Students discuss Gibson's controversial 'Passion of the Christ'

Three Princeton students recently saw Mel Gibson's much anticipated and talked about "The Passion of the Christ," and sat down together to discuss the film and the most important issues it raises. Each student identifies with a different religious viewpoint: Chana Landes '06 is Jewish; Christian Burset '07 is Christian; Jessica Gasiorek '06 is of undecided faith. What follows is a transcription of pieces of their conversation.

CL: Is the movie fundamentally anti-Semitic or not?

CL: . . . I would say it is anti-Semitic. Before I saw the movie, I don't think I was ready to make that definite statement, but now that I've seen it, I think that Mel Gibson did make some conscious decisions that clearly portray the Jews as a group . . . as the villain, as responsible for the crucifixion and just . . . he portrays them as a really angry mob . . . animal-like, without any order, just ready to fight with each other and kill, and I thought it was a really negative portrayal . . .

CB: I was going to say that whether or not the movie is anti-Semitic depends on whether it encourages anti-Semitic feelings, it depends on the viewer himself. I think if someone comes in there hating Jews, he's going to leave there hating Jews. If someone goes in there with a fairly well-balanced mind, I don't think that's going to tip him over.

CL: I think there are elements that are, to me, clearly anti-Semitic. The scene I found especially shocking was when the little Jewish boys are chasing Judas and just the way they're portrayed as these little demons, heckling him and torturing him. And just the way they looked made me think of little Eastern European Jewish children. They didn't look like the other people in the movie; they had this really thick, curly hair and they were wearing black yarmulkes, and it just seemed kind of anachronistic . . .

CL: I think the movie is excruciatingly violent . . . I couldn't even watch almost half of it . . . I'm a squeamish person. I don't think that violence in movies will inspire violence . . . and you can't help but sympathize with Jesus, even if you're not Christian. I'm Jewish, but you watch and you definitely cringe and you can't help feeling sympathy for him . . . and I think what that does for the viewer is instinctively sympathize and have a really harsh opinion of whoever's unleashing this violence, whether it's Romans or Jews . . . and I think it's just a really cheap cinematic technique.

JG: At some point I think it begins to distract from the film and from the message he's trying to make rather than adding to it. It gets to a point, like you said, where you have to look away. I don't consider myself that squeamish as a person, but you can't watch that entire thing. You just can't do it. I guess I feel that eventually he detracted from the film rather than adding to it [with the intense violence]. He makes his point, and then beyond it I feel like he alienates the viewer. He takes the viewer out of the story because you can't handle viewing it, and it's to the detriment.

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CB: . . . many of the times when I was most emotionally moved — either inspired to change my own behavior or filled with thankfulness, for example — were sometimes the times when the violence was the least intense. For example, when Peter denies Jesus three times was one of the most compelling scenes in the movie — also nonviolent . . . There are definitely times when some of the very personal elements could have been brought out more.

CB: What do you think of him choosing to make the movie in Aramaic and Latin, two dead languages, with subtitles?

CL: Well . . . the Latin is just historically inaccurate.

CL: Well, I mean they didn't speak Latin at the time. They spoke Greek, most probably.

CB:....But just about the choice to use dead languages?

CL: What did you think?

CB: I thought it was actually a good one. Almost any depiction I've seen of anything Biblical, from "The Ten Commandments" to . . . more modern movies . . . the language tends to get bogged down in this . . . either Elizabethan, King James Bible version language or this . . . I don't want to say cheesy but . . . it's hard to deliver lines from the Bible in a way that will seem fresh, that will seem powerful and that's not going to be . . . bound. I think by using the same words, but with subtitles, it gives them a fresh meaning to the viewer.

JG: Kind of related to that, I have mixed feelings about his choice. On one hand, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's hard to deliver lines from the Bible with the appropriate gravity and the . . . appropriateness to it. It can end up sounding so cheesy, and when you speak them in English it's a huge risk to take, and I think he was smart to avoid that. Also, by having them in subtitles because you're reading them, you get to read it like you would . . . in reading something there's always an element of personal interpretation that you have to internalize whatever it is that you are reading. Like when you are reading it at home, you have the voice and intonation . . . you would have in your head, and you get a personal connection to it you wouldn't get when you have someone else's interpretation. I think in that way it brings the viewer a lot closer and prevents this idea of . . . disrupting the important things that get said . . .

JG: I feel the movie could have definitely benefited from a little more context and background, especially someone coming in without the biblical background, without knowing these things. I mean, this is clarifying a lot of things for me, which I feel like it shouldn't have, I feel that coming out of a movie, especially on a topic that's this important and central and has so many elements that are important on really deep levels to different groups, a viewer shouldn't be allowed to come away from the movie or shouldn't come away from movie with that many questions that could have been, I think, addressed easily or simply by placing the movie in some context.