Posted on 10/01/2003 6:05:22 PM PDT by AncientAirs
ROGER ROSENBLATT: The first thing one ought to say about "The Passion," Mel Gibson's new movie about the last hours of Jesus, is that one hasn't seen it. A few selected people have seen it; others have read the script. Each has responded in extreme and different ways. For the rest of us, the film and its reported incendiary judgments connecting Jews with the murder of Jesus can only be addressed in the abstract.
The problem has little to do with the First Amendment; it concerns responsibility. The exhibits in New York of the Virgin Mary stained by elephant dung, or the notorious urine- soaked Jesus, come to mind. One had the right to display these things, but was it right to do so? Responsibility is both a social and artistic question. The early silent film "The Birth of a Nation" promoted the Ku Klux Klan and portrayed African Americans as predatory and monstrous. The makers of "Birth of a Nation" could have claimed, as Gibson does, that they were just telling the truth as they saw it. But a perceived truth has consequences. Similarly, after World War I, all Germans in American film were portrayed as evil or as buffoons. See Erich von Stroheim, or Sig Ruman in the Marx Brothers films.
When one's version of the truth assaults categories of people-- Jews, blacks, or Germans-- one is on very dangerous, not to say murderous, ground. And one cannot claim simply that art is neutral in intention and at the same time claim, as Gibson does, that his film was meant to "inspire." If you insist on having it both ways, you ought to concede that's what you're doing. The "Wall Street Journal's" editorial pages have rhapsodized on how committed Gibson is to his religious vision. That vision derives from a conservative group of Catholics who deny the Vatican, and thus Vatican II, which repudiated the accusation that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death.
On the other side, a multi-denominational committee of religious scholars who read the movie script determined that it was scripturally inaccurate and anti-Semitic. Paula Frederickson, a professor of scripture at Boston University, found it "shocking." Sister Mary C. Boys, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, said that the film might cause "one of the great crises in Christian Jewish relations." Though Gibson claims that his film is not anti-Semitic, should he care about Sister Boys's judgment if he is true to his vision about the death of Jesus?
Should he be at all concerned that the scholars committee said that the passion could inspire anti-Semitic acts in Europe and elsewhere? If one answers those questions "yes," one can't be categorical either. Should all art be well- intentioned? "Gentleman's Agreement," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," and "Philadelphia" all had impeccable social messages, and yet were not great works of art. "The Passion" is not likely to be either.
And this is where the question of artistic responsibility comes in. Great works of art tend away from messages, good or bad. They tend to see all sides because their creators know that the wider the vision, the closer the truth. As a counterweight to "The Passion," one might read a new book by Erik Kolbell, former minister of the Riverside Church in New York City, called "What Jesus Meant." Focusing on the beatitudes, Kolbell sees Jesus as a rabbi spreading basic moral Jewish teachings. But the idea of finding a wider view ought not to be the public's responsibility. That responsibility is the artist's.
Shakespeare was under no obligation to sympathize with shylock in "The Merchant of Venice," yet he gave him the most humanizing speech in the play. The great writers, the great painters, the great movie makers earn our admiration not by a talent or two, or by a particular vision, like Gibson's, but rather by the breadth of their humanity. Shakespeare saw into Shylock's heart. As Jesus might have said, it was the heart of us all. I'm Roger Rosenblatt
I have not seen the film.
I’m going to cover my ass by saying that sacrilegious images that I never condemned before may have been wrong.
I don’t like Gibson’s religion.
I don’t like Christians who actually believe Christ was God.
Gibson is an anti-Semite.
I realize there have been unfortunate – and inexcusable – instances in the past of so called Christians blaming the Jews (or some Jews) for the death of Christ. I use term “so called” very advisedly; any true (i.e. knowledgeable) Christians know Jews were not responsible for the death of Christ – God was. Christ was not murdered he was sacrificed. He could have stepped down from the cross at any time; he chose not to. The death of Christ was not an evil act but an act of love, and Gods will.
This raises the question: is a movie responsible if it gives someone a stupid idea? Unless the movie is inflammatory, unless it suggests that God did not become man to take away our sins by offering himself as a sacrifice, but for some other reason, then the question of how some – deluded people – react to the movie is no more valid for this movie than any other.
It is of course important for Christians whether discussing this movie or under other circumstances, to denounce, as utter absurdity, the notation that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ.
The reference to Rosenblatt as a Rabbi was, of course, tongue in cheek.
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