The Passion of the Christ

tonyheaney

I remember seeing this movie when it came out but time has blurred its premise. Would this movie be

a good place to better understand the story of Jesus

is it true to the story

or is it fictional?

HamsterFace

Gospel truth

I suppose

tonyheaney

???

Tipsy McSwagger

It's about as believable as the Lord of the Rings films.

strelok

iirc it's based on a medieval play that was used as a propaganda piece against the jews and is not all that based on the bible

tonyheaney

so nothing to do with the last 12 hours of his life then?

Sad Professor

It's based on the gospel accounts of Jesus's last 12 hours, yes.

Gibson plays up Jesus's suffering. And increases the role of Satan, though in way consistent with western traditions. Many people accuse the film of being antisemitic but the gospels are antisemitic, however Gibson probably adds to it with his Jewish stereotypes.

HamsterFace

Sad Professor wrote: »

It's based on the gospel accounts of Jesus's last 12 hours, yes.

Gibson plays up Jesus's suffering. And increases the role of Satan, though in way consistent with western traditions. Many people accuse the film of being antisemitic but the gospels are antisemitic, however Gibson probably adds to it with his Jewish stereotypes.

But then again Jesus and his ma were Jewish

Sad Professor

HamsterFace wrote: »

But then again Jesus and his ma were Jewish

Yeah and the early Christians were a Jewish sect. But Jesus didn't write the gospels. They were written 70-100 years after his death by his followers who weren't getting on too well with the Jewish majority at time.

Arghus

Supposedly it's a fairly accurate depiction of the suffering depicted in The Bible.

Even it's detractors usually have to concede that the film doesn't take wild liberties with the depiction of the floggin', scourgin', batin' and batterin'.Though I'm open to correction in that assertion, all you Biblical scholars out there...

I guess my problem with the movie isn't that it's so violent, but that it's at heart a fairly nihilistic and sadistic experience, which is a common element in of all his films. You spend a good hour wading through blood, guts, broken bones and flogged flesh and then only a get a few seconds of resserectory relief right at the...eh...death Gibson really wanted you to feel that pain and I think he wasn't all that interested in depicting the other side of the story, The Resurrection. Which is kinda the main point of the while thing; without that it's just a history lesson of some poor fella being tortured to death without much purpose.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Well, it wasn't the Mexicans!

shrapnel222

Scorsese's last temptation of christ is a much better watch, and it even rattled those militant catholics enough for them to start burning down cinemas which were showing it!

It's also got, imo, one of the greatest movie soundtracks ever made.

yerwanthere123

Alright film, but it all felt a bit futile. Any point that was trying to be made was completely lost in the needlessly prolonged violence.

LuckyLloyd

tonyheaney wrote: »

so nothing to do with the last 12 hours of his life then?

It's a stylised account and deliberately brutal but I would say it is pretty faithful to Gospel accounts at core, though it takes some artistic liberties aswell as drawing from the New Testament and other writings. The film also attempts historical context in terms of language (latin / reconstructed Hebrew) and dress, though it is limited and probably inaccurate on both points due to scholarly limitations.

The Wikipedia article discusses some of these aspects and is worth a read if you are trying to weigh up the film before watching:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_the_Christ#Script_and_language