Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is a difficult film to deal with critically. It's such a cultural touchstone, in so many contradictory and paradoxical ways. I come to the film, inevitably, as a Mormon, a believing Christian. A number of prominent LDS luminaries have come out wholeheartedly in favor of the film, including novelist Orson Scott Card, filmmaker Kieth Merrill and former chair of the BYU Religion Department, Robert Millett. For me, though, the film is so relentless Catholic, and specifically Medieval Catholic, in its sensibilities, I found the film a very odd one for Mormons to have embraced. I don't mean to imply, of course, that we have nothing to learn from the Medieval Church, or that we ought to reject wholesale the genuine devotion displayed over a thousand years by our fellow Christians. I have often directed Medieval drama, and love the beauty and reverence of the Latin liturgy. But the more one studies Medieval thought, the more one realizes how differently we think today. Nowhere is that clearer than in the Passion.

I'm not sure any of the many critics who have written on the film have adequately conveyed just how peculiar it is. Although some of its defenders have suggested that it is taken directly from the synoptic gospels, that's not actually true. It employs all the state of the art technology and science of contemporary filmmaking to explore a story derived from the Gospels only in broad outline. In fact, structurally, it doesn't follow the Gospels at all. The entire structure of the film follows instead the liturgical stations of the cross.

However, the events Gibson chooses to dramatize are not drawn from the stations of the cross as currently found in the Catholic church. As part of the Vatican II reforms of 1965, the Catholic Church omitted such apocryphal events as Veronica's mopping the blood from Jesus face, or the three falls-the three times he's supposed to fallen down while carrying the cross. Instead, Gibson follows pre-Vatican II liturgies, and includes those events.[1]

At this point I should offer a quick disclaimer. I am not a medieval scholar, nor have I studied the film carefully. I am a Theatre teacher and practitioner, with an interest in the field. I am generally familiar with medieval drama, and I have certainly traipsed my way through plenty of medieval churches. And I have only seen the film once, and I have not read the screenplay. I'm responding to this film, frankly, because the reviews I've read of it, especially those written by Mormons, talking about it in specifically Mormon devotional terms, have also simultaneously placed the film in the center of what seem to me quite interesting cultural wars. Orson Scott Card, for example, writes of the film being 'in every way that matters, perfect." And of course he's perfectly welcome to write positively about his encounter with a film that genuinely moved him and genuinely strengthened his testimony. But when Card then writes that the film "strictly follows the only historical record we have of these events," that's factually inaccurate. The film doesn't actually follow the gospels much at all.

So when I say that the film is medieval in its approach, I don't just mean in terms of its graphic depiction of blood soaked violence. It's true that medieval Catholic iconography is more likely to feature sanguinary images of Christ's suffering than we might find in contemporary Catholicism. And it's certainly true that the scourging and crucifixion are portrayed endlessly and graphically. Roger Ebert says it's the most violent film he's ever seen, and he's right; it's certainly the most violent film I've ever seen. I mean that the medieval Catholic sensibility of the film finds expression all the way through, in the specific Passion events Gibson chose to film. And that sensibility seems to me in specific conflict with LDS understandings of the Passion. So, for example, during the crucifixion, we see Jesus' interactions with Dismas and Gesmas, the crucified thieves. And Gesmas, the wicked thief, mocks Dismas' sudden conversion. At that point, ravens fly in and peck out Gesmas' eyes. One might initially quibble with Gibson's decision to name the thieves Dismas and Gesmas, since no Biblical source for their names exists. But setting that aside, why the ravens? It's a piece of medieval apocryphal folklore, and surely suggests a vengeful, vindictive God. It reminds me, actually, of that lovely collection of Mormon folklore, The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith, in which essentially everyone in the state of Illinois at the time of the Martyrdom is described as dying of some dreadful, hideously painful disease. That book's been thoroughly repudiated, of course, but one fears that the mindset may still linger. It certainly does in Gibson's Passion.

We see precisely the same mindset in a much earlier scene, involving Judas Iscariot. He's found in a public square by some children, who begin mocking him. Suddenly, there's a shift and the children, who are initially normal looking, suddenly change into hideously deformed demons. They continue to hound him out of town, and finally abandon him by the corpse of a decaying dead donkey. The donkey is still wearing a harness, and close to its corpse is a tree. Judas eyes the tree, and uses the harness to hang himself.

Much of the film is devoted to similar scenes of strange magic, though not all suggest the vengeful, vindictive God of the Judas and Gesmas scenes. But in the Garden of Gethsemane, a hooded, androgynous Satan tempts Jesus. Suddenly, a worm crawls up Satan's nostril. Later in the film, we see Satan's Imp, a hideously deformed monster child, cradled in his dark master's arms. These strange reference to such apocrypha as Satan's Imp and the coming of the Anti-Christ might seem out of place in what's essentially a devotional film. It's the Sermon on the Mount that seems weird and inappropriate. We see only brief excerpts from that Sermon, and I did feel some excitement at getting to hear the greatest of Sermons as it would have sounded, in Aramaic. But Christ's teachings of forgiveness and charity seem strangely out of place in the film.

Blood is everywhere; this film is very much a tribute to sanguinary magic. In one of the strangest scenes in the film, Mary and Mary Magdalene look with horrified eyes on the torture chamber where Jesus was scourged. Suddenly, Pilate's wife runs up to them, and thrusts piles of cloth into their arms. And they get on their knees and scrub the floor clean.

The film is drenched in blood. Jesus' scourging, which became ultimately quite unwatchable, is portayed as an utter blood fest. By the end, the two soldiers who have been beating him are exhausted, and covered head to foot with his blood, and his own body has been ripped to shreds. The soldier who stabs Jesus in the side is suddenly awash in blood. We're meant to view the bloodshed of the film as literally salvationary; as the film's opening title quotes Isaiah, 'and by his stripes we are healed.' But Gibson's treatment of the soldier and his spear moment reminds me instead of the ancient legend that says that that soldier consequently lived forever, condemned to fight in war after war until the end of time.

I have directed medieval Passion plays twice, once in college, the York crucifixion, and once, at BYU, the longer Passion sequence from the Wakefield play of Corpus Christi. Gibson's film included specific details from those fourteenth century texts, including the way both texts expand on Matthew 27:19, to make Pilate's wife a convert to Christ's teachings. This is clearest in the crucifixion itself. In the York play, the soldiers are dismayed to find that they've mismeasured the cross. Jesus' arms are too short, and his hands won't reach the pre-drilled holes in the cross. So they stretch him, literally dislocate his shoulders so his hands will reach the holes they've drilled.

Astoundingly enough, that scene is portrayed, in York, as comic. It's a grim, awful sort of comedy, but it is comedic. (Nearly all medieval drama is predicated on abrupt comic-to-tragic shifts in tone). But of course Gibson's film doesn't go that route; the tone is at times baroquely grotesque, but it's always grim. And absent the context of medieval pageant wagon performance, the dislocation scene feels gratuitous. As a Mormon, I found myself wondering how that unnecessary detail could be reconciled with symbolism of the Passover. Christ's bones are conspicously unbroken in the film; why then dislocate his shoulders?

The most noticeable of the film's many strange choices is, of course, the use of violence. One colleague asked about Jim Caviezel's performance as Jesus. Caviezel is fine in the role, I suppose. But he's not really asked to create a character in any traditional sense. His character never forms a human relationship with any other character, except for one very brief (and quite lovely) flashback scene with Mary. Mostly, Jesus in this film gets beaten up. It's just relentless. From the moment of his arrest in Gethsemane, he's relentlessly, unremittingly, tortured. It's not just the scourging; he's been beaten half to death before the scourging ever even starts. And then the soldiers scourge him with sticks, and that's just a warm-up to what they do with real scourges, whips into which they've woven shards of broken glass. It's just endless. And then the commanding Roman officer orders the soldiers to stop, and you think, oh man, I'm glad that's over. But they're just turning him over so they can start in on his chest and stomach.

I have to say, for me, it was self-defeating. I had no sense of devotion, no feeling that Christ went through that for me, for my sins. In fact, Mormon theology insists that the atonement took place in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I don't know of any Christian theologian who thinks the scourging had much to do with it. Certainly the Bible's cursory account of the Scourging suggests no theological significance to the event. I just grew detached, and by the time we reached the crucifixion, exhausted. I thought it was an unpleasant film to watch, and I was glad when it was over. It wasn't a film about my religion. It was a film about the religion of people I've studied in history.

But what's really interesting about the film's violence is an issue that's been very prominent in Mormondom, the film's rating.

As I was walking out of the theatre, an elderly couple was walking ahead of me. And the wife turned to the husband, and said 'so, that's what R-rated films are like.' I have little doubt that a number of LDS folks will decide not to see the film because it's R-rated. I think it's also quite possible that this may be the only R-rated film others will see. And that fascinates me. Because this film is quite specifically NOT what R rated movies are like. The level of violence is far beyond that of any film I have ever seen. It's quite astounding, frankly, that the film wasn't rated NC-17.

Hence the following irony. To the limited degree that the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' have meaning in Mormonism, and to the even more limited degree that they might be applied to such ephemera as MPAA ratings, we would agree, I suppose, that 'liberal' Mormons would generally feel justified in seeing R rated films, and that 'conservative' Mormons would generally avoid them. One might presume, therefore, that conservative Mormons would avoid and dislike the film, and that liberal Mormons would embrace it. That is, I suppose, the way Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ was generally received. But the strongest positive reactions I've read among Mormons have been from people I generally think of as conservatives; Robert Millet, Orson Scott Card, Kieth Merrill. And the Mormon liberals I've talked to about it have generally been all over the map about it.

Still. Because the film is so relentlessly medieval in its sensibilities, the complaints about it fostering anti-Semitism come into clearer focus. While I'm by no means a medievalist, I'm a student of medieval drama, and I can't pretend that performances of Passion plays throughout the medieval world didn't have a troubling tendency to lead to anti-Semitic violence, to pogroms. And this film hearkens back to the Christian attitudes, and even the specific iconography, of the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth centuries. It's true that Gibson has cut the subtitle for the line where Caiaphas leads the rabble in chanting the line Matthew cites (27:25), 'his blood be upon us and upon our children.' (I think they still say it in Aramaic. I don't speak Aramaic, but they say something at that point in the film, quite a longish line which doesn't get a subtitle). And it's also true that specific Jewish characters in the film are portrayed sympathetically. Simon of Cyrene, who helps Jesus carry the cross, for example, is portrayed as genuinely kind and charitable, though not a believer. Still, the history of Passion plays aligns with histories of anti-Semitism in disturbing ways. And this is a medieval Passion set to film. I don't think concerns about this film provoking an upsurge in anti-Semitism are at all unfounded. So far, thank heavens, this doesn't seem to have happened. Those who feared that it might did, in my view, have legitimate grounds for such fears.

And yet, here's Orson Scott Card on that very issue:

What I find truly disturbing, as an American, is how the American Left, which supposedly glorifies free speech and cultural inclusion, should so brutally reveal their true colors. The fact that Gibson could not find distribution for this film, and had to turn his production company, Icon, into a distributor (a very expensive and difficult process), speaks volumes -- there was no such problem over The Last Temptation of Christ, which apparently was acceptable because it would offend Christians and denied the accuracy of the scriptural account. Hollywood touts itself as courageous -- just like the rest of the PC Left -- whenever they stomp on Christians. It's part of the elitist war on Christianity that's clearly going on. Other people's ethnic heritage or "folk beliefs" can be celebrated in school -- but Christian customs and beliefs can hardly be mentioned.

What's very interesting to me about the film is how it currently seems to be functioning in Mormon and Christian/American culture, including in our political culture. This film has been embraced primarily by conservative Protestants, by evangelicals and fundamentalists alike. And it seems to be increasingly popular as well by those Mormons who tend to align themselves politically with the Christian right. The very fact that Gibson initially had some difficulty finding distribution is being touted as further evidence of further persecution by the 'PC left' against Christians.

Anecdotal evidence for which: We had some folks over last week, to play games and eat snacks and chat. Old friends from the ward, combined with a new couple who have just moved in. The game we were playing is a kind of movie trivia game and so conversation rolled around to Mel's Passion. Overheard, this line of dialogue: 'boy, it's just getting harder and harder to be a Christian anymore. Here's Mel Gibson being persecuted for making a Christian film. The last days are upon us.'

I think there's a kind of Christian Right paranoia that this film, and the controversy surrounding it, plugs into. (I don't mean, of course, to suggest that there's also not a large degree of paranoia among liberals.) Newsweek and Salon have both done big stories about Passion, and in both cases, have interviewed Christian clergy who would probably be considered 'liberal' clergy, specifically in regards to their willingness to embrace Biblical higher criticism. To these scholars, the Gospel of Matthew should be seen, in part, a political text. Accordingly, there's no reason to think that Caiaphas did lead a Jewish mob to shout 'crucify him,' or that they essentially forced Pilate's hand, or that they shouted 'let his blood be upon us.' Whoever wrote Matthew (probably not Matthew) had an interest in attacking the Temple hierarchy of his day, as well as an interest in flattering the Roman authorities of the day, so he created a sympathetic Pilate, and a bloodthirsty Jewish mob. Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers. To blame it, or even any part of it, on Jews is historically dubious.

To Christian evangelicals, however, these are fighting words. Not all evangelicals teach inerrancy of Scripture, Biblical literalism, but many do, and most evangelicals are uncomfortable with higher criticism. So are most Mormons. So to accuse this film of anti-Semitism is, in part, to accuse Matthew of anti-Semitism, which means in turn you're accusing the Bible of anti-Semitism. So the liberal forces of political correctness are attacking a good Christian film. That seems to be how some of the argument is being framed, anyway.

However, to embrace higher criticism, to detect in Matthew's text a political agenda, to question whether Matthew wrote it, to question whether or not Jewish high priests incited a new riot to get Jesus crucified is as legitimately Christian as embracing inerrancy is. To say 'as a Christian, I didn't care for this film' is as legitimately a Christian response as to say 'as a Christian, I was profoundly moved by it' is. To say that good Christians should embrace this film is as nonsensical as saying that good Christians should dislike The Last Temptation of Christ. I'm reminded of current political rhetoric, which implies that President Bush, as an evangelical Baptist, is more legitimately Christian than Senator Kerry, a Catholic, or of the suggestion that Republicans and conservatives are more legitimately patriotic or American than liberal Democrats are. This is a film that plugs into a cultural war, and what's distressing is that it's a cultural war that need never have been fought.

Obviously, the Left is as prone to demonize the Christian right' as the right is to demonize 'the forces of political correctness.' But evangelical Protestantism does exist, and does have a history. And no serious student of American religious history could fail to notice American Protestantism's long battle with Catholicism. So it may well be seen as a positive development, to see how sympathetic current evangelical Protestants seem to be to a quintessentially Catholic text like Gibson's Passion. Evangelical Protestants also have, of course, a history of anti-Mormonism. Strange bedfellows indeed, to see who's championing this film, and then to see the film. Is there something weirdly medieval and weirdly pre-Vatican II Catholic about some elements in conservative Mormon culture? And/or current evangelical Protestantism? Apart from a shared hostility to science? And, at times, a shared commitment to a peculiarly unChristian kind of power politics?

Did I like the film? I think my response was more complicated than that. Generally, I thought that the film was most effective when focusing on people other than Jesus than it was when he was at the center of the movie. I thought the actor who played Peter, for example, was superb. There's a lovely moment when Jesus falls while carrying the cross, and we see a flashback to a moment in his childhood when he fell and scraped his knee, and Mary ran to him, and we cut back and forth between a child crying, a mother running, and Mary watching Jesus with the cross, then running to help her fallen son. That was lovely. I haven't talked much about Mary in the film, but she is predictably omnipresent, and a very powerful visual presence in the film. Although the resurrection didn't take a lot of time in the film, it was nicely handled, and I found it quite moving. And when Jesus dies, we cut to basically a satellite photo of Golgotha, and we Jesus reflected in a tiny drop of water, which then falls from the sky, a tear from Our Father's eye, and when it hits the ground, an earthquake hits. That was a terrific moment, I thought.

It's a very strange cultural phenomenon, the way a weirdly obsessive pre-Vatican II Catholic film becomes a touchstone for American Protestants. And Mormons. But then, it's a very peculiar film, a medieval Passion play, using state of the art Hollywood technology. I thought it was actually a fascinating film, in many ways as foreign to my own sensibilities as reading the York play of Corpus Christi generally is to my students' sensibilities, and for precisely the same reasons.

[1]In the Vatican II reform, Pope Paul added a fifteenth station, the resurrection from the dead. St. Francis of Assisi includes, in his stations, St. Veronica, but omits the three falls. Earlier liturgies have had twelve, thirteen or fourteen stations.

Eric Samuelsen