In 2004, the faith-based film genre received a jolt from an unlikely source. Mel Gibson, who secured his international movie stardom in the “Mad Max” and “Lethal Weapon” franchises, had proven his worth as a filmmaker with the 1995 “Braveheart,” winning Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. Gibson was no stranger to Jesus-centric films – his Icon Productions was one of the companies that backed the animated feature “The Miracle Maker” – and the financial success he secured from his movies enabled him to independently finance his own feature on Jesus.
Working without studio interference, Gibson intentionally went in creative directions that were never traveled by earlier filmmakers. For starters, Gibson wanted to retell Jesus’ experience in the languages of ancient Judea. After collaborating on a screenplay with Benedict Fitzgerald, he contracted William Fulco, a professor at Loyola Marymount University, to translate the work into Latin, Hebrew and a reconstructed version of the Aramaic that would have been spoken in Jesus’ time.
Focusing on the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life, Gibson culled the four Gospels but also added the Marian apparitions attributed to the nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774 – 1824), which were
compiled into two books by the poet Clemens Brentano. These books sparked intense debate within the Roman Catholic Church, but Gibson followed an ultra-conservative branch of Catholicism that rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, including the 1965 decree declaration “Nostra Aetate” that denounced anti-Semitism and formally rejected the accusation of deicide against the Jewish people for Jesus’ death.
By concentrating on the circumstances that resulted in Jesus’ death, Gibson opted to place a brutal realism to the physical torture that Jesus underwent. The result was a harsh and bloody consideration of how Jesus’ body was torn apart during the scourging by Roman soldiers, tested further by carrying the cross through Jerusalem’s streets and finally subjected to the intense agony of being nailed to the cross and crucified until dead. Prior to this film, there had not been a big screen Jesus who suffered so mightily and so painfully.
As a result of these creative decisions, Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” turned out to be among the most eccentric mainstream Jesus-centric films ever made. Part of the problem was Gibson’s mania for artistic flourishes, ranging from a seemingly endless number of slow-motion shots to the unsubtle inclusion of an androgynous Satan appearing throughout the film as a quiet manipulator of the tragedy that unfolds.
Gibson also took significant liberties with several of the characters in the story, starting almost immediately when the temple guards who arrest Jesus at Gethsemane and throw him off a bridge. Judas’ motive for betrayal is never explained, but the remorse he suffers for his action is compounded by having him tormented by a group of violent children who chase him out of Jerusalem.
Pilate’s wife, called by her non-canonical name Claudia, is not only an active advocate before her husband on behalf of Jesus, but goes one step further by identifying Mary in the crowd after His scourging and giving her thick white towels to wipe the blood from the ground left from the sadistic punishment. On the road to Calvary, Jesus is joined by the two thieves who will be crucified alongside him – both men carry their own crosses and bicker between each other while insulting Jesus – and the non-canonical Veronica also shows up to soak His image onto a cloth.
But in this film, Simon of Cyrene becomes so irritated by the crowd’s abuse of Jesus that he puts down the cross and berates all around him to knock it off – the Roman soldiers are initially amused by this temper tantrum but agree to restore order and let the procession continue without the crowd’s input.
Gibson shot his film in Italy, using a mix of European actors for most of the roles – outside of Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene, most of the cast were not familiar to U.S. audiences. Jim Caviezel, a Hollywood actor who headlined a number of well-regarded dramas, was tapped to play Jesus. While Caviezel did an admirable job emoting the physical suffering that Jesus underwent during the Passion, Gibson’s screenplay failed to offer evidence of how Jesus could have made such an intellectual and emotional impact. One flashback had a pre-ministry Jesus constructing an oversized table at his family’s carpentry shop, much to His mother’s bafflement – Gibson presented a playful Jesus who seemed like a completely different person than the serious preacher. Flashbacks to the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper were crafted in such a flat manner that Caviezel displays no charisma or authority in his role. Indeed, by the time Pilate openly wondered why Jesus is creating such a furor among the Sanhedrin chieftains, Cavaziel’s Jesus was so close to being a blank slate that one could share the Roman governor’s confusion.
But if Gibson’s filmmaking could be debated, his promotional skills needed to be admired. Rarely was a film marketed with such aggressive gusto as “The Passion of the Christ,” with Gibson coordinating advance screenings for U.S. evangelical leaders, the heads of several mainstream Protestant faiths, and Pope John Paul II. The papal audience resulted in a controversy over whether the Pope approved of the film, with initial reports by Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan claiming John Paul II reacted to the film by saying “It is as it was” and other reports calling that claim false.
But the accuracy of the papal quote paled to the charges of anti-Semitism within Gibson’s work. The backlash to Gibson’s perceived anti-Semitism actually began before the film released, when the Anti-Defamation League and several Jewish leaders called out Gibson and his work without having seen the finished film.
Compared to other films in this genre, “The Passion of the Christ” put a considerable emphasis on the role of Caiaphas and his fellow Sanhedrin leaders’ role in Jesus’ persecution, with Pilate demoted to a weakling easily bullied by the Jewish religious leaders. Caiaphas also showed up at Calvary to ensure Jesus is crucified and will die – another artistic liberty. The original director’s cut included Caiaphas bellowing the line from Matthew: “His blood be on us and on our children” – a quote that was justified for anti-Semitic persecution by Christians for centuries. Gibson initially promised to remove the line to appease objections raised by Jewish leaders, but reneged and kept it intact, only removing the English subtitle while the line was proclaimed in an Aramaic-language proclamation that contemporary audiences would not recognize.
The controversies surrounding the film dominated the news for weeks before the film opened and continued in the weeks after its premiere. Not surprisingly, this piqued the interest of movie audiences, and Gibson’s efforts paid off handsomely – the $30 million “The Passion of the Christ” grossed $612 million, making it the most profitable film inspired by Jesus’ life.
This article is excerpted from Phil Hall’s book “Jesus Christ Movie Star.”