All posts by Danny

The Passion of the Christ (Hearts) – Homework #3

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I’ve never watched this film before and I’m not a religious person, Ā but I remember all the controversy that was talked about for this movie at the time of its release. It was highly criticized for its extreme and detailed violence, for not being nearly historically accurate and allegations of antisemitism. The film was so violent that critics cautioned parents to not bring their kids to see the movie due to the extreme scenes of violence throughout the movie. Some scholars defended the film saying it wasn’t meant to be historically accurate. The director, Mel Gibson, has said, “I think that my first duty is to be as faithful as possible in telling the story so that it doesn’t contradict the Scriptures. Now, so long as it didn’t do that, I felt that I had a pretty wide berth for artistic interpretation, and to fill in some of the spaces with logic, with imagination, with various other readings.” There were criticisms of prominent antisemitism content in the film before releasing, that the New York Assemblyman at the time told companies to not distribute the film because its “unhealthy to Jews all over the world”, according to Dov Hikind. Gibson was asked by Bill O’Reilly if his movie would upset Jews, he said, “It’s not meant to. I think it’s meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible.” I hope some day I can see for myself how extreme the violence is in this movie but it seems like this movie is type 5 of the most controversial movies of all time.