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Mel Gibson's film on Jesus stirring controversy
Episcopal News Service
Issue:
Section:
2003-087-5
Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2003
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Australian film actor Mel Gibson is making what he calls a historically accurate film, 'The Passion,' on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus--and it is stirring apprehension and controversy.
The actor's father, Hutton Gibson, is a member of the traditionalist Roman Catholic movement that embraces a 16th century form that uses the Latin Mass and denies the legitimacy of all popes and church reforms since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Articles quote the father claiming that the Holocaust never happened and that the World Trade Center was destroyed in September 2001 by remote control.
Roman Catholic and Jewish scholars are expressing concern and alarm that the film might become a platform for some of the family's unusual views. 'What we have here is a rich filmmaker whose beliefs may counter what the teaching of the church has been for the last 50 years,' says Sister Mary Boys, a professor of theology at New York's Union Seminary. She worries that the film may 'blame the Jews for the death of Jesus,' a view that was repudiated by the Vatican Council.
'Historically, Passion plays have been very dangerous productions in terms of Christian attitudes towards Jews,' said Rabbi Eugene Korn, director of interfaith affairs at the Anti-Defamation League in New York. 'Many dramatic presentations of the Passion contained anti-Semitic elements that led to the charge of deicide and responsibility of Jews for the crucifixion--not only Jews who lived then but Jews for all time.'
Gibson, who directed, wrote and financed the film with $25 million of his own money, has been surprised and upset by the criticism. 'This is not a Christian versus Jewish thing,' he said in a television interview. 'Looking at Christ's crucifixion, I look first at my own culpability in that.'
Prof. William Fulco of Loyola Marymount College in Los Angeles defends Gibson, arguing that he has seen hours of the film's footage and finds nothing to question. He has also said 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.'
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