Bloody passion.(on the right)(The Passion of the Christ)(Movie Review)

NEW YORK, MARCH 9

THE film by Mel Gibson is moving because of its central contention, namely that an innocent man of high moral purpose was tortured and killed. It happens that the man in question, Jesus of Nazareth, is an object of worship, and that harm done unto Him, in the perspective of those (myself included) who regard Him as divine, is especially keen because it is not only inhuman, it is blasphemous. But suppose that a similar travail had been filmed centered upon not a Nazarene carpenter who taught the duty of love for others, but an attempted regicide. In 1757 Robert-Francois Damiens set out to assassinate Louis XV. The failed assassin was apprehended, and the king quickly restored from his minor wound. The court resolved to make an enduring public record of what awaits attempted regicides, to which end were gathered in Paris the half-dozen most renowned torturers of Europe, who in the presence of many spectators managed to keep Damiens alive for six hours of pain before he was finally drawn and quartered. What kind of an audience could Gibson get for a depiction of the last hours of Damiens?

The film depends on the objectification of the victim as--Jesus of Nazareth; but even then, the story it tells is a gross elaboration of what the Bible yields.

Consider Matthew: "And when [Pilate] had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified." "Then they spat on Him and took the reed and struck Him on the head." Luke: "I will therefore chastise Him and release Him"--Luke records that the soldiers "mocked" him. John: "So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him." "And [the soldiers] struck him with their hands."

What Gibson gave us in his Passion is the most prolonged human torture ever seen on the screen. It is without reason, and by no means necessarily derivative from the grand hypothesis that, after all, the Crucifixion was without reason, as Pontius Pilate kept on observing.