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MONDAY March 8, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels February 21, 2004 Passion play on the silver screen On February 25, Ash Wednesday, "The Passion of the Christ" will open on some 2000 screens nationwide. For a small, independent film this is unheard of, akin to the release of a major studio blockbuster. Directed by Mel Gibson, shot in Italy, and financed with his own money - $25 million - The Passion has generated unprecedented interest and controversy. Churches from coast to coast have booked theaters for group showings and advanced ticket sales have been so robust as to put the movie in the same category as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Newmarket Films, the company distributing The Passion, reported advanced ticket sales approaching $5 million three weeks before the release date. And Jared Pacheco, manager of The Varsity Theater in Ashland, stated that "there are more tickets being sold in advance for The Passion of Christ than for some of this year's Oscar-nominated films that have already opened and are now gone." The question is why? The central narrative of Christian theology, as put forth in the four gospels of Christian Scripture, is the passion, meaning the trial and crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Though accounts differ in the Gospels, they all end with Jesus being crucified on Good Friday only to rise from the dead on what is now Easter Sunday. This singular event is the nexus of Christianity, and Christians have, over the centuries, presented dramatic representations of the passion known as "passion plays." The Passion of the Christ is such a play, and focuses on the last twelve hours of Jesus' life. Clearly Gibson extrapolated from the Gospels in framing the story, but in general it is set in the spring of the year 30, at the time of the Jewish Passover. The place is Judea, which is part of the Roman Empire and is ruled by Caesar's representative, Pontius Pilate. Jesus, who has amassed a large following of Passover pilgrims, many of whom call him Messiah, is viewed as a threat to the stability of Judea and is arrested by a group sent by Caiaphas, the high priest of the Jewish temple. Led by Judas they find Jesus in Gesthemane. And so commences one of the most controversial and much debated episodes in the history of the West. To answer the question of what took place absolutely can be problematical, for one has to rely on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John which were written by men in the context of their time, with a certain point of view, wherein Jesus and the Jews are portrayed as accused and accusers. Hence, over the centuries, when passion plays were performed they often depicted the Jews as those who were responsible for the execution of Jesus, committing what is known as deicide. For almost two thousand years, this charge has resulted in an abiding anti-Semitism as well as incalculable acts of persecution and violence against Jews (traditionally, Holy Week, which led up to Easter Sunday, was particularly violent) culminating, one could argue, in the holocaust. In 1965, at the Second Vatican Council of Rome, the Roman Catholic Church took concrete steps to correct this interpretation of the passion with the document Nostra Aetate (In Our Time) which officially negated the centuries old charge of deicide as well as repudiating all forms of anti-Semitism. As well, understanding the role of passion plays in creating and sustaining anti-Semitism, the Catholic Church has urged that great caution and care be taken in all dramatic presentations of the passion, insisting that such plays should not incite anti-Semitic attitudes. In 1988, the United States Catholic Bishops Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs produced a pamphlet, "Criteria for Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passions," which urges that all passion plays avoid the stereotyping of Jews and portraying Jesus and the Jews as adversaries. The pamphlet quotes John Paul II's statement that "Catholic teaching should aim to present Jews and Judaism in an honest and objective manner, free from prejudices and without offense." So, it is self-evident that inherent in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is the possibility of re-igniting the often destructive centuries-old debate of who was responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. Is the film inflammatory? Does it slip into caricature in its portrayal of Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas and the Jews present at the trial of Jesus? Does it treat the passion as a drama that needs antagonists - men and women who betrayed and then condemned Jesus thus sending him to a death that was so horrible, so brutal, as to be almost unimaginable. How Gibson handles this most intensely passionate and potentially inflammatory story will determine if "The Passion of the Christ" is either a truly fine and transcendent film, or one that abandons the complexities of the narrative and emphasizes instead all that is graphic and gratuitous. We'll see. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: The new search is here! Click here for more information. .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - ODOT Road Cams