Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: The Passion

In Italia arrivera' il 7 aprile distribuito dalla Eagle Pictures in 150 
copie.
copio incollo da: 
http://www.adnkronos.com/Spettacolo/2004/Settimana06da02-02a08-02/the_passion_040204.html
-- 
E che ne e` stato di Boo? Ebbene,
dopotutto cos'era Minsc senza Boo? I due non si separarono mai, alcuni
dicono che siano ancora insieme, in alto tra le stelle, laddove i criceti
sono giganti e gli uomini divengono leggende
-Toji-


Jan. 27, 2004  |  The pope gave it two thumbs up. No,
the pope didn't give it two thumbs up. Who cares? It's
the first movie PR campaign shameless enough to suggest
that the pope had any opinion about it at all. Mel
Gibson played the pope like a cheap lute.
"The Passion of the Christ," Gibson's new film about
the last hours in the life of Jesus, doesn't open until
Ash Wednesday (Feb. 25), but it has already inspired
stones to be cast across hectares of controversy.
Mel Gibson is a Catholic Traditionalist, an offshoot of
Catholicism that rejected the papacy and the reforms of
the Vatican II in 1965, which, among other things,
repudiated the charge of deicide against the Jews. In
light of this -- and Gibson's father having made
various inflammatory, crackpot-conspiracy statements
about the Holocaust, 9/11, Jews and Freemasons -- anti-
Semitism charges against the film may have been
inevitable, but they are perhaps not undeserved.
Unable to get the film funded through traditional big-
studio means, Mel Gibson ponied up $20 million to 30
million of his own cash for "The Passion." Icon
Productions is distributing it for Newmarket Films, but
pre-promotional efforts have gotten a whole new twist:
a frighteningly well-organized Christian group called
Outreach has undertaken a grassroots-style promotion of
the film through its Web site ThePassionOutreach.com.
Outreach has been responsible for invitational
screenings of "The Passion" to select Christian and
conservative leaders across the nation.
The Outreach Web site reveals instructions for a
church-based PR blitzkrieg for the film that reads like
a cross between "How to Rule Mankind via Bodysnatching
Pods From Space" and the new Taco Bell menu:
"IS YOUR CHURCH READY? At Outreach, we believe that The
Passion of The Christ movie may well be the best
outreach opportunity in the last 2,000 years ... The
overwhelming feedback has been that the film represents
a tremendous opportunity to reach the unchurched with
the message of salvation."
The Web site features "Outreach tools" and strategies
with corporate-catchy names that are intended to aid
the faithful in helping proselytize for the film
through their participating church. That includes:
"Passion Saturation Mailing: Focus on those parts of
your community God is calling you to reach. Mail a The
Passion of The Christ ImpactCard to the selected
carrier routes in driving range of your church."
"Passion Prayer Walk: Carefully choose a neighborhood
you believe God wants you to reach. With multiple
prayer teams, walk every street and pray for every
house, asking that God would reach each person with the
message of the cross through exposure to The Passion of
The Christ. Leave a DoorHanger and/or evangelistic
booklet at each home encouraging them to see the movie
and inviting them to attend a Passion-related event at
your church."
Mel's team has invented a Brave New World of
promotional advertising: Force-feed a star-power-fueled
"Passion" to your friendly neighborhood pastor, then
tap into the free labor of the faithful, zealot-y
congregation! Way to recoup through Jesus!
The Rev. Mark Stanger, canon precentor and associate
pastor of San Francisco's premier mainstream
Episcopalian church, Grace Cathedral, was one of the
lucky Christian leaders invited to one of Outreach's
pre-screenings of "The Passion." Stanger took his
mother to Barrington, Ill., to see the tightly guarded
film, hosted by Gibson himself, who gave a Q&A
afterward. I am lucky to call Stanger a friend, so we
dished the dirt about the event. Apparently, not only
do the Jews have a legitimate gripe against "The
Passion," but so do the Arabs -- yet, according to
Father Stanger, the Christians come off worst of all.
===
Q: Where were the screenings?
There were two showings, and they were at the two
premier modern suburban Evangelical churches in the
country. One was at Saddleback Community Church in
Orange County; the other, where I went, was at Willow
Creek in Barrington, Ill.
===
Q: Somebody told you it was a real red-neck, weirdo
community, right?
This guy I know said he wouldn't set foot in there --
not without shots, at least. These places are highly
successful. [Willow Creek] is like a modern hotel
conference center, with a food court ... the worship
space is a huge auditorium, with multi-screens, that
seats 4,500 people. As someone from a fairly sensible
church, I really felt uneasy in the crowd. I could
really see how church freaks some people out. I
couldn't put my finger to it, but there was this
atmosphere of giddiness and anticipation...
===
Q: Star-struck craziness...?
Yeah, and also everyone there was white. Any
identifiable clergy that I saw were male. There may
have been female clergy, but it seemed to be male
clergy with their wives in tow, or male clergy with
their clergy buddies, or a lot of young male youth-
leaders.
===
Q: Do you think they were mostly Evangelical-style
Christians?
I would think so.
===
Q: This film is being touted as the most factual
representation of the crucifixion possible; Mel Gibson
has called it the most authentic and biblically
accurate film about Jesus' death.
It's absolutely not.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each give
different views of the crucifixion.
Mel Gibson in his remarks after the film took a potshot
at contemporary biblical scholarship -- he called
scholars "revisionists" who think the gospel writers
had agendas. They absolutely did have agendas. It's
hard to know if [the film is] historically accurate,
because Gospel writers were not trying to do an
eyewitness report -- they were producing theological,
practical documents of faith to answer questions that
were appearing in their communities a half-generation
and a generation after the death of Jesus. So it was as
if the gospel writers themselves were movie makers.
They were trying to interpret things in a way that
their people could understand it. They're works of art,
theological works, not eyewitness reports. But even a
CNN eyewitness report has an agenda.
===
Q: So, Mel Gibson seems to be arguing that the gospels
are factual documents.
Exactly. And that all of the references to the Hebrew
scriptures, the Old Testament, were proof of
fulfillment of prophesy, whereas it's most likely that
in order to make sense of the events surrounding Jesus'
death, the gospel writers searched the Hebrew
scriptures to find things.
===
Q: So, after the crucifixion, writers of the New
Testament were looking back at the Old Testament and
finding connective threads to make sense of what they
were writing?
Yes, exactly, the way anybody looks into their own
faith tradition to make sense of traumatic events in
their own life. Also, some of these [New Testament
authors and their communities] were already being
persecuted themselves for their beliefs. So, the way to
make sense of that is to show Jesus as a model of
patience under suffering. One of the ways [Gibson]
tries to produce an air of authenticity in the film is
to have the principals speaking Aramaic, the dialect of
Hebrew that Jesus would have spoken, and the Roman
soldiers and Pilate speaking Latin.
But very chillingly, in the interview after the
showing, Mel Gibson said the reason that he had [his
cast] speaking those original languages -- and I didn't
misinterpret him, because he told a long story to
illustrate it -- he said, "If I was doing a film about
very fierce, horrible, nasty Vikings coming to invade a
town, and had them on their ship with their awful
weapons, and they came pouring off the ship ready to
slaughter -- to have them speak English wouldn't be
menacing enough."
===
Q: How did that hit you?
I almost puked. It was so xenophobic: The good guys
speak English; the bad guys speak these other
languages. It wasn't a consistent view, because in the
film Jesus was speaking the same language as his
tormentors, but even so, I think it was meant to cause
confusion and awe in the audience, to have these
horrible people speaking either a Semitic or an ancient
language like this.
===
Q: Did you feel like that the use of these ancient
languages was a veiled anti-Semitic comment?
Anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim. Some of those words in
Aramaic sound a little bit like Arabic -- Arabic is a
Semitic language too. [In the film, it came off like]
nasty foreigners were doing this thing to our beautiful
Jesus. So when Mel Gibson said in the interview that
the reason for the other languages was to highlight the
brutality, that kind of freaked me out. I could see how
it would work on an unsophisticated audience.
It's probably the same feeling that people in
Guantánamo Bay have, having had soldiers barking at
them in English for two years.
===
Q: Did you feel in the storytelling there were any
particularly glaring omissions or otherwise
historically inaccurate stuff?
Not really, except that Jesus' crucifixion was made too
singular. This was an ordinary event. Jesus was one of
dozens of insurrectionists that the local Roman
occupiers would have crucified, but [Gibson] tried to
make his suffering especially agonizing and horrible.
That was the other subtext -- I thought there was an
unspoken assumption that somehow, for Jesus' death to
have meaning to believers, it had to be more horrible
than any other kind of suffering and death. The film
doesn't really say that, but that's the idea, and
that's why it has an "R" rating -- for the violence.
The protracted scourging.
===
Q: You felt it was gratuitous violence?
I thought it was sickening. At the screening they were
handing out boxes of Kleenex -- they should have handed
out barf bags.
Oo! Oooooo!
There was no reason for this [violence], spiritually or
theologically. Do you remember in the movie "Gladiator"
that short shot where he comes home to find his wife
and family crucified, and there was also a report that
she had been sexually assaulted beforehand? It was
brutal and ugly and horrible, and you didn't need 20
minutes of blood flow to get the message across. I
thought "The Passion" was really perverse and really
depraved. There's a lot of criticism against the film
that it gives a bad picture of Jews -- I think it gives
a worse picture of Christians. Holding this up as
somehow emblematic of something central to our belief
-- this preoccupation with both sin and blood sacrifice
-- is just absolutely primitive.
The violence is literally gut-wrenching. My pious mom
was there and she felt a knot in her gut from the
violence, but she also felt the movie was poorly made.
She called it "plodding."
===
Q: [Cackling] How old is your mom?
She's 76. She was there for the star power. She
definitely wanted to see Mel Gibson. That was the other
scary thing about the event -- to have 4,500 Christian
leaders in one room who were just star struckand gaga.
===
Q: Do you think this film has the potential to reignite
the charge of deicide against the Jews?
Oh, I think it definitely could. It made a big deal of
Pilate trying to save Jesus, which doesn't appear in
all the Gospels.
===
Q: In the version you saw, did the Jewish priest
Caiaphas intimidate Pontius Pilate into going along
with the Crucifixion?
Yeah, pretty much.
===
Q: Scholars are objecting to this section and saying it
distorts the fact that the Romans were the occupying
power.
If people want to read something sensible about this
whole thing, Raymond E. Brown -- he died about a year
ago -- was a great, great Catholic scripture scholar.
He wrote a mega-work called "The Death of the Messiah"
in 1994 -- two volumes, 1,600 pages. But then he
digested [it] down and did a little tiny popular work,
a $5 paperback, 71 pages, called "A Crucified Christ in
Holy Week." I think that would be the sanest possible
book anyone could ever read.
This film had some extra details that came from the
visions of whoever, which I've never studied...
She was a 19th century mystic, Sister Anne Catherine
Emmerich. Gibson was quoted as saying his script drew
from diaries she kept of her visions -- scholars got
bent out of shape that he threw in some extra-biblical
details derived from her writing.
There are a lot of tormented people who really
concentrated on sin and suffering. Even in the Old
Testament, in the Psalms, there was an evolution from
bloody sacrifice to "a sacrifice of praise," a
sacrifice of praise and thanks.
I don't see the point of magnifying the violence of his
arrest, torture and death. I find it perverse and
strange and really vulgar. As Ray Brown says, the
Gospels are pretty straightforward. They arrive at
Golgotha, and then it says, "Then they crucified him."
They just say it in a little short sentence. They don't
say, "They yanked one of Jesus' shoulders out of the
socket and they bounced the cross around face down
after he was nailed to it." I think some of that came
from that wacko woman's vision. People who are
psychologically disturbed push that into their
religious imagination. Religious imagination is very
fertile, and it feeds on human need, so you have to be
really careful.
===
Q: So Mel's vision is morbidly preoccupied with sin and
retribution?
Oh, absolutely. And he said so in the interview
afterward: "To forgive human sin, there had to be a
blood sacrifice." The idea that God is so pissed off
that God needs blood to satisfy him -- that is such a
primitive notion.
===
Q: Throw the virgin in the volcano.
The whole idea of Jesus as a life giver, or someone who
can transform hearts, or who comes to give abundant
life, or the Jesus of John's Gospel, who comes to say,
"I come to give living water that will bubble up within
you," you know, an almost Gnostic notion -- it so goes
against this thing, the Doctrine of the Atonement,
which Evangelical Christians and Protestants have read
back into the Gospels more heavily than is really
there.
===
Q: How was the preoccupation with sin illustrated in
the film?
The "devil" was a kind of androgynous creature, but
most people read it as a woman, and called her "The
Temptress" -- she was whispering to Jesus on the night
before his Passion, saying "Nobody. Nobody can take on
the sin of the whole human race. It's too great. Nobody
can. You can't do it." And Jesus does!
He paints his face blue, puts on his kilt, and he goes
for it!
And when the devil isn't shown as an androgynous or
female figure, the devil is shown as a taunting child,
which really freaked me out. Really horrible.
===
Q: Damien in "The Omen II."
Exactly. The parts that are kind of overlooked are
Jesus saying, "Love your enemies"; "Those who live by
the sword will die by the sword" -- those lines are in
there, but...
===
Q: Kind of glossed over in favor of the heavy blood and
guts?
Yeah.
===
Q: So, Mel was reverting back to Book of Jeremiah,
burn-in-a-lake-of-fire, angry God of Abraham stuff?
Oh, yeah. If you believe in monotheism, there is only
one God. There's not an Old Testament God and a New
Testament God. And there's not a Muslim God and a
Christian God. To Mel Gibson's credit, afterward in the
interview -- the auditorium got pretty quiet; I almost
got up and cheered -- he said, "I believe that through
the merits of Jesus' sacrifice, even the people of the
Old Testament were all saved." So David is a saint, and
Elijah is a saint. And even people who don't know Jesus
are able to be saved, but through him. I know that
sounds condescending, but it's still a fairly generous
remark and that's really the best of Catholic
tradition.
===
Q: Still, the God Mel described then sounds like a God
that is a lot more friendly than the one portrayed in
the film.
I think ["The Passion"] was meant to be a shocker and a
moneymaker. And I don't think it's going to make money,
and I think that's why they've had to suck people in.
At this showing, there was no room to not like the
film. We were supposed to all like it. We were supposed
to all be weeping into our Kleenexes. We were supposed
to all see this as the greatest opportunity of all
time, and then Lee Strobel, "former atheist," who wrote
"The Case for Christ" and "The Case for Faith," said
["The Passion"] was "An anointed piece of art." That
God "selected" Mel to do this.
===
Q: That's spooky. Frank Rich made an interesting point
in his New York Times column: that the audiences that
have been selected to see this film before the release
are all very conservative Christians like the Senate
Republican Conference, the White House Office of Faith-
based and Community Initiatives, and Rush Limbaugh --
but it hasn't been shown to critics or Bible scholars
or Jewish groups. Do you think Mel knows he has
something to worry about, here?
I just don't think it's very well done. I think if
someone wants to get into some interesting cinematic
treatments, they should go see "The Gospel According to
St. Matthew" by Pasolini. Or even the old Hollywood
blockbusters. ["The Passion"] reflects a very morbid
kind of theology. If the idea is to just provoke, it
may do that. I thought it was a lot of dull, unless you
like watching protracted torture scenes.
===
Q: So you didn't feel like it was going to be a tool of
great conversion or anything.
No, not at all. It's 100 percent Hollywood trash.
There's so many stories that can illumine the meaning
of suffering and redemption and forgiveness, and
renewal of life, and they're not all in the Bible.
===
Q: What would be your advice for would-be moviegoers?
I'd say don't bother. I think it's a big bore.
I think a 5-year-old who has to get cancer surgery and
radiation and chemotherapy suffers more than Jesus
suffered; I think that a kid in the Gaza Strip who
steps on a land mine and loses two limbs suffers more;
I think a battered wife with no resources suffers more;
I think people without medical care dying of AIDS in
Africa suffer more than Jesus did that day. I mean, I
don't want to take away from that, but this
preoccupation with the intensity of the suffering, I
think, has no theological or spiritual value.
-
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Inside Mel Gibson's "Passion"
grazie per il post.
Purtroppo, conoscendo le difficolta` del pubblico americano nel distinguere tra
il realismo hoollwoodiano e la accuratezza storica, la vedo male. E` un film
che confondera` le idee a molta gente.
Di ottimi libri sulla vita di Gesu` ce ne sono moltissimi, ma un film lo si
vede in due ore, e puoi anche magnare il poppecorn.
" Del giornale leggo sempre i necrologi e il cinema. Se e` morto qualcuno che
conosco vado al funerale. Se no vado al cinema "    Walter Valdi

il realismo hoollwoodiano
ullalla`


In Italia il sette aprile....
ma non so se riesco a resistere...
chiaramente appena ci sono i biglietti in prevendita
mi compro il posto + figo della sala
per il primo pomeriggio di programmazione...
MauriCiao

 per il primo pomeriggio di programmazione...
per essere veramente *figo* dovresti andare a vederlo in costume, con
uno straccetto attorno alla vita ed una corona di spine in testa! :P
-- 
Matteo L.  - for mailbox messages sum 36 + 36
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline

 
non esageriamo, cosě figo ce n'č stato solo uno...

 uno straccetto attorno alla vita ed una corona di spine in testa! :P
e magari prenotare il posto vicino per mettere la croce. :P

"Jack Sparrow" <mauc...@NOSPAMahoo.it> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:Xns949BC065E450ma...@193.70.192.192...

ma insomma sarà o no doppiato ? si è capito ?
ciao

 non esageriamo, così figo ce n'è stato solo uno...
Scusa ma non sta al capo del Governo? Mi sembra abbia detto fosse unto dal
Signore..... :)

"Jack Sparrow" <mauc...@NOSPAMahoo.it> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:Xns949BC5F2FB3FFma...@193.70.192.192...

ma che stronzo.


qui lo stronzo sei tu

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:jgv%b.40916$IT2.1...@news4.tin.it...

ah si? ti pare normale definire Cristo "figo" perchč porta la corona di
spine? o dire che č "figo" vestirsi alla prima come Cristo? ma stiamo
scherzando o facciamo sul serio? No perchč nel secondo caso non so
onestamente con quali persone mi dovrei trovare a parlare o almeno leggere i
commenti su questo ng. Ma guarda se uno deve essere anche insultato in
questo modo...!

 ma insomma sarà o no doppiato ? si è capito ?
________________________
Spero vivamente di no!
--
Be Seeing You!
Magus
http://www.giorgiofinamore.com
________________________


wrote:

Mah...
Io rimango basito dinanzi alla potenza dell'hype che si sta generando
attorno ad un film, che manco recitato in inglese e costato sui 25
milioni di dollari ora veleggia (dicono) intorno ai 100.
E dire che sembrava un 'divertissement' estemporaneo di Gibson...

 anche insultato in questo modo...!
vinci il premio "mr. simpatia"

sì, ma non facciamone una guerra di religione... :-)

"Pado" <padonb...@SPAMHotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:CDB%b.28742$gk.11...@news3.tin.it...

su certe cose preferisco non scherzare.

 spine? o dire che è "figo" vestirsi alla prima come Cristo?
in effetti sarebbe da sfigati.
ma non mi sembra il caso di scaldarsi tanto, era una battuta.


 Spero vivamente di no!
E magari anche senza sottotitoli, vero ?
Ma tu lo conosci l'aramaico ? 
:-)
http://www.passion-movie.com/italiano/faq.html
-- 
Joe 
(UFV: L'Amore E' Eterno Finché Dura - La Zona Morta - Primo Amore - 
 Paycheck - Ritorno A Cold Mountain - I Sette Samurai (meno un'ora e mezza
 circa) - La Giuria - In America - Lost In Translation)

 :-)
________________________
Non ho detto: "senza sottotitoli"...
;-)




Ma va lah, e' che prima di fare l'allenatore e appena dopo essere stato
operaio e' stato Cristo.
  ngw

 guarda se uno deve essere anche insultato in questo modo...!
Chiudo le polemiche affermando che Cristo "figo" voglio dire che, 
credendo, penso che Cristo come uomo storico sia stato veramente un 
Grand'uomo, un "figo" appunto, o se preferisci... "a cool man"!
MauriCiao