Posted on 2/28/2004, 6:08:03 AM by paltz
WARWICK -- Sobbing and muttering "Why?" the elderly woman scampered through the darkened theater yesterday like a lost mouse in a maze trying to find her way out, while on the screen a mob descended on Jesus Christ.
As they spit in his eyes and bloody his face, the woman took another wrong turn. Shaking now, she headed toward the back seats where Kerri Haxton-Kitts, of Richmond, finally took her by the arm and led her out.
Haxton-Kitts was crying, too, but she returned to watch the rest of the movie.
After months of contentious debate, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ opened in theaters around the country yesterday, on Ash Wednesday, the start of the most solemn season on the Christian calendar.
For one woman at the 12:30 showing at the Showcase Cinema in Warwick, the gory depiction of Christ's bloody sacrifice was too much to bear.
But for others -- many of whom came with ashes on their foreheads and crucifixes on their chests -- the $6.25 matinee was nothing short of a religious experience.
"I started crying before I got here and I haven't stopped since," said Haxton-Kitts, moments after the movie ended with the audience greeting Christ's resurrection with tearful applause.
"I knew it was going to be gruesome and I don't go to gruesome movies but I was drawn to this one," she said. "It was spiritually moving."
Haxton-Kitts looked out into the audience where roughly 75 of the 250 people who attended were still seated quietly, staring up at the srolling credits.
"I think they are all just moved," she said.
For months, Gibson's privately funded movie about the last hours of Jesus' life has been criticized for its portrayal of Jews. Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League worried it might reignite anti-Semitism on the part of those people who hold Jews responsible for Christ's death.
More recently it has come under attack for its violence and bloodshed. Reviewer David Denby, of The New Yorker, writes in this week's issue that Gibson's movie "is a sickening, death trip, a grimly unilluminating procession of treachery, beatings, blood and agony . . . "
Denby said Gibson was so fixated on the scourging and tearing of Christ's flesh that he falls in danger of altering Jesus' message of love into one of hate.
But few who saw the movie yesterday seemed to share that opinion, supporting Gibson and the Biblical story central to their own lives.
"I'm 54 and I've seen a number of Jesus movies," said Paul Terry, pastor of the Faith Presbyterian Church, in Cranston. "None of those movies more accurately portrayed what we know through the Gospels Jesus went through."
Beatings, whippings and crucifixions were part of the Roman system of control, Terry said. "And seeing it was overpowering to my intellect and to my emotions."
Adam DeGraide, a member of the board of directors for the New Song Christian Fellowship Church, in West Warwick, watched the movie with several fellow churchgoers.
"Was it pretty brutal? Was it difficult to watch? Absolutely. Was it worth it at the end? Absolutely."
"The Bible says there is no forgiveness of sins," DeGraide said, "without the shedding of blood."
Bruce Ritchotte, of West Warwick, said the movie's blood and gore -- which included the flesh of Jesus being ripped off his back and sides, exposing his ribs -- "was kind of disgusting."
"I think they overdid the whipping and the blood, but they stuck pretty much to the Bible's telling of the story."
A.J. Kirkwood, an electrical engineer from South Kingstown, took the day off yesterday to see the movie with his wife, Stacy, and Stacy's sister and brother-in-law.
A Catholic, Kirkwood said the movie was incredibly powerful, putting moving, vivid and, yes, atrocious images to his faith.
"The movie was as good as all the hype about it," he said. "And I didn't come away blaming the Jews today [for Christ's death] anymore than you blame today's Germans for the Holocaust."
Dan Cleary, of Newport, attended the movie with his friend Jim Rudnick, deacon of Jesus the Savior Church in Newport.
"I'm so glad I saw it on Ash Wednesday," said Cleary. "I think it will make me a better Christian because right now I am truly sorry for all my sins."
Cleary, like all of the other Christian movie-goers who were questioned, said the film wasn't anti-Semitic at all but held to the Biblical teaching that the Jews, the Romans, everyone was responsible for Christ's death and that he died for everyone's sin.
"All of us put him on the cross," said Cleary.
Even Susan Weiner had a change of heart while watching the film.
Weiner and her husband, Mark, of East Greenwich, are both Jewish. They went to the movie yesterday, they said, because their 12-year-old daughter had expressed interest in seeing it and they worried about its violence.
Early in the movie -- as the Jewish high priests are screaming loudest for Christ's death -- Susan Weiner said, "I feel we are going to be victimized, we as a people."
But by the end of the movie, Susan Weiner said Gibson had treated the Jews fairly.
"I felt that everyone was responsible for the death of Jesus."
The movie opened in more than 3,000 theaters nationwide.
In the 90 theatres operated by Showcase Cinemas, 76 were showing The Passion yesterday and many of those theaters were reporting sellouts, said Showcase spokeswoman Jennifer McGuire Hansen.
Tickets for the movie went on sale two weeks ago and many of them were bought up immediately by religious organizations and church groups, said McGuire Hansen.
Pastor Ronald L. Squibb, of the South Attleboro Assembly of God Church, said his congregation of 700 purchased 600 tickets for two special showings at the Showcase Cinemas in North Attleboro -- one last night and one next month.
"People are talking about Jesus and we are using the movie as a tool," he said. "People are searching for answers and searching for truth. This movie shows what Jesus Christ did and what it means for us today."
DeGraide, the board member of the New Song church in West Warwick, bought 900 tickets out of his own pocket, he said. He is distributing them to members of his church and their friends in the form of evangelical work.
Yes, $5,625 is a lot of money, he said, but well worth it.
With Mel Gibson's help, "it's an investment in eternity."
Glory to God it was Him working through Gibson.
I believe this is partially to prepare true believers for the tribulation shortly ahead.
Does that mean you think Kerry's going to be elected?
Amen brother.
So the anit-Semitic tactic didn't work. And the gore-fest charge isn't working either, except to generate more interest in the movie. Oh well 8-)
So do I.
Yes, that is correct, it WAS sickening… it was a precession of treachery, beatings, blood and agony. And HE did it all for YOU.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
It's tragic that the Vatican remains largely unrepentant for torturing jews and Christians.
To categorically blame an entire religion and it's followers for the actions of a few hundreds of years ago is bigotry, plain and simple. It's the same sort of logic which justifies the very persecution you two protest. Btw, the Inquisition wasn't about male dominance, it was about heresy. Being a gender-marxist and a bigot you apparently look at it as a gender rights issue.
Gee, I'm sensing liberal thinker here. [exhausted sigh].
Please, reduce your time in front of the television and don't reply.
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