Word: christe
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...might not expect much controversy from a strenuously reverent film adaptation of some famous chapters from the all-time best-selling book, one found in most homes, churches and hotel rooms. But with mouthy Mel Gibson as the auteur and the Gospels as his text, The Passion of the Christ has stoked a holy word war of an intensity not seen since Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ...
Western Christianity has seen this treatment before, although not before about A.D. 1000. The stunning concept of divine self-sacrifice--"Jesus Christ and him crucified," as Paul put it--is the faith's heart, bound inextricably with his glorious rising three days later. But the grisly specifics of his mortification before then were of little interest to most Christians until the turn of the second millennium...
...film's unrelenting bloodletting. The teen boys who make box-office winners every Friday night may like the blood, but they want their heroes to fight back and blow stuff up. Nor is this exactly a date movie. No, the audience profile for The Passion of the Christ is fairly narrow: true believers with cast-iron stomachs; people who can stand to be grossed out as they are edified. And a few movie critics who can't help admiring Mad Mel for the spiritual compulsion that drove him to invent a new genre--the religious splatter-art film--and bring...
...years ago. The Black Death was ravaging Europe, killing upwards of 20 million people. The survivors fought in what was known as the 100 Years' War. Add grueling poverty. They called it the Middle Ages. And from it emerged ... Mel Gibson's new movie, The Passion of the Christ...
...film's true shock lies in Gibson's vision of what is most important in the Jesus story, in the relentless, near pornographic feast of flayed flesh. Gibson gives us Christ's blood, not in a Communion cup, but by the gallon. Blood spraying from Jesus' shackled body; blood sluicing to the Cross's foot. This Passion begins just before Jesus' arrest. It ends with a blink-length Resurrection. The bulk of his ministry, miracles and post-Resurrection appearances are absent, and his preaching of love flicked at in telegraphically brief flashbacks. Meanwhile, his scourging, handled in all four Gospels...