Word: gibsonized
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Dean Devlin, co-producer of Gibson's Braveheart, is also passionate for The Passion. "I thought it was an amazingly powerful piece of work," he says. "I didn't find it in the least bit anti-Semitic, and I'm Jewish. In the film I saw, everybody turns against Christ. This film doesn't cast blame on anyone. It casts blame on everyone. The last thing Mel wanted was for anyone to try to use this to justify hatred...
...Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who expressed his own concerns about The Passion, says the center has received a flood of angry calls and rancorous e-mail. "Not all of them are hateful," he says. "Some of them invite us to become Christians." Hier won't demonize Gibson. "I don't believe he is an anti-Semite. But I do think he has a responsibility here. Wonders can be done to a film in the editing room. Corrections can be made. That is, if he's interested in healing this issue...
Healing is Gibson's prime task, says a seasoned Hollywood marketing executive. "They've got the worst kind of controversy, the kind that goes to the core of their credibility," the executive says, noting that films like The Last Temptation of Christ and Priest grossed less than $10 million at the box office. "Gibson has to show it to Jewish religious leaders, as well as prominent cultural and intellectual figures. The public has to feel there's an overwhelmingly favorable consensus among people who might be offended...
...Gibson is still honing the film, which may open late this year. He recently cut a conversation between Caiaphas and Pilate about the mocking sign (KING OF THE JEWS) on Jesus' cross. The edit was supposedly made not out of religious sensitivity but to trim the film's running time--though Devlin's one criticism of the film was "I wouldn't mind if it was longer." He adds, "I don't know if there will be wide appeal to go see it, but I think the vast majority of people who do see it will be moved to tears...
...oops, there it is. Long before The Passion's full release (the scene is from a trailer), Mel Gibson's film has already ignored the guidance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1988 for dramatizers of Christ's last hours. The advisory warns, among other things, against "changing the small 'crowd' at the Governor's palace into a teeming mob." Why? Such an exaggeration, the bishops claim, would misleadingly suggest that the Jews as a body, indeed as a race, wanted Jesus dead...