Newsgroup: it.cultura.ebraica
Titolo: L'ultimo film di Mel Gibson

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/386146.html
A giudicare dall'articolo di Ha-Aretz citato, esso cerca di riportare i
rapporti ebraico-cristiani al pre-Concilio.
Ciao.
Jewish leaders screen Gibson film, criticize depiction of Jews
 
By The Associated Press
 
 
 
NEW YORK - Representatives of two Jewish groups who attended screenings of
Mel Gibson's upcoming movie "The Passion of the Christ" said it contained
offensive stereotypes about the Jewish role in the crucifixion.
 
 
 
 
The American Jewish Committee, which sent its interfaith experts to church
screenings in Florida and Illinois, said Thursday that the movie contained
"unnecessary and destructive imagery of Jews" and "represents a disturbing
setback" to relations between Jews and Christians.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Jewish rights group Anti-Defamation
League, who has accused Gibson of holding anti-Semitic views, saw the film
for the first time Wednesday night in Florida. He said it is an "unambiguous
portrayal of Jews as being responsible for the death of Jesus."
Gibson, who directed, funded and co-scripted the film, has repeatedly denied
that his movie maligns Jews. His spokesman, Alan Nierob, did not immediately
respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Jewish groups have been worried that Gibson's script would ignore modern
teaching by the Roman Catholic Church and many other denominations that Jews
were not collectively responsible for Christ's death. The notion of Jewish
guilt fueled anti-Semitism for centuries.
An article about the film in The New Yorker magazine last September
indicated Gibson would keep a biblical verse out that upsets Jews and has
been used to justify anti-Semitism: "His blood be on us and on our
children!" (Matthew 27:25). That verse was not included in a version of the
film The Associated Press saw last month.
But Rabbi James Rudin, a longtime interfaith expert for the American Jewish
Committee, a New York-based public policy group, Rabbi David Elcott, the
organization's director of interreligious affairs, and Foxman all said the
verse was now in the film. The movie is scheduled to be released on Ash
Wednesday - Feb. 25.
"It's very disturbing that that was added," Rudin said. "It's not just
another verse from the Gospels. It's a chilling verse because I know, and
everyone knows, that that verse is the basis of blood libel."
Elcott said the movie was not anti-Semitic, but called it "inflammatory"
instead. And he said he did not anticipate any violence against Jews as a
result of the movie.
But he, Rudin and Foxman feared it would generate ill will toward Jews,
especially overseas.
"The movie undermines the sense of community that has existed between Jews
and Christians for decades," Elcott said. "This film makes it more important
than ever for like-minded Christians and Jews to reassert their dedication
to promoting interfaith harmony."
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Ringrazio Luca Logi per aver segnalato quest'articolo:
http://www.iht.com/articles/126024.html
Che dice che il Papa il film l'ha visto, ma non ha espresso
pubblicamente né plauso né biasimo.
L'"imprimatur" papale di cui si è favoleggiato pertanto non c'è.
Ciao.
Puzzling over pope's film review
Frank Bruni The New York Times
VATICAN CITY It is a matter of just five words, all of which, at least
in English, are just one syllable. But that fleeting phrase has
triggered an extraordinary degree of speculation, consternation and just
plain puzzlement here.
After watching the depiction of the last hours of Christ's life in ''The
Passion of the Christ,'' an unreleased movie by the director Mel Gibson,
did Pope John Paul II deliver the judgment: ''It is as it was''?
Or did the movie's promoters, along with one or more Vatican officials,
play fast and loose and press the pope into the unwitting service of a
movie that has prompted serious concerns among some Jewish and Christian
leaders alike? That question lies at the heart of a convoluted tale
involving unusual bedfellows: major moviemakers and the upper echelons
of the Roman Catholic Church. It also provides a glimpse into the
sluggish and sometimes clumsy workings of the Vatican, especially in the
realm of public relations. More than a month passed between a flurry of
news reports that John Paul had pronounced the movie accurate and a
formal denial of that by a high-ranking Vatican official early this
week. The Vatican press office released nothing on the issue until
Thursday. Did that lag, along with the confusion that filled it, have
anything to do with the 83-year-old pope's weak physical condition,
which has forced him to disengage from some details?
''It's fair to wonder that,'' said a Vatican official, speaking on
condition of anonymity. ''It's not entirely coordinated up there,'' said
the official, referring to the pope's inner circle.
Thursday's written statement by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the pope's
spokesman, was three sentences long. It said that the pope had seen the
movie but that it was his ''custom not to express public judgments on
artistic works.'' That statement came a few days after Archbishop
Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope's secretary, denied news reports that the
pope had offered an appraisal of ''The Passion,'' which is scheduled for
U.S. release next month and for European release over the next few
months.
Dziwisz, who almost never gives interviews, spoke with the Catholic News
Service on Sunday and The Associated Press on Tuesday. He did not
respond to an interview request sent by fax to his office on Thursday
evening. His statements did not put an end to the story. An editorial
column that appeared on Wednesday in The Dallas Morning News reported a
claim by the movie's promoters that Navarro-Valls had previously
encouraged them to use the quote, ''It is as it was.'' According to the
column, the promoters supported their claim by leaking what they said
was an e-mail message to Steve McEveety, one of the producers of ''The
Passion,'' from Navarro-Valls.
The e-mail message, dated Dec. 28, does not explicitly confirm that the
pope remarked, ''It is as it was.'' But it says that those words warrant
repeating ''again and again and again.''
Navarro-Valls told The Dallas Morning News that the e-mail message was
not authentic, according to the column.
On Thursday afternoon, one of his assistants said he could not be
reached for comment. McEveety did not return a telephone message left at
his office in Santa Monica, California. Back when Gibson was shooting
''The Passion'' in Italy in late 2002, McEveety and his associates began
courting Roman Catholics in and around the Vatican.
McEveety had connections. One of the movie's assistant directors, Jan
Michelini, is the son of Alberto Michelini, an Italian journalist and
politician who has known the pope for decades and is a member of Opus
Dei, a conservative Catholic group to which Navarro-Valls also belongs.
In early December, on the heels of critics' complaints that ''The
Passion'' could rekindle assertions that Jews were responsible for the
crucifixion, McEveety got a copy of the movie to Dziwisz and the pope.
He later told the conservative writer Peggy Noonan that Dziwisz had
related a five-word response from the pope, ''It is as it was,''
according to a column by Noonan on The Wall Street Journal's Web site on
Dec. 17.
That same day, John Allen Jr., the Vatican correspondent for the
National Catholic Reporter, posted an article on that publication's Web
site that quoted an unnamed Vatican official who put the same words in
the pope's mouth. There were similar, subsequent news reports in many
publications.
There were also reports that raised doubts and questions.
But until Dziwisz spoke out, no Vatican official would talk on the
record about the pope's reaction.
The Reverend Thomas Reese, an American Jesuit and author of the book
''Inside the Vatican,'' said on Thursday that such a delay had many
precedents and was part and parcel of Vatican culture.
But over recent years, interactions between journalists and the pope
have become extremely limited. They no longer get to ask him directly
about substantive issues.
Many Vatican officials also talk less frequently with the pope, who
suffers from Parkinson's disease. ''The pope's hand at the rudder is a
good deal lighter than it was 10 years ago,'' said Allen.
He said that fallout over ''The Passion'' would feed an impression that
''nobody's in charge.''
The New York Times
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