This is a commentary
by DAVID LIMBAUGH about Mel Gibson's movie regarding Christ's
crucifixion. It's worth reading.
MEL GIBSON'S passion for "THE PASSION"
How ironic that when a movie
producer takes artistic license with
historical events, he is lionized as artistic, creative and brilliant,
but when another takes special care to be true to the real-life story, he
is vilified. Actor-producer Mel Gibson
is discovering these truths the
hard way as he is having difficulty finding a
distributor for his upcoming film, "The Passion," which depicts the
last 12 hours of
the life of Jesus Christ. Gibson co-wrote the script and financed, directed and
produced the movie. For the script, he and his co-author relied on the
New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as the
diaries of St. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) and Mary of Agreda's
"The City of God."
Gibson doesn't want this to be like other sterilized religious epics. "I'm trying to access
the story on a very personal level and trying to be very real about it." So committed to realistically portraying what many would consider the most important
half-day in the history of the universe, Gibson even shot the film in the Aramaic language of the period. In response to objections that viewers will not be able to understand that language, Gibson said, "Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend the language barriers
with my visual storytelling; if I fail, I
fail, but at least it'll be a monumental failure."
To further insure the
accuracy of the work, Gibson has enlisted the counsel
of pastors and theologians, and has received rave reviews. Don Hodel,
president of Focus on the Family, said, "I was very impressed. The movie is historically and theologically accurate." Ted Haggard,
pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and president of the National Evangelical Association, glowed: "It conveys, more accurately than any
other film, who Jesus was."
During the filming, Gibson, a devout Catholic, attended Mass every morning
because "we had to be squeaky clean just working on this." From
Gibson's perspective, this movie is not about Mel Gibson. It's bigger than he
is. "I'm not a preacher, and I'm not a pastor," he said. "But I
really feel
my career was leading me to make this. The Holy Ghost was working through
me on this film, and I was just directing traffic. I hope the film has the
power to evangelize."
Even before the release of the movie, scheduled for March 2004, Gibson
is getting his wish. "Everyone who worked on this movie was changed. There
were agnostics and Muslims on set converting to Christianity...[and] people
being healed of diseases." Gibson wants people to understand through
the movie, if they don't already, the incalculable influence Christ has had
on the world. And he grasps that Christ is controversial precisely because
of WHO HE IS - GOD incarnate. "And
that's the point of my film really, to show all that turmoil around
him politically and with religious leaders and
the people, all because He is Who He
is."
Gibson is beginning to experience first hand just how controversial
hrist is. Critics have not only speciously challenged the movie's
authenticity, but have charged that it is disparaging to Jews, which Gibson
vehemently denies. "This is not a Christian vs. Jewish thing. '[Jesus]
came into
the world, and it knew him not.' Looking at Christ's crucifixion, I look first at my
own culpability in that."
Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, who
translated the script into Aramaic and
Latin, said he saw no hint of anti-Semitism in the movie. Fulco added, "I
would be aghast at any suggestion that Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic."
Nevertheless, certain groups and some in the mainstream press have been very
critical of Gibson's "Passion."The New York Post's Andrea Peyser chided him: "There is still time, Mel, to tell the truth." Boston Glove columnist James Carroll
denounced Gibson's literal reading of the biblical
accounts. "Even a faithful repetition of the Gospel stories of the death of
Jesus can do damage exactly because those sacred texts themselves carry the virus of Jew hatred, "wrote
Carroll. A group of Jewish and Christian academics has issued an 18-page report
slamming all aspects of the film, including its undue emphasis on Christ's passion rather than "a broader vision." The report
disapproves of the movie's treatment of Christ's passion as historical fact.
The moral is that if you want
the popular culture to laud your work on Christ, make sure it either
depicts Him as a homosexual or as an everyday sinner with no particular
redeeming value (literally). In our anti-Christian culture, the blasphemous "The Last Temptation of Christ"
is celebrated and "The Passion" is condemned. But if this movie continues to affect
people the way it is now, no amount of cultural opposition will suppress its
force and its positive impact on lives everywhere. Mel Gibson is a model of faith and
courage.
Please send this on to all your friends to let them know about this
film so that we'll all go see it when it comes out.
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