Mad Mel
This week's TNR has a disturbingly fascinating "insider" story (subscription only - 4 week free trial) about the "traditionalist" agenda behind Mel Gibson's new film, The Passion.
Mel Gibson's newest historical drama, on the death of Jesus Christ, is not anti-Semitic. So complete is his commitment to historical authenticity that he has eschewed subtitles, and will tell his story entirely in its original ancient languages, Aramaic and Latin. Gibson bankrolled the entirety of his forthcoming film, and he co-wrote the script; but the Holy Spirit directed it. "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film," Gibson has recounted when asked about The Passion. "I was just directing traffic." Unfortunately, a group of Catholic and Jewish scholars, alert to Gibson's effort, engaged the services of a mole, ... illegally obtained a copy of the script, and then began to pressure Gibson to revise his story to conform to their own ideas about history and theology. Gibson's lawyers quashed their attempted extortion, however. The scholars withdrew their criticisms. And Mel's movie, in various private screenings, has already begun to move hearts and minds.All the sentences above are culled from recent articles in assorted media--The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NewsMax.com, Zenit, Religion News Service, the New York Daily News, Australia's Sun-Herald. Some of the statements are true. Gibson did co-write the script. His company, Icon, did produce it. His attorney did accuse critics of attempting extortion. And at least one viewer at a private screening in June, moved to tears and prayer, has called the film "a miracle." Whether the Holy Ghost helped out during the shoot I cannot say. All the other statements, I do know, are false.
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Sounds more like a story of the biblical Jesus than the historical Jesus. I wonder if it mentions that Nazareth didn't exist when Jesus was supposed to be alive (mistranslation of Jesus the Nazarene), or that crucifixtion was a punishment reserved solely for the political enemies of Rome. I wonder if it makes the mistake of portraying Mary Magdalene as a whore when she was, in actuality, of royal blood from the tribe of Benjamin. Most likely she was also the wife of Jesus since she's the most likely candidate and it would've been a religous crime for Jesus, especially being of royal blood himself (House of David) to not have been married. So many things have been edited out or obfuscated in the four gospels (out of many) that were chosen for inclusion in the bible.
Its better than biblical or historical. It's The Passion as "told" to two hallucinating 17th century nuns by some angel or other. Mel believes this to be historically accurate and supportive of his goal Articles like this are why TNR is worth the subscription ;)
To give you a further idea, here is a description of Gibson's father from the article:
"Then The New York Times Magazine published a profile of Hutton Gibson, the actor's father. He is what modern Catholics politely term a "traditionalist." Hutton Gibson considers the current papacy to be illegitimate. Vatican II--the Roman Church council in 1965 that, inter alia, changed liturgical language from Latin to spoken vernaculars, and expressed as a theological point of principle that all Jews everywhere could not be held culpable for the death of Jesus--he dismisses as a coup pulled off by Freemasons and Jews. He is also given to idiosyncrasy about the Holocaust (he believes that it never happened) and about September 11 (he believes that Al Qaeda was not involved)."
Hrm. Something got cut out there.
'supportive of his Traditionalist goals'