Word: jesus
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Cohen draws a distinction between the traditional anti-Jewish doctrine of the Catholic church, which condemns the Jews who killed Jesus, with the anti-Semitic hatred of other Jews because of their ancestors. He said Vatican II tried to end only the latter...
...Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Right Stuff, Gibson's The Patriot), is an attractive clash of eerie blues in the outdoor night scenes, burnished umbers in the trial scenes and blistering whites and yellows on the road to Calvary. The cast, led by James Caviezel as a gaunt, haunted Jesus, is well chosen and smartly directed. The screenplay, by Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald, begins starkly in the Garden of Olives--no loaves and fishes, no wedding feast at Cana--but adds nonbiblical flashbacks to Jesus' idyllic childhood with his beloved mother Mary (powerfully embodied by Maia Morgenstern). It also visualizes...
...piety are so often mocked in modern pop culture that Gibson could seem a radical just for approaching the Gospels with a straight face. The director, who won a Best Picture Oscar for Braveheart, has put his money ($30 million) where his faith is. In dramatizing the torment of Jesus' last 12 hours, he has made a serious, handsome, excruciating film that radiates total commitment. Few mainstream directors have poured so much of themselves into so uncompromising a production. Whatever the ultimate verdict on Gibson's Passion, it's hard not to admire Gibson's passion...
...film anti-Jewish? Well, which Jews? Start with the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical senate that found Jesus guilty of violating temple law and handed him to the Roman authority for summary punishment. The rabbis had their reasons; they saw the upstart as dangerous, blasphemous, possibly insane for proclaiming himself the Messiah and telling his followers they would live forever if they ate his flesh and drank his blood. The film sees the rabbis as doctrinally pure but politically corrupt. Indeed, it suggests they are a rogue cell calling a midnight caucus for a frame-up. But Gibson also shows many Jews...
Like most movies, this one favors the underdog, the insurgent, the solitary hero against the powerful. Gibson's Jesus is a traditional movie rebel. He shows steely contempt for authority, chastens his mates for being slackers and argues with his Father--the God who sent him on this sacred suicide mission. This Jesus is so human he almost forgets he's divine. The grotesque pain he endures in his last 12 hours nearly blinds him to his task of redeeming mankind by dying for it. His memories are not those of a distant godhead but of his youth in Nazareth...