I am currently watching the worst movie ever made. It is a political statement. It is also completely STUFFED with self-contradictions. What it depicts is utterly ridiculous.
Probably most of you already think this is a bad movie. But I’m not sure you realize how bad it is. Or how dangerous it is.
The Passion of the Christ is an excersise in bathos. It is a political statement founded on bathos.
Definition: “Bathos: Insincere or greatly sentimental pathos.” In other words, pathetically stupid to the point of absurdity.
Remember: Jesus Christ was supposed to be a human, with all the frailties of a human. He was also God. The entire point was supposed to be that God became “man” (in the old sexist way of putting it.)
Here are some reasons why this is the worst movie ever made:
(1) You’re supposed to think it’s a realistic depiction of what the crucifiction of Christ was like. It’s supposed to be devastatingly “realistic.” It’s not.
It’s unintentionally hilarious. The main character is beaten with whips, beaten with chains with fish-hooks. Beaten with rods. For hours. Let me repeat this: chains with fish-hooks.
At the end, his back is bloody. Sorry. Wrong. At the end of this, he would have no back. He would be hamburger.
(2) Utter contradiction: When the main character is first condemned, we see the Jews demanding his execution. Ranting and raving. The Romans look uncomfortable with this vitriol. Well, whatever.
But then, during the unspeakable (and in fact absurd) hour-long-on-screen torture of the main character, it is the Romans who look pleased and sadistic. Where did that come from? Forget historical accuracy. This is just cheating. Bathos.
(3) The music. The bathos. The utter absurdness. THE FACT THAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY.
What is the message here? Well: on the one hand, we know that Mel Gibson has a self-torture complex. Think of the end of Braveheart. Think of Lethal Weapon. He adores depicting martyrs, for some masochistic reason.
On the other hand: people take this shit seriously. They think it reminds them of the main character’s suffering.
But this movie: this bloodthirsty rant, is terrible. I am so disgusted with Mel Gibson I want to vomit.
Yeah, I thought the movie was tripe. Disgusting.
And when I heard Napoli’s infamous little sodomized virgin talk, my first thought was, “man, this asshole must have LOVED The Passion of the Christ.
There’s something pathologically wrong with it.
Majority World, and no small number of friendly wagers, the question of whether or if the west will ever make a movie about anything that happened in the Middle East thousands of years ago that does not depict a region solidly populated with Caucasians. (However Mr. Gibson does deserve some small sprinkle of props for having a Jesus who does not have yellow hair)
Since both anthropologists and common sense tell us that thousands of years ago, there had been relatively little mixing between the tribes of Europe and the people of the desert lands compared to modern today, whereas the proximity of those desert lands to Africa has remained unchanged, it is reasonable to assume that not only Jesus, his family, friends, and neighbors, were, like Abraham, Moses et.al. what would today be referred to in the US as “black people.” ;->
I have never seen this movie, nor do I intend to.
I remember when it hit the theaters, and some people at work were asking me: “have you seen ‘the passion’ yet”?
I said no, I am an atheist, to me it would just be watching a hippie get tortured to death by the powers that be; I don’t get off on snuff-flicks and I see too much of that sort of thing in current events.
For some strange reason, the ‘passion people’ stopped talking to me…
I still think the worst movie ever made was Disney’s “The Black Hole.” But wow, you may have knocked that one out of the top spot. I had to walk out on the film. I was raised Catholic. I knew how it was going to end. And I’m just not into S&M, you know?
And the funny thing, as bad as this one is reputed to be, is that the moron right refused to see Last Temptation, which may be one of the BEST Jesus movies, if not the best, ever made…
and if the National Geographic article is right, it’s also one of the most accurate, at least about the garden. About the visions, the dream sequence, we will of course never know, but from my viewpoint that was far and away the most believable reading I’ve ever seen… which of course was why the fundies would have hated it, because it exposed them for the frauds they are.
The Last Temptation of Christ,is in my opinion a masterpiece. I could not bring myself to the point where I wished to see the Gibson.
If you’ve never heard it, I highly recommend the music from the Scorsese film, composed by Peter Gabriel, and still available http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000000OR5/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/002-3409391-7856865?%5F
encoding=UTF8&n=5174&s=music], a truly beautiful piece of work and a masterpiece in its own right.
Peace