05139
March 10, 2005

A less horrific ‘Passion’     

Gibson hopes film will become a permanent part of Easter season

by Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON, DC — Easter is that time of year that conjures up images of bunny rabbits, Easter bonnets, jelly beans — and Mel Gibson?

     The actor/director who unveiled his blood‑soaked vision of Jesus’ last hours in “The Passion of the Christ” last year is back with a “softer” version that hits at least 500 theaters nationwide on Friday (March 11).

     “The Passion Recut” is something of a “second coming” for Gibson, a devout Roman Catholic whose film was snubbed by Hollywood despite heartland appeal and a global box office gross of $611 million. Gibson promises to re-release his film each year at Easter — a prospect that, for better or worse, could make the film a permanent part of the American Easter experience.

     Gibson said he cut six minutes of “some of the more horrific aspects” from the film, in part to broaden its appeal to younger viewers. The original was rated “R”; the recut also would have been rated “R” but is being released without a rating.

     Some fans say the film reinforces what they see as the central message of Easter and the heart of Christian faith: the suffering Jesus endured to save sinners.

     “Prior to the movie, the depiction of Christ’s crucifixion was stained-glass windows,” said the Rev. Jim Buckman, whose Springfield, MO, church will screen the film the night before Easter. “It was almost surreal, it wasn’t really reality. Gibson set out to show everything. He wanted to show every blow, every strike. He didn’t make it nearly what it could have been.”   

     Churches have found many ways to incorporate the film into Easter observances — from group outings to weekly viewings alongside the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent. Down the road from Buckman’s church, all 37 adult Sunday school classes at James River Assembly of God in Ozark, MO, are spending the four weeks before Easter studying the film.

     Buckman was so taken with the movie that he now projects a half‑dozen still images from it during weekly Communion at River of Life Lutheran Church. He says it’s like a 21st-century icon, a visceral way for worshippers to meditate on Jesus’ words, “This is my body, which is given for you.”

     His flock’s reaction? “They loved it,” Buckman said.

     In many ways, the film has become a sort of theological Rorschach test, forcing people to gauge their beliefs and test their comfort zones in response to Jesus’ bloody human death.

     Christian fans note that one can’t get to Easter Sunday without enduring Good Friday, the crucifixion day portrayed by Gibson. The Rev. John Bartunek, a Catholic priest and a consultant on the film, credits Gibson for putting “flesh and bones” back on Jesus.

     “The meaning of Easter isn’t bunnies and jelly beans,” said Bartunek, author of the new book Inside the Passion. “If (the film) becomes a fixture, great, I say. Great. It reminds us of what Easter is all about.”

     While the edited version spares viewers some of the most graphic violence in the original film, critics say it still contains troubling overtones that seem to blame some of Jesus’ fellow Jews for his death.

     Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti‑Defamation League, remains a vocal opponent of the film. He criticized Gibson for responding to the concerns about violence but not to those about how Jews are portrayed.

     “To have available, year in and year out, this perverse, hateful, inaccurate version of the Passion, which is totally out of sync with Christian thought and today’s theology, is troubling,” Foxman said.   

     Peter Pettit, director of the Institute for Jewish‑Christian Understanding at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, called Gibson “shameless” for exploiting Christian piety and said he “would never want the images of this film to become the standard by which this story is known.” Pettit is Lutheran.

     Pettit said he wonders whether “The Passion” will become an Easter staple, comparable to “Rudolph the Red‑Nosed Reindeer” at Christmas or “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” at Halloween.

     Not likely, said pop-culture expert Robert Thompson of Syracuse University, because families have to “go out, pay the money and get the babysitter” to see it at the local multiplex.