the thing is even completed.Franklin Graham’s words seem hauntingly appropriate: "After all these centuries, just why is the Name of Jesus so controversial and still stirring such a brew of conflicting passions?"
Conflicting passions are the operative words here. And for some people, conflicting passions somehow permit theft to become a means to an end.
It’s as if we’re hearing a story about some robbers who steal a car off an assembly line and then publish their complaints about the shoddiness of the vehicle in consumer advocacy venues.
The press has downplayed the fact that the script was criminally obtained. But not only did these so-called critics receive something that had been illegally acquired, the stolen product that they used to make their quiver of poison arrows was obsolete and had already been significantly revised.
As Icon producer Steve McEveety tells me, the script "is not a true representation of the film. It was, and is, a work in progress, as any filmmaker would appreciate."
McEveety also notes that the folks at Icon "respect everyone’s right to their opinion about the film." But "no one has a right to publicly critique a film that has not even been completed, let alone base their critique on an outdated version of the script which has been illegally obtained."
Here’s the unprecedented way that "The Passion" is being assaulted. The press is quoting scholars who have written a supposedly confidential report. But the report has somehow landed in the hands of the news media. And some of the report’s authors appear to be more than willing to let their criticisms be aired in public; this despite the fact that the report is based on incomplete, dated, confidential and pirated material. Kind of makes you wonder just how elastic the definition of "scholar" has become.
Although a lot of Mel’s muggers don’t seem to have the guts to state their names, a few have come forward and identified themselves.
For example, there’s Paula Fredriksen of Boston University. If you’re making a film that involves the Christian faith, this is one lady you’ll probably want to avoid.
When PBS’s "Frontline" put together a four-hour program in 1998 called "From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians," which, by the way, aired during the Easter season, it enlisted the help of Fredriksen. Dismissing the idea of seeking factual information from the Gospels, Fredriksen called the sacred books "a kind of religious advertisement." She explained that the Gospels "proclaim their individual author's interpretation of the Christian message through the device of using Jesus of Nazareth as a spokesperson for the evangelist's position."
Three days before Christmas 2001, the Washington Post decided to play Grinch by publishing a Fredriksen comment about the trustworthiness of the New Testament. Fredriksen is quoted by the Post as saying, "I can't think of any New Testament scholar who takes [the Gospel accounts of Jesus' birth] to be historically reliable," adding that most scholars believe that Christ was not born in Bethlehem. (Apparently, Fredriksen hasn’t run across the scores of traditional scholars who certainly make their homes in Beantown, as they do in every other city in the U.S.)
And in the secularly riddled "The Search for Jesus," which aired in June 2000, ABC’s Peter Jennings also turned to Fredriksen to get her input.
Philip Cunningham, executive director of Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, is another vociferous critic of a film he hasn’t yet seen. In March 2003, Cunningham told Jewish Week that "it is impossible to do a film based strictly on the Gospels." This professor is apparently claiming that a film on Christ’s death shouldn’t use the Gospels as a source because "they disagree with one another on some essential details."
The whole bunch reminds me of the same dopes who are trying to make Play-Doh out of the Constitution. Just like the cleverly crafted references to a "living, breathing Constitution," these folks are prattling on about "progressive interpretation" and "historical context" when what they really want is an eventual rewrite of the Good Book.
Because some of the stories that appeared in the press indicated that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was associated with the report, the bishops apparently felt they had the need to apologize as well as distance themselves.
"We regret that this situation has occurred, and offer our apologies," stated Mark E. Chopko, general counsel for the USCCB. "I have further advised the scholars group that this draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment. When the film is released, the USCCB will review it at that time."
What a novel idea – actually waiting until a film is done before reviewing it.
Mel Gibson is so widely respected in the entertainment industry that charges from the critical cabal look silly. Mel explains that any notion of him being discriminatory runs counter to the core message of his movie.
"‘The Passion’ is a film meant to inspire, not offend," says Gibson. "My intention in bringing it to the screen is to create a lasting work of art and engender serious thought among audiences of diverse faith backgrounds (or none) who have varying familiarity with this story. For those concerned about the content of this film, know that it conforms to the narratives of Christ’s passion and death found in the four Gospels of the New Testament. This is a movie about faith, hope, love and forgiveness – something sorely needed in these turbulent times."
Not much to quibble with there. Makes you wonder what the devil has gotten into these people.
Mel Gibson Gets a Passion-Filled Apology
James Hirsen
THE LEFT COAST REPORT
A Political Look at Hollywood
For a lot of folks, sorry seems to be the hardest word. But these days you never can tell who’s going to be in need of forgiveness.
It seems that a group of nascent detractors, who were posing as scholars, hobnobbed on the Internet and reviewed a confidential script of Mel Gibson’s film "The Passion."
Press reports then appeared that were critical of the unfinished and unseen movie. News stories that emerged also gave the impression that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was somehow involved in the mess. Was the whole thing true?
No, says a statement by the USCCB. The group had to apologize, clarify and distance itself from the gang of cynics.
Evidently it was the USCCB’s understanding that the so-called scholars were going to communicate with Gibson’s people privately, not that they were going to talk to any reporter they could find.
According to a released statement, the USCCB "knew only that the scholars’ group intended to offer comments for the private consideration of the producers."
The USCCB also saw the need to separate itself from the scholars’ comments, saying that it had not "authorized, reviewed or approved the report written by its members."
In another statement, Mark Chopko, general counsel for Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed contrition. "We regret that this situation has occurred and offer our apologies."
Because of the nature of an early draft, Chopko properly chastised the "scholars group" that a "draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment."
The Left Coast Report notes that the so-called scholars who have attacked "The Passion" used a stolen draft script and allowed their study to be misrepresented as one associated with the USCCB. Who the heck is their press agent, Jayson Blair? (See "
Critics Used Stolen Copy of Gibson’s ‘Passion’")
| With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff |
| For the story behind the story... |
Saturday, June 21, 2003 11:11 p.m. EDT
ADL Still Wants Preview of Mel Gibson's 'Passion'
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says it won’t be happy with Mel Gibson until it can view his upcoming film "The Passion" before it goes public.
Though the film about the last days of Jesus' life leading to his crucifixion won't be released until next year and critics have not even seen the film, it has become a focal point of contention.
The latest round of controversy was spurred by an op-ed column by New York Post staffer Eric Fettman this past Thursday.
In "Mel's Cross to Bear," Fettman expressed some concerns about the film as well, but he also gives Gibson the benefit of the doubt.
Fettman wrote that it was a "no brainer" that criticism of the film should be made once it is released, and added, "You have to wonder why both groups felt the need to sound off now."
While some Catholic scholars have criticized the film (they say they don't like the fact that Gibson stuck to the Gospel accounts, as they are currently "rewriting" the New Testament, whatever that means), a spokesperson for the Catholic bishops issued a strongly worded statement this month saying the scholars did not act on behalf of the Catholic Conference and that they would not criticize the film.
The Jewish group, the ADL, remains firmly in opposition to the film.
Fettman warned that "the ADL should know better than anyone about speaking too soon."
He revealed that when CBS aired its miniseries about Hitler's early days, "ADL National Director Abe Foxman blasted the network, calling it 'distressing that people would spend talent, time and money to make this man human.'"
Fettman's article drew a quick response from the ADL.
In a letter to the Post published Saturday, Ken Jacobson, the ADL's Associate National Director, wrote, "Eric Fettmann unfairly criticizes the Anti-Defamation League for our concerns about Mel Gibson's film on the death of Jesus."
Jacobson said the ADL remains worried over Gibson's "plans to retell the Passion." He added, "Historically, the Passion - the story of the killing of Jesus - has resulted in the death of Jews."
He continued: "We would hope that Gibson and his production company would follow the example of CBS and the makers of the recent Hitler miniseries, who reached out to us, listened attentively to our concerns and shared with us their final product before airing. Together we worked to turn the miniseries into a teaching moment about the consequences of unchecked hatred."
Gibson has questioned why he, of all filmmakers, needs to have his dramatic film reviewed, especially since, as he says, the film "conforms to the narratives of Christ's passion and death found in the four Gospels of the New Testament."
| With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff |
| For the story behind the story... |
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Draws New Attacks and Support
Without having seen the movie, Anti-Defamation League of America continues to insist that Mel Gibson's "The Passion" could be "replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism."
ADL admitted Tuesday that its complaint was based on a study of an early version of the screenplay. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has apologized to Gibson for making similar attacks based on the stolen draft, which later underwent many revisions.
ADL stated that director and co-writer Gibson and his colleagues "must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism. Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as 'The Passion' could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews."
Gibson earlier stated: "To be certain, neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic. Nor do I hate anybody - certainly not the Jews."
ADL spokesman Myrna Shinbaum said the group issued its first official public statement on the subject Tuesday in response to repeated inquiries from the media.
'We Haven't Seen It,' but ...
"When these kind of issues are raised and we feel concern, we speak out even before the film has been made," she said. "We haven't seen it yet, so we can't speak to the film itself.
Catholic League president William Donohue today issued a response to ADL:
"In its news release of June 24, the ADL seriously misrepresented the position of the Catholic bishops regarding ‘The Passion.’ It said that it had ‘joined with the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in April, 2003 to assemble Jewish and Catholic scholars to evaluate an early version of the movie’s screenplay.’ It then said it welcomed the remarks by the Catholic scholars. But what it didn’t say is telling.
"The ADL did not say that the Catholic panel was unauthorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Nor did it say that the USCCB has since apologized to Mel Gibson for reviewing a movie it hasn’t seen. Nor did it say that the script was stolen. Nor did it say that both the ADL and the USCCB have returned the stolen screenplay to Gibson’s Icon Productions.
"One person who has seen the movie, and has translated it into Aramaic and Latin, is Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, a National Endowment for the Humanities professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount University. He not only insists that the ADL has nothing to worry about — ‘there is no hint of deicide’ — he also says that the specific concerns raised by the ADL are baseless. Is there brutality in the film? Yes. Indeed, it would be historically dishonest to portray the crucifixion in a non-violent manner.
"Every Sunday Catholics recite the 1,700-year-old Nicene Creed, and every time they do they mention that Jesus was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate.’ They do not say Jesus was killed by the Romans. Nor do they say He was killed by the Jews. They individualize the guilt. That anti-Semitic Christians have sought to blame ‘the Jews’ deserves condemnation. But fairness dictates that Gibson not be put in that camp. As he has said, ‘Neither I nor my film is anti-Semitic.’ That’s good enough for the Catholic League and, we trust, for fair-minded Americans of every religion."
Mel Gibson's 'Passion': Jesus and the Gospels
Rev. Michael Reilly
Some of Mel Gibson's biggest critics are Catholic theologians.
Believe it or not, they are "accusing" him of following the Gospel accounts of Jesus' passion too closely.
In other words, Gibson hasn't consulted them to receive their guidance and direction in understanding the Gospels.
According to some theologians, the Gospels are theological diatribes thoroughly lacking in historical value and accuracy.
Some theologians believe that the Gospels were written long after Christ's passion and therefore are more reflective of the community than they are of the actual events.
Interestingly, one of the main reasons for their later dating of the Gospels centers around the Jews. When Jesus lambastes the Pharisees in the Gospels, this is supposedly representative of a hostility that did not exist between Christians and Jews before 85 A.D., when the Christians were expelled from the synagogues.
I suppose these theologians discount the martyrdom of St. Stephen in 36 A.D. and the persecution of Christians carried out by St. Paul before his conversion.
The earliest and most reliable sources available indicate that the Gospels were written by the apostles and apostolic men not long after the events took place.
St. Irenaeus, instructed by St. Polycarp, the disciple of John the Apostle, informs us that Matthew wrote his Gospel before the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in 64 A.D. and that Mark and Luke wrote at the time of their martyrdom. Modern theologians know better?
Likewise, there is no reason to believe that the evangelists in any way sacrificed accuracy to make a theological point.
Ultimately nearly everything we know about Jesus has been handed down by the four evangelists. If we don't believe what they wrote, why would we call ourselves Christian?
The Rev. Michael Reilly is the vice principal of St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in Staten Island, N.Y.
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Focus on the Family Praises Gibson's Film
Under attack for making his film about the passion and death of Jesus, Mel Gibson got some welcome support from religious leaders meeting at Focus on the Family's Colorado Springs Visitors Center.
Gibson brought the film "The Passion" to a gathering of the group's leadership and hundreds of other church leaders in an effort to determine whether the movie was acceptable to them. Among those present was Ted Haggard, New Life’s pastor and president of the National Evangelical Association.
After being viewed by a small audience, with subtitles Gibson said will not be used when the film is released next March, the film received solid approval. The film's dialogue is entirely in Aramaic and Latin, and those who viewed the film urged Gibson to include subtitles when the film is released.
"It conveys, more accurately than any other film, who Jesus was," Haggard told the Colorado Springs Gazette based on clips he viewed at the conference. "You can’t help but be upset when you realize the gravity of what Jesus went through."
Added Don Hodel, President of Focus on the Family, "I was very impressed. It’s certainly the most powerful portrayal of the passion I’ve ever seen or heard about. The movie is historically and theologically accurate."
"I’m not a preacher and I’m not a pastor," Gibson said. "But I really feel my career was leading me to make this. The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic. I hope the film has the power to evangelize."
After Gibson spoke to the gathering, Haggard said, "I’ve been pastor at New Life Church for 18 years, and I don’t remember anyone displaying a fear of God on our platform the way Mel did today."
Gibson, who financed the $25 million film out of his own pocket, told 800 religious leaders about the effect making the film and co-authoring the script had on him.
He said he attended Mass every morning during shooting because "we had to be squeaky clean just working on this."
"It was a strange mixture of the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, along with this incredible ease," Gibson said. "Everyone who worked on this movie was changed. There were agnostics and Muslims on set converting to Christianity."
According to the Gazette, when Haggard thanked Gibson for making the film, Gibson said, "I was afraid not to."
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Rabbi, Pastor Spar Over Gibson's 'Passion'
The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of National Association of Evangelicals, is hotly defending Mel Gibson's "The Passion" against charges that the movie is anti-Semitic.
Appearing on CNN Monday night with anchorman Anderson Cooper, Haggard verbally sparred with Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
Though Hier has not seen the film, he said it could inspire anti-Semitism because it was based on the writings of two 18th-century nuns who espoused anti-Semitism, he claimed.
"On top of that, Mel Gibson has said he doesn't believe in the accomplishments of Vatican II. He belongs to a church that doesn't believe the accomplishments of Vatican II. And Vatican II to Jews is very important because it exonerated Jews from the charge of deicide for which millions of Jews have been murdered through the ages," Hier said. Haggard, pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., insisted that the film was firmly rooted in the New Testament.
"Yes, well, I have seen the movie," the minister said. "And Mel Gibson was here himself, and he spoke in our church to a group of about 900 Christian leaders. Then we came to another studio, and about 30 of us who are evangelical leaders watched the movie.
'A Beautiful, Wonderful Account'
"Now, I didn't know about the other sources, but I do know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the reason Mel Gibson was here is he wanted to know if we thought the movie was consistent with the account in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And I can tell you it is a beautiful, wonderful account.
"It stays very closely to the Scripture. Mel Gibson is an incredible artist. He's done a wonderful job communicating a great story."
Asked if he thought the picture was a form of anti-Semitism, Haggard said: "Not at all. It communicates the last day of Jesus' life here on the Earth. And no different than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John do, and no different than 350,000 churches across America celebrate Easter. And in the midst of the Easter celebration they have to tell the story of the crucifixion and everything associated with that." Asked if it were the particular story of the crucifixion or interpretation that had him most concerned, the rabbi said: "Absolutely. Nine scholars, four Catholic and five Jewish scholars, have seen the draft of the script, and their conclusions were it is a matter of grave concern to all of them. There was not a single dissent among the nine who viewed that script. If he's made changes since then, which is only a couple of weeks ago, that will be terrific. That will show the criticism drove the point home." But the committee of liberal religious scholars was not sanctioned by the Catholic bishops, who issued a strongly worded statement in June saying they had not offered any criticism or endorsement of the film, and would wait for its release next year to do so.
Some of the scholars who have challenged Gibson's movie are not so angry with his account as they are with the Bible. These scholars claim that the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the New Testament Gospels to curry favor with the Roman authorities, who ruled the known world at that time. They are unhappy that Gibson stuck to the original text.
"Rabbi, the story is the story," Haggard said. "Certainly the Jewish people know the importance of embracing history and in making sure that in our generation we don't repeat mistakes of the past.
"We don't want revisionist history. We don't want the Gospel accounts changed. We don't want the historical accounts changed. So, this is a beautiful portrayal of what happened in the life of the Lord Jesus."
Hier concluded by insisting he was "not saying Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite. What I am saying is that four Catholic scholars representing the Catholic bishops joined five Jewish scholars, unanimously felt there was a great deal of anti-Semitism in the script. Not only Jews, but Catholics as well, who believed after they read that script that that was the case."
Director-cowriter Gibson has said that "The Passion" is based on the accepted Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and death and that the screenplay has undergone many changes since the Catholic-Jewish committee saw a stolen early draft.
Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Shakes Up Hollywood
James Hirsen
Editor's Note: James Hirsen's "Tales From the Left Coast" has already become a best seller. The new book reveals the real story behind the controversy over Mel Gibson’s film "The Passion." Hirsen has recently seen the film and details Hollywood’s anti-Christian agenda. In just one week, "Tales from the Left Coast" has become a national best seller. Check it out –
Click Here. http://www.newsmax.com/leftcoast/index2.html
http://www.newsmax.com/leftcoast/index2.html
In "Tales From the Left Coast," I reveal how the same Hollywood that holds itself up as a place of tolerance and inclusion is hostile to folks who are conservative, Republican or Christian.
Case in point is Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic who is being skewered on the "liberal" barbecue pit of Tinseltown.
Mel made a mistake because he openly professed his faith in - dare I say it? - Jesus Christ.
As Jennifer O’Neill says in "Tales," "There are a lot of ‘closet Christians’ in Hollywood because they innately know there exists black-balling and prejudice against professed believers in the entertainment business."
Some folks in Hollywood, the media and certain special-interest groups are extremely uncomfortable with Gibson’s latest project, "The Passion." The film is a lifelike depiction of the last hours of Jesus Christ.
Recently, I was invited to see the film. I can’t discuss its specific contents. But I can reveal that this film is not going to demean Christianity, as other flicks such as "The Last Temptation of Christ" have done.
Instead, Mel is actually using Scripture as his source. And he’s telling the literal truth.
Tolerant "liberals" apparently can’t stand for this type of material being disseminated. Unprecedented leaks to the press by people using false affiliations and stolen scripts have occurred almost a year before the scheduled release date.
But the most nefarious attempt to undermine Gibson’s project has involved his family. To get attention, gain leverage or create trouble for the project, some in the press have been scrutinizing Gibson’s 85-year old father. That’s off-limits in anybody’s book. (When was the last time you heard a member of the press bash Barbra Streisand’s mother?)
At the time of my screening of the film, I had the privilege of meeting Mel.
The film is simply a cinematic prayer. It is a faith-deepening experience. In fact, a well-known pastor in Southern California, Greg Laurie of Harvest Crusade, indicated that he had seen every film about Jesus ever made but that he had never seen anything with the authenticity and power of this work.
With the anti-Christian resistance Mel Gibson faces, to continue steadfastly with this project takes the courage of a "Braveheart" and the fervor of a "Patriot." "The Passion" is in good hands.
Monday, July 21, 2003
New Republic Attacks Mel Gibson
The smear campaign against Mel Gibson's "The Passion" by people who haven't even seen the movie continues. Gibson's defenders, however, refuse to be silenced.
William Donohue, president of Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, takes issue with Paula Fredriksen's attack in the July 28 edition of The New Republic.
’ "Working with an unauthorized script of 'The Passion,' Paula Fredriksen has declared the movie to be anti-Semitic. Neither she, nor any of her friends who read an early draft of the screenplay, have seen the movie. Nor have they explained how they obtained the purloined script. But that doesn’t matter – what matters is that she has libeled Mel Gibson.
"Fredriksen maintains there are historical inaccuracies in the script," says Donohue, who has seen the movie. He continues, "[I]t would be more honest to say that 'The Passion,' like other renditions of the last twelve hours of Jesus' life, has elements in it that some scholars might question. But this is not her point. Her point is that Gibson has not acceded to her request to 'revise his script substantially.' As if he should. Her arrogance is evident again when she says that she and her colleagues 'functioned with a naiveté that is peculiar to educators: the belief that, once an error is made plain, a person will prefer the truth.' How reassuring it must be for Mel to know that if he wants the truth, all he has to do is give Paula a ring.
"Fredriksen is a demagogue. For only a demagogue would write, 'When violence breaks out, Mel Gibson will have a much higher authority than professors and bishops to answer to.' Note she does not say if violence breaks out, but when. How disappointed she will be when none occurs. For the record, James Shapiro, in his work, Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Play, has written that the Passion play has never been directly linked to anti-Semitic violence. Never.
"I would agree with Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, a professor of ancient Mediterranean studies and translator of the movie into Aramaic and Latin, that 'there is no hint of deicide' in the film. But this will obviously not do for those bent on discrediting it: they will 'find' anti-Semitism. They don't even have to see it to hate it — they have truth on their side," Donohue concludes.
Stop the Presses: Something Might Happen!
Fredriksen is far from the only critic proudly flaunting her ignorance. The local yokels at the Palm Beach Post haven't seen "The Passion" either, but that doesn't prevent them from attacking it.
Columnist Steve Gushee writes, "Critics, who have yet to see the script, fear that Gibson might resort to badly skewed sources and imply that Jewish people killed the Christian Messiah."
He might?
And the left-wing thought police might stop their hypocrisies. Or might not.
NewsMax's James Hirsen says the film is a powerful and deeply moving work of art. But then, unlike these nattering nabobs of negativism, he has actually seen an early cut of "The Passion."Editor's note: Hirsen's new book, "Tales from the Left Coast," reveals the inside story behind "The Passion" and the anti-Christian bias motivating Gibson's detractors.
Click here now.
Tuesday, July 22, 2003 10:30 p.m. EDT
Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Rocks Washington
Washington was in a tizzy this week when Hollywood megastar Mel Gibson showed up Monday to have some top media and political folks screen "The Passion" – his new movie about the death of Jesus.
As the Washington Post put it, Gibson is "under fire from Jewish groups and religious scholars for his still-unreleased film that graphically portrays the crucifixion of Jesus."
The Washington screening drew a who's who of Beltway players, including Motion Picture Association of America chief Jack Valenti, who hosted the conclave, as well as commentators Peggy Noonan, Cal Thomas, Kate O'Beirne, Michael Novak, Linda Chavez and others. The movie, described as anti-Semitic by some, who have not seen the film, got solid support from solidly liberal MPAA President Jack Valenti.
"I don't see what the controversy is all about," Valenti was quoted as saying. "This is a compelling piece of art. I just called Kirk Douglas and told him that this is the movie to beat."
But others aren't so happy.
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman told the Washington Post, "Here's a man who appeals to the mass audience, but he feels he has to surround himself with a cordon sanitaire of people who back him theologically and maybe ideologically and will stand up and be supportive when the time comes. My request still stands: I would like to see the movie, and if it turns out I was wrong, I'll be the first to say so."
We're glad Jack Valenti is seeing this film for what it is: perhaps the most accurate account of Jesus' death as depicted in the Gospels.
We're also glad Valenti has joined us in endorsing the film. NewsMax has been at the cutting edge of the "Passion" story for months.
In late May, NewsMax editor Christopher Ruddy joined Gibson for his first private showing of the film in Los Angeles.
And NewsMax’s Left Coast Report editor James Hirsen also recently screened the film and details the anti-Christian bias behind the controversy in his New York Times best-selling book, "Tales from the Left Coast."
Thursday, July 24, 2003 1 p.m. EDT
Fox Set to Distribute Mel Gibson's Film
Despite critics' claims that Mel Gibson has no distributor to put his blockbuster film "The Passion" into theaters around the country, Gibson does have at least one.
According to Fox News' Roger Friedman, Gibson's company, Icon Entertainment, which produced "The Passion," has a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox.
20th Century Fox is owned by News Corporation, which also owns Fox News.
According to Friedman, 20th Century Fox has a first-look option with Icon and right of refusal.
Fox News says it also has the right to outbid another studio. As a result, "The Passion" right now is a 20th Century Fox film.
Executives from that studio and others have now seen "The Passion," and Friedman says 20th is "rumored to be very interested in distributing the film."
So, when the emotionally charged film, which portrays the final 12 hours of Christ's ordeal, premiers next Easter, it shouldn't have any problems showing up in your neighborhood theater.
Distribution aside, the film remains contoversial.
Friedman writes: "As he did in Washington and in a couple of other cities, Gibson showed the controversial film about Christ's final 12 hours to politicians and clergy who would not argue with his point of view. Question-and-answer sessions after these screenings, according to one insider, have had more to do with the movie's length and whether Gibson will release it with subtitles."
More to come ... no doubt.
'The Passion' Revisited
David Limbaugh
A few weeks ago, I defended Mel Gibson's upcoming movie, "The Passion," against unwarranted criticism. After having had the privilege of attending a private screening of the movie in Chicago, I am even more convinced of its value.
The movie, which depicts the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ, was so deeply moving and profound one cannot do justice to it by attempting to describe it in words.
The closest I can come to a description is to say that viewing it makes you feel almost like a live witness to the historical events (abbreviated from 12 hours to two hours) as they unfolded. It was not like watching a movie from a detached perspective, but rather being inescapably drawn into the realism of the action.
No punches are pulled here, no emotions are spared, no sensitivities are coddled. It is a depiction of suffering, agony, passion and raw, uncensored violence visited on one man (and God) who volunteered for the indescribable torment out of His sheer love for humankind.
I am sure that Gibson chose stark realism not for the sake of shock and awe or sensationalism, but to recreate as accurate a portrayal of the historical events as humanly possible. The viewer sees the scourging because there was scourging, he sees blood because there was blood, he sees pain because there was pain.
Ironically, many of the attacks on the project are based on its alleged inaccuracy. Some Christian "scholars" are panning the movie, without having seen it and based on a purloined and now obsolete movie script, because of its dubious historicity and theology.
Gibson erred, they say, not by deviating too much from scripture, but by trying to adhere to it too closely. These "experts" believe they know better than the eyewitnesses to the events what did and didn't happen and what Jesus did and didn't say. Manifestly, their quarrel is not with Mel Gibson, but with the Bible.
As "The Passion" makes clear in terms I could never adequately express, the Gospel message is not reserved for Ph.D.s and biblical scholars. It is simple enough for children to understand, but profound enough to rescue the entire human race and all of its wickedness.
Certain Jewish groups are criticizing the movie, saying it is anti-Semitic and will inflame anti-Semitic sentiments among those who view it. While anti-Semitism in the world is real and we've even witnessed a disturbing resurrection of its infernal irrepressibility throughout the world in recent years, this movie is not an example of it. Quite the opposite.
The movie endeavors to show the historical events "as they went down," without any editorial comment or innuendo, and especially without judgmentalism. It is not about blame and finger pointing, but love and redemption. It does not convey a message of selective condemnation, but universal hope. After all, as sinners, we are all culpable in Christ's death, as Gibson points out, careful to confess his own responsibility.
I believe one of Mel Gibson's main purposes is to use the medium he knows best to spread the Gospel message, which is essentially one of love and eternal life. And the way Gibson has decided to share that message is to focus on the price Christ paid to redeem mankind.
We are so removed from Christ's suffering that we could, if not careful, view the Gospel as a mere mathematical equation. The sacrificial death of the sinless God-incarnate cancels out the past, present and future sins of all those who place their faith in Him. But this is real life, not an abstract exercise.
God didn't just zap out man's sinfulness by divine edict. Being a God of perfect justice and unlimited mercy, He had to deal with sin – that is, physically and spiritually deal with it. The Son, while still 100 percent God, humbled and demeaned Himself to become man, to suffer all the indignities of human existence, to become separated from the Father with whom He was united in perfect love and harmony, and to suffer His full wrath for the sum of all mankind's sins.
We must understand that for this equation to work, for man's redemption to be possible, Christ's suffering, His anxiety, His despair, His sense of betrayal and His separation from the Father had to actually occur in the flesh. "The Passion" emphasizes the reality of Christ's substitutionary suffering in the flesh. In terms that words alone cannot articulate, "The Passion" homes in on the full value of the ransom Christ paid for all of us in the greatest demonstration and act of love ever exhibited.
Copyright 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Mel Gibson's Passion
David Horowitz
Mel Gibson's film "The Passion," which is about the last 12 hours of Christ's life, is the object of campaign vilification and book-burning by a committee of Christians and Jews who want to shut it down before it is shown, or edit it to their own politically (or religiously) correct standards. Paula Fredriksen is a spokeswoman for this committee. The New Republic has shamed itself by printing her ill-informed and bigoted attack on the film.
Unlike Fredriksen and others who want to destroy the film before they have seen it, I have seen "The Passion." It is not an attempt to portray the historical Jesus – which is the subject of Fredriksen's entire screed – nor could it be. By Fredriksen's own account there is no evidentiary basis for such a portrait, and if anyone tried to create one it would be eviscerated by the same Savanarolas, precisely because no one can know what the truth is.
Gibson's film is an artistic vision and must be judged that way. Like others who have seen the film, I am sworn to keep details confidential so that it gets its chance when the distributors present it to the viewing public next Easter. However, I will say this: It is an awesome artifact, an overpowering work. I can't remember being so affected by a film before.
It is extremely painful to watch and yet the violence is never gratuitous. You never feel as if you want to take your eyes off the screen. It is a wracking emotional journey that never strays from its inspirational purpose. It is as close to a religious experience as art can get.
It is not anti-Semitic, as the film-burners have charged. Two illustrative details: Jesus is referred to in the film as "rabbi," and there is never any distancing of Jesus or his disciples from their Jewishness. (One point missed by ignorant bigots like Fredriksen, whose only familiarity with "The Passion" is with a stolen script, is that while the film is in Aramaic – a brilliant effect that enhances the symbolic resonance of the story – it has subtitles.) Second detail: A Jew carries Jesus' cross along the terrible route to Golgotha and shares his miseries.
But yes, the film is also faithful to the Gospels, and therefore the Pharisees are Jesus' enemies and they and their flock do call for Jesus' death (and why wouldn't they, since Jesus was a threat to their authority and their beliefs?).
But all this is to miss the point. This is a Christian parable. The cruelty, intolerance and lack of compassion of human beings is limitless – and we who have lived through the 20th century know this all too well. The moral of this Christian story – of Mel Gibson's film – is that we all killed Jesus – Jew and Gentile alike – and tortured him, and we do so every day.
But if you believe the vision that Gibson has rendered so searingly and so well, Jesus forgives us for that very act. Whosoever will give up cruelty and love his brother will enter paradise. That is the message that Gibson has framed in his extraordinary work. The effort to shut down his film before it opens is just another station of the cross.
* * * * * *
David Horowitz is a nationally known author, lifelong civil rights activist and founder of the New Left movement in the 1960s. His autobiography, "Radical Son," chronicles his odyssey from radical activism to the current positions he holds.
He has penned numerous other books including "The Politics of Bad Faith," "The Art of Political War" and his latest book, "Uncivil Wars," which chronicles his crusade against intolerance and racial McCarthyism on college campuses last spring.
Since 1988 he has served as president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a vehicle group for his campaigns and his online newsmagazine, FrontPageMag.com.
Friday, Aug. 8, 2003
Gibson's Aide Exposes New York Times' Frank Rich
Left-wing columnist Frank Rich's bizarre attack on Mel Gibson's "The Passion" was even more ignorant than previously known.
Not only has Rich never seen the movie, he also is continuing the New York Times' recently exposed tradition of publishing fiction.
Rich had falsely claimed that Gibson's highly regarded publicist Alan Nierob used "p.r. spin to defend a Holocaust denier."
Since earlier this year, the Times has continually tried to suggest and imply that Gibson was a Holocaust denier. Frank's column was just one more distortion.
The Times doesn't seem to be interested in reporting that Gibson has never made such claims. In fact, Gibson not only believes the Holocaust took place, he also knows people who survived the death camps.
"This is another perfect example of shoddy journalism and distorting the facts at the New York Times," Nierob is quoted as saying in today's Page Six section of the New York Post.
"How dare Frank Rich label me a 'defender of a Holocaust denier,' when, if he did any checking at all, he would have known that I am a second-generation Holocaust survivor myself and a founding member of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C."
Facts, of course, won't deter the likes of Rich, who hasn't squealed about such movies as "The Last Temptation of Christ," "The Exorcist," "Priest" and "Stigmata."
Response to Frank Rich
James Hirsen, NewsMax.com
In his Aug. 3 column in the New York Times, art and entertainment columnist Frank Rich engaged in a vicious attempt at the vilest kind of innuendo. Since the New York Times has failed to print my letter to the editor submitted Aug. 4, I am posting the following to set the record straight.
While Rich is correct that I am the author of the best seller
"Tales from the Left Coast" and "one of Gibson’s most passionate defenders," his use of isolated, incomplete excerpts to impugn my character amounts to journalistic malpractice. Rich’s piece also has additional inaccuracies and oversights that I must address.The columnist suggests that in my book the disclosure of Bob Dylan’s real name is somehow a shrouded communication of something more sinister. Odd how it doesn’t take any decoding to understand Rich’s reference to Matt Drudge as a "token Jew."
Rich claims that the timing of the portion of my book that exposes the attempts to vilify Mel Gibson came before the attacks on the film began. He writes that "no one was criticizing ‘The Passion’ when Hirsen wrote that sentence. …"
Rich is just plain wrong.
"Tales from the Left Coast" was released in July of this year. The attacks began in the form of members of the press digging up dirt on Mel Gibson as far back as January. Other public attacks occurred in March and May. Rich apparently views Christopher Noxon’s New York Times Magazine article from last March as some sort of puff piece when it is really something Rich ought to know well – a hit piece.Rich cites a chapter from my book where he correctly quotes my language that "faith is often the subject of ridicule and negative portrayal in Hollywood." He then refers to a film, which I use to illustrate the point, as "bizarre." Rich conveniently ignores the example that immediately precedes it, a film called "Wholly Moses," which offends Christians and Jews, both of whom hold the Old Testament in high esteem.
Rich also did not see, or ignored, my book’s treatment of PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk’s infamous statement, the one in which Newkirk compares the killing of chickens to what I describe as the "untold suffering, maximum depravity, and wholesale evil of the Holocaust."
Rich’s complaints are not really based on differences in religion but instead are grounded in political ideology. Mere paranoia cannot explain his absurd extrapolations. Maybe his decoder ring is in need of repair.
James Hirsen is NewsMax's Hollywood correspondent and edits the Left Coast Report.
Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003
Mel Gibson Softens 'The Passion'
Director Mel Gibson, under attack from Jewish groups for his movie "The Passion," has "softened the story" and made changes to placate critics, a spokesman says.
Gibson has edited the film to show more "sympathetic" Jewish characters who were not calling for Jesus to be crucified, said Paul Lauer, marketing director for Gibson's Icon Productions.
"We believe we have softened the story compared to the way the Gospel has told it," Religion News Service quotes Lauer as saying.
He mentioned Matthew 27:25, in which the Jewish mob calls for Jesus' blood "to be on us and on our children."
"That's in the Gospel," he said. "It's not in our film."
Religion News Service reported: "In addition, Lauer said the character of Simon of Cyrene, who was forced to carry the cross for Jesus, will be clearly labeled a Jew in the film. A shouting mob will include voices opposing the execution, Lauer said. Faced with vocal Jewish opposition, Gibson is mounting a pre-emptive public relations offensive to counter his critics - all for a film that is still being edited. After regional screenings, Gibson has lingered with his audiences to listen to their advice.
"In an effort to soothe concerns, Gibson is also hoping to launch 'The Jewish Initiative' to recruit Jewish and Christian leaders to discuss the film's effects on Christian-Jewish relations."
Lauer said, "We've gone out of our way to accommodate this process because we felt it was necessary and important, and to show that we care and that we're not callously sitting back saying, 'Screw you, we're going to make the film we want to make.'"
The New York Times, a loud critic of the movie without having seen it, in early August quoted Lauer as saying "there is no way on God's green earth" that "dishonorable" critics such as Abraham Foxman, national director of Anti-Defamation League, would be invited to previews.
'Very Concerned About This Feedback'
However, Lauer told CNN last night that Gibson would meet with "eight to 10 significant Jewish leaders over the next 30 days" to "invite their dialogue, their feedback."
"We are very concerned about this feedback, and we are processing that feedback, and we have always planned on inviting this kind of dialogue," he said on "NewsNight with Aaron Brown."
The onslaught has upset Gibson, Lauer said. "It's hurt him a great deal. He has many close Jewish friends. He's worked with Jewish people in his career, in - certainly in the movie industry for 25 years. He's never been accused of any degree of anti-Semitism or hatred or bigotry."
Saturday, Aug. 16, 2003
Simon Wiesenthal Center Urges Mel Gibson
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that the controversy over Mel Gibson's yet-to-be-released film "The Passion" has generated an unprecedented wave of hate mail and calls to the Jewish human rights group over the Center's endorsement of changes to the film proposed by Christian and Jewish scholars.
In one of the letters that the Wiesenthal Center received soon after the film was screened in Colorado Springs, Colo., the writer said, in part, "What this tells me is that you do not want the real truth to be shown on a public setting that will remind millions of Americans that the jews [sic] were in fact totally responsible for the death of Jesus Christ."
The letter continued, "I don't endorse terrorism of any kind but the odds are that some of these enlightened folks will go for the throat of you jews [sic] and some of your offices of hate such as the ADL main office in New York, or maybe even the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Every time I hear of a suicide bomber killing jews in Israel I think to myself YES!"
"We fully understand that the crucifixion is central to the belief of more than a billion Christians and in no way do we want to impede Mr. Gibson's right to make a film," said Rabbi Hier. "However, we urge that he make some of the changes suggested to him by the distinguished group of Catholic and Jewish experts in the field to help ensure that the Jewish people are not yet again falsely singled out as being responsible for the death of Jesus."
The Center is also seeking a dialogue with leading Christian leaders to discuss the matter further.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations, with a membership of over 400,000 families in the United States. The Center is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO and the OSCE.
Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2003
Legislator Tries to Censor Mel Gibson's 'The Passion'
New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind has planned a press conference Thursday to demand that 20th Century Fox not distribute Mel Gibson’s movie "The Passion," says Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights.
Hikind asserts that the film "resurrects the age-old canard of deicide" and "can incite anti-Semitic violence."
Catholic League president William A. Donohue said today:
The furor over Mel Gibson’s film has now reached a fever pitch. Assemblyman Hikind’s response is an example of how reaction to "The Passion" has spilled into hysteria.
Assemblyman Hikind has alleged that the movie implicates all Jews in the crucifixion, a common misconception of those who haven’t seen the movie. In fact, absolutely nothing in the film is inconsistent with Nostra Aetate, which repudiated the idea of collective guilt of the Jewish people for Jesus’ death.
The contention that the film ‘will spur anti-Semitic fervor’ is nonsense. Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, after seeing the film, commented, ‘You can quote me — Mel Gibson’s 'The Passion' is not anti-Semitic. I did not see any anti-Semitism in it.’
If the Catholic League for one moment thought this would inspire anti-Semitism, it would condemn the movie. Indeed, just last year, the league joined with Dov Hikind and other Jews in calling for a boycott of New York’s Jewish Museum, which exhibited art that trivialized the Holocaust.
Having seen the movie twice, I agree with the hundreds of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews who have now seen ‘The Passion.’ It is near unanimous: this movie will not foment anti-Semitism. Any such blind charges are vacuous.
Monday, Sept. 15, 2003 11:45 a.m. EDT
Liz Smith Supports Mel Gibson
Powerful New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith has joined the voices of those supporting Mel Gibson and his controversial film "The Passion."
Writing in Monday's Post, Smith said considering the fact that the Jewish people have endured so much over the centuries "I am sure they can endure Mel Gibson's controversial movie about the final hours of the life of Jesus Christ, 'The Passion.' "
And she added this barb for many of Gibson's critics: It is unfair "for everybody to carry on so before most people have even seen this film."
"Those who have even a pretense of intelligence already know what's in the four gospels on which this immortal tale is based. People are free to accept or reject this story that the New Testament tells and they have been doing so for over 2,000 years. Some believe it, some don't," she wrote.
She explains that since God gave us free will, we are all free to accept or reject Christianity, but, she warns, we cannot rewrite history, "so it is useless to blame whoever 'killed' Jesus so long ago."
Smith added that, by the same token, she hopes she won't be blamed "for what some of my outlaw Texas forebears did to the Comanche and Apache as they took over their land."
The Murmur Maven also defended Gibson's graphic portrayal of Christ's intense suffering, saying she was amazed that some critics have condemned the film out of hand for "showing massive gratuitous violence. What do people think a crucifixion was - a tea party? It was a pretty awful way to die and the Romans had it down to a science."
Gibson, she wrote, is, after all, a moviemaker, "but he is not a whitewasher. He allowed them to film what appeared to be his disembowelment in 'Braveheart.' So he hasn't held back here and I don't quite know how he could, unless he wanted to show the crucifixion as a sanitized Renaissance painting. That's pretty much the way Hollywood has always shown Jesus."
Content to blame the ancient Romans for Christ's crucifixion, the Doyenne of Dish says she's going to leave it at that, and will "keep on visiting Italy and modern-day Romans whenever I like."
Monday, Sept. 15, 2003
O'Reilly: Elite Media out to Destroy Mel Gibson
Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly said tonight that the elite media have been vicious in their attacks on Mel Gibson and are out to destroy him.
"You have an elite media which [have] an agenda and the agenda is destroy Mel Gibson because we don't like the concept of what he's doing, basing a movie on the Gospels - we don't like that - so we are going to destroy him personally," O'Reilly said during an interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" with New Yorker writer Peter Boyer, who agreed with the host that some of the media attacks on Gibson and his film "The Passion" have been "hateful."
Boyer, who has written a 15-page New Yorker story about Gibson and his film, explained that "There are a group of folks who the minute Mel Gibson announced he was going to make a film about the last hours of Jesus Christ based on the New Testament - based on the Gospels - there were folks who were worried by that, and I'm only guessing that these columnists - these reporters are attuned to that point of view."
In his New Yorker story, Boyer made clear that what bothered these people - a group of nine scholars - was the fact that Gibson was basing his film on the Gospels, which they view as unreliable.
"Any dramatization of Christ's passion that is based on the Gospels is going to be objectionable," Boyer said, remarking that the critics "have excused themselves from the question of Jesus' divinity."
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003
Vatican Cardinal Wants 'Everyone in the World' to See Gibson's 'The Passion'
Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion" has won another ringing endorsement from the Vatican.
"I would gladly trade some of the homilies that I have given about the passion of Christ for even a few of the scenes of his film," Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos says in an interview published today in the newspaper La Stampa.
As for naysayers and would-be censors who haven't even seen the movie: "Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth by putting an entire race in a bad light. This film does nothing of the kind."
He saw an unfinished version of the film that director Gibson brought to Rome.
"I felt moments of deep spiritual intimacy with Jesus Christ," said Hoyos, one of the Vatican's most prominent cardinals and Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.
Hoyos is also a leader of a Vatican commission trying to bring conservative traditionalists back to the church.
"I would like all Catholic priests in the world to see this film. I hope that all Christians can see it, everyone in the world."
Rejecting complaints about the movie's violence, he said "The Passion" depicted "the horror of sin and egoism and the redemptive power of love."
William Donohue, president of Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, stated: "The big winner in this is Mel Gibson. The big loser is the ad hoc committee of scholars who condemned the movie without seeing it.
"Regarding the latter group, the most embarrassed must be the Catholic scholars. They were the ones who read a stolen script of the screenplay and then set themselves up as the supreme authority on the New Testament. Now they look rather silly."
Why Won't Anti-Defamation League
Attack Woody Allen's 'Anti-Semitism'?
"Forget Mel Gibson — the new anti-Semitism is coming from Woody," Fox News' entertainment reporter Roger Friedman wrote today.
In "Anything Else," his absolutely dreadful new comedy (and I use that term loosely), Allen plays an enigmatic, violent, self-loathing Jew. At one point, his character, called David Dobel, refers to Danny DeVito’s character, a talent agent, as "your Jew manager. Hey, I’m a member of the Tribe," he tells Jason Biggs’ character, Jerry, "but you know what I mean."
It’s maybe the strangest and most unforgiving moment in any Woody Allen movie. Is it Dobel speaking or Allen? And, either way, is it necessary?
It doesn’t help that DeVito’s character, depicted as the kind of agent who uses garment-center metaphors to describe everything artistic, is named Harvey Wexler. With his roly-poly mien and garrulous personality, DeVito’s caricature of a shrill, unlikable, easily mocked Broadway Danny Rose type is not exactly hard to figure out. I just can’t believe DeVito didn’t know what he was doing at the time. ...
Dobel is an anti-Semite who fears anti-Semitism. He is passive-aggressively violent and has perhaps a sinister backstory. He says he has guns within reach in every room in his house. Toward the end of the movie he does something extremely violent off-camera — provoked, he says, because his victim told him "the Holocaust was really just a theme park."
In my screening, you could hear a pin drop when Allen said that line. No one laughed, trust me.
New Yorker Exposes Dishonesty of Mel Gibson's Critics
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Some of the leading critics of Mel Gibson’s movie "The Passion" have been dishonest in their attacks, and the media have let them get away with it.
In an exhaustive examination of the controversy, noted writer Peter J. Boyer explains in the New Yorker's Sept. 15 edition the murky background of the assaults on Gibson and his film.
The major complaint sparked by a group of "liberal" scholars was not that the film is anti-Semitic, which most admit it is not, but that it is based on the Four Gospels, which the group scorns as inaccurate.
The group was not an official body of the Catholic bishops' organization but rather a committee formed, long before the movie's completion, by an employee of the bishops and the head of Anti-Defamation League.
In a 15-page article titled "The Jesus Wars," Boyer explains how an allegedly official body of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was anything but an authorized group representing the bishops, who had to issue a statement denying any connection with the group of self-identified scholars.
Most media accounts, however, continue to identify the group as associated with the USCCB.
Moreover, Boyer’s meticulous reporting makes clear that the movie’s alleged anti-Semitic content was not the prime reason for the scholars’ attack - it is instead an assault on the accuracy of the Holy Bible, specifically the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The genesis of the group is startling.
Boyer traces the beginnings of the controversy back to a badly flawed New York Times story by free-lance journalist Christopher Noxon last March 9 in which Gibson’s 85-year-old father, Hutton, is described as a adherent of the Traditionalist Catholic movement, which dissents from much of the work of the Vatican II council.
Mel Gibson is also a traditionalist who will attend only the Latin Tridentine Mass and has built a church where that Mass is celebrated, the story said.
Progressives vs. Tradition
As it turns out, Noxon's family owns property near Gibson's Malibu church, a fact that apparently sparked his interest in covering the story. Noxon tells NewsMax, however, that his father, a member of the area's local homeowner association, did not oppose Gibson's building of the church. In fact, he voted for its approval.
In his story Noxon implied that Gibson’s film, then being filmed in Italy, might, as the New Yorker said, "serve as a propaganda vehicle" for Gibson’s Traditionalist views. (And the New York Times might start printing the truth. Or might not.)
Writes Boyer: "The Times story caught the attention of a group of activists, scholars and clerics who make up what is known as the interfaith community" – a group of eggheads he describes as "progressives," deeply involved in the interfaith movement.
These people, Boyer notes, were anything but comforted that "Mel Gibson was basing his movie upon the Gospels, even if he weren’t a Traditionalist Catholic."
Therein lies the root of the whole controversy. In their great wisdom and scholarship these "progressives" have concluded that the Gospels, which Christians believe were inspired by the Holy Spirit and the authentic word of God, cannot be trusted.
Moreover, when read by non-scholars they could be construed as being anti-Semitic – a strange idea considering that they were written by Jews about Jesus, who was Jewish, and their fellow apostles, who were also Jewish, and the earliest adherents of Christianity, who were overwhelmingly Jewish.
"One cannot assume that by simply conforming to the New Testament, that anti-semitism will not be promoted," the scholars said in a statement.
This is where it gets interesting. Having read the Times' screed, a leading member of the so-called interfaith community, Eugene Fisher, discussed the film with an old friend, Abraham Foxman, the head of Anti-Defamation League, now one of the sternest critics of "The Passion."
Foxman, Boyer reports, had even written to Gibson seeking assurances that the picture "would not give rise to the old canard of charging Jews with deicide and to anti-Semitism."
It was at this point that the group of scholars became an organization.
So Helpful, So Modern
"Fisher and Foxman agreed to convene a small ad hoc group of like-minded colleagues, and to offer their help to Gibson in making his film conform to contemporary doctrine."
Contemporary doctrine, it appears, is that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not write the Four Gospels. "We do not know who wrote the Gospels," says Duke University’s E.P. Sanders.
Airily dismissing 2000 years of Christian doctrine and tradition that the Bible is the authentic word of God, Sanders holds what Boyer describes as "the consensus view, that the Gospels were written anonymously by early Church teachers and were later assigned to the four evangelists saints, perhaps to bestow legitimacy."
Sic semper inerrancy.
Sanders, like most investigators of historical Jesus, believes that the Jewish high priests wanted Jesus dead because He drove the money changers out of the temple. But not all these alleged investigators agree on this.
One of the more extreme views is held by professor Paula Frederickson, described by Catholic League president William Donohue as a "demagogue" and another vehement critic of Gibson.
According to Boyer, Frederickson’s own personal gospel proclaims that it was all Pilate’s fault – he feared Jesus was too popular and wanted to kill him in order to warn the Jews against rebelling against Roman rule.
After vainly trying to get their hands on a script of "The Passion," the scholars mysteriously acquired a stolen copy of an early script. Hah! they discovered - it was just what they suspected – based on those four discredited Gospels and filled with unflattering descriptions of the Jews of that era.
By the way, this was a very preliminary script, and most of the descriptive parts to which the scholars objected had long since been ignored during the filming.
One member of the group, Sister Mary Boys of New York’s left-leaning Union Theological Seminary, told the anti-Catholic Los Angeles Times that her group was worried that the film, which was nowhere near completed at the time, would somehow incite anti-Semitism.
Rabbi Eugene Korn, a colleague of Foxman at ADL, warned Gibson that if he didn’t respond to the scholars' group the "controversy will certainly heat up."
Pseudointellectual Dishonesty
The "scholars" were now using anti-Semitism as their line of attack and glossing over their real concern that Gibson had dared to rely on the Gospels they had in their great wisdom discredited.
When a colleague of Gibson ripped into Fisher he quickly backpedaled on the claims of anti-Semitism and called them "absolutely untrue."
Gibson simply ignored the scholars’ demand that the film be redone. "We believe that the steps needed to correct these difficulties will require major revisions," a report sent to Gibson’s Icon Productions stated.
If this demand smacked of arrogance and censorship, Frederickson went it one better on the hubris scale.
According to Boyer, she insisted that "The Passion" relied on an "uninformed" reading of the Gospels, as well as the writings of two nuns who bore the stigmata. She then pronounced a charge akin to excommunication in the rarefied atmosphere of academia: "He doesn’t even have a Ph.D on his staff," she sniffed.
Gibson’s reaction to all of this was vintage Braveheart. Scholars, he told Boyer, always mess around with the Gospels.
"Judas is always some kind of friend of some kind of freedom fighter named Barabbas. You know what I mean?" He called this "revisionist bulls**t … and that’s what these academics are into … it’s like they were more or less saying I have no right to interpret the Gospels myself because I don’t have a bunch of letters after my name."
Gibson's Advice to Egghead Perverts
The Gospels, Gibson told Boyer, are for children and old people and those in between and "not necessarily for academics. Just get an academic on board if you want to pervert something," he said.
After the media falsely reported that the group of scholars had been appointed by the USCCB – an impression Fisher, the associate director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs, gave when he used a USCCB letterhead in writing to Icon, the bishops responded. They declared, "Neither the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, nor by other committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, established this group, or authorized, reviewed or approved the report issued by its members."
At this point Braveheart had had enough.
A sleazy column by New York Times arts and entertainment editor Frank Rich set him reaching for his claymore. "I want to kill him," he fumed to Boyer. "I want his intestines on a stick … I want to kill his dog."
It was these lines, of course, that attracted the most attention among those in the media who reported details of Boyer’s article. Nobody seems to have noticed the fascinating background Boyer had provided.
Even though their attacks on "The Passion" are based on cries of anti-Semitism, the majority of the critics, including Fisher and Foxman, admit that the movie is not anti-Semitic.
But they say that by relying on the Gospels as their sources, Gibson’s film might (or might not) create feelings of anti-Semitism among some viewers. This ignores the reality that only those already harboring anti-Semitic thoughts could be so affected by a rendering of Holy Scripture.
No rational person, for example, ever charged that Gibson’s previous films "The Patriot" and "Braveheart" would spark hatred of the British, nor has anyone suggested that "The Passion" might inflame anti-Italian feelings by depicting the role played by the Romans in brutally torturing and crucifying Christ.
What They're Really Trying to Censor
It has apparently not occurred to Foxman and other Jewish critics that they have been conned into providing cover for the members of the committee they helped to create, by making the phony charge of anti-Semitism while the scholars’ real objection is to the use of the Gospels as the film’s source.
Said Gibson: "I wanted to be true to the Gospels. That has never been done." And that’s what the fuss is really all about.
Wrote Father Michael Reilly in NewsMax.com: "Some of Mel Gibson's biggest critics are Catholic theologians. Believe it or not, they are ‘accusing’ him of following the Gospel accounts of Jesus' passion too closely. In other words, Gibson hasn't consulted them to receive their guidance and direction in understanding the Gospels."
Reilly continued: "According to some theologians, the Gospels are theological diatribes thoroughly lacking in historical value and accuracy. Some theologians believe that the Gospels were written long after Christ's passion and therefore are more reflective of the community than they are of the actual events.
"Interestingly, one of the main reasons for their later dating of the Gospels centers around the Jews. When Jesus lambastes the Pharisees in the Gospels, this is supposedly representative of a hostility that did not exist between Christians and Jews before 85 A.D., when the Christians were expelled from the synagogues.
"I suppose these theologians discount the martyrdom of St. Stephen in 36 A.D. and the persecution of Christians carried out by St. Paul before his conversion. The earliest and most reliable sources available indicate that the Gospels were written by the apostles and apostolic men not long after the events took place.
"St. Irenaeus, instructed by St. Polycarp, the disciple of John the Apostle, informs us that Matthew wrote his Gospel before the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in 64 A.D. and that Mark and Luke wrote at the time of their martyrdom. Modern theologians know better?
"Ultimately nearly everything we know about Jesus has been handed down by the four evangelists. If we don't believe what they wrote, why would we call ourselves Christian?"
Another aspect of Boyer's report that has not gotten any attention is Gibson’s explanation of why he insisted that the film’s dialogue be in Aramaic and Latin, a decision that has been widely criticized.
Gibson explained that he wanted to avoid having 2,000-year-old biblical characters speaking perfect modern or even King James English. "I’ve always wanted to make a Viking movie," he told Boyer, explaining that having the fearsome Viking invaders of England, bent on murder and rape, mouthing lines such as "Oh fair Maiden" or "I want to die with my sword in my hand" would be silly.
"If they come with low, guttural German they are frightening. They are terrifying. They’re like demons from the sea. So that’s what the language thing did for me. I took something away from you – you had to depend on the image."
Gibson has now relented, however, and agreed to include subtitles.
It is worth noting that many prominent American Jews, such as David Horowitz, Matt Drudge, Orthodox Jewish author David Klinghoffer and Michael Medved, have praised "The Passion" and denounced claims that it is anti-Semitic.
Anti-Defamation League's Foxman Brands Gibson an 'Anti-Semite'
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Also see:
Why Does ADL Fail to Criticize the 'Anti-Semite' Woody Allen?The head of the nation's most influential Jewish organization has charged that Mel Gibson is an "anti-Semite."
Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman had previously avoided affixing the label on Gibson, who directed "The Passion," a movie about the last 12 hours of Jesus.
In a biting article published in The Jewish Week, Foxman charged, "Recent statements by Mel Gibson paint the portrait of an anti-Semite," and said the star was spouting "classic anti-Semitism."
Repeating the charge that Gibson's movie negatively portrays Jews, a claim that those who have actually seen "The Passion" heatedly refute, the story notes that "no mainstream Christian or Jewish community leader has until now made such a direct charge against Gibson …."
Instead, so-called "interfaith critics" – a panel of nine scholars co-founded by Foxman before the film was made, who falsely represented themselves as a committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and who are angry that the film is based on the four Gospels they regard as unreliable - have focused on the "bloody movie." They claim that "by promoting the 2,000-year-old charge of Christ killers against Jews [an equally false charge], the film would fuel anti-Semitism around the world."
Foxman uses Gibson’s 85-year-old father, Hutton, to attack the filmmaker. Foxman says that the elder Gibson has been quoted as saying that far fewer Jews died in the Holocaust than 6 million and that he is a conspiracist claiming Jews are behind recent Vatican reforms.
"There’s no longer a debate where [Mel Gibson] is coming from," Foxman said Tuesday. "He is a true believer that the true story of the suffering [of Jesus] is that the Jews made him suffer."
Foxman blasted Gibson for telling New Yorker writer Peter J. Boyer that he portrays himself as being persecuted like Jesus for making the film, and as a victim of a murderous cabal who forced him to make changes in the film that could end his career.
Among Foxman’s other charges:
Gibson told Boyer he was sorry he removed a scene in which the high priest recites the curse from the Gospel of Matthew proclaiming that the blood of Jesus is upon him and his children. "But, man, if I included that in there, they’d be coming after me at my house, they’d come kill me."
Gibson accused "modern secular Judaism" of blaming "the Holocaust on the Catholic Church. And it’s a lie. And it’s revisionism. And they’ve been working on that one for a while."
"When you put those things together," said Foxman, "that is a portrait of an anti-Semite. To me this is classic anti-Semitism."
Gibson’s spokesman Alan Nierob told The Jewish Week that this was the first time he’s heard a charge of anti-Semitism directed at Gibson.
"It’s an irresponsible statement," Nierob said. "I won’t even dignify it with a response."
A Response to Frank Rich & the Times
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
New York Times art critic Frank Rich has come unhinged – again. Stung by complaints about his intemperate attacks on Mel Gibson and his film "The Passion," the liberal columnist has once again dipped his pen in malice and written a new screed calumniating Gibson and the film.
He opens his latest attack on Gibson for being ... gasp ... a "movie star."
"The guy is a movie star. Movie stars expect to get their own way," he tells us. "They are surrounded by sycophants, many of them on the payroll. Should a discouraging word somehow prick the bubble of fabulousness in which they travel, even big-screen he-men can turn into crybabies."
Translation: Mel Gibson is a crybaby for reacting angrily to utterly unfounded criticism, largely from people like Rich who haven't seen the film.
And Rich all but sobs himself because Gibson won't let him see "The Passion."
He doesn't explain why Gibson should be so gracious to a columnist and other critics who have shown themselves to be utterly biased against the film before even seeing it.
Let’s take a moment and review what Rich is so upset about.
Rich says that Gibson claims "... he has based his movie on at least one revisionist source, a 19th-century stigmatic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, notable for her grotesque caricatures of Jews. To the extent that there can be any agreement about the facts of a story on which even the four Gospels don’t agree, his movie is destined to be inaccurate."
Not True.
Some of the nation's leading biblical experts have stated unequivocally that the film is totally faithful to the four Gospels. And, as NewsMax.com has pointed out, Gibson says that part of his inspiration for the film were the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich as she reported them in "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich" in which she recounted Christ's suffering in great and shocking detail.
The film itself, however, is based solidly on the four Gospels, as those evangelical Christian religious figures, all deeply rooted in the New Testament, who saw the film have said.
Rich reports, "In the New Yorker profile, Gibson says that 'modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church,’ a charge that Abraham Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, labels 'classic anti-Semitism. ' "
Has Foxman failed to notice the unrelenting and maliciously false attacks on Pope Pius XII?
Clearly, the Times is unabashedly anti-Catholic.
Gibson's motives are political. "Intentionally or not, the contentious rollout of 'The Passion' has resembled a political campaign, from its start on 'The O'Reilly Factor.' "
Rich then goes after Gibson's adherence to what he calls "a fringe church that disowns Vatican II and is not recognized by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic archdiocese."
Gibson's roads, he writes "do not lead to Rome so much as Washington.
"It was there that he screened a rough cut of the movie to conservative columnists likely to give it raves – as they did."
Obviously, Gibson is on the outs with Rome, Rich suggests, ignoring the fact that senior Vatican cardinals have enthusiastically endorsed the film, urging that everybody see it.
In the classic New York Times ploy of using anonymous sources to buttress its liberal prejudices, Rich claims he has "sought out some of those who have seen the movie itself, in the same cut praised by Gibson's clique this summer. They are united in believing, as one of them puts it, that "it's not a close call —the film clearly presents the Jews as the primary instigators of the crucifixion."
He won't tell you who told him that. You'll have to take Rich's word for it … for what it's worth.
Rich continues to perpetuate the falsehood that Gibson and the film are somehow anti-Semitic, although the overwhelming majority of those many people, including prominent Jews who have seen the film, vehemently deny the charge. Even Abraham Foxman once admitted as much.
And Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association and certainly no conservative, praised the film after seeing it this summer.
"I don't see what the controversy is all about," Valenti was quoted as saying. "This is a compelling piece of art.