Gibson to delete scene in 'The Passion of The Christ'
02-03-04, 09:33 PM
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Gibson to delete scene in 'The Passion of The Christ'
Taken from the NEW YORK TIMES:
February 4, 2004
Gibson to Delete a Scene in 'Passion'
By SHARON WAXMAN
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 3 — Mel Gibson, responding to focus groups as much as to protests by Jewish critics, has decided to delete a controversial scene about Jews from his film, "The Passion of the Christ," a close associate said today.
A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children," will not be in the movie's final version, said the Gibson associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The passage had been included in some versions of the film that were shown before select groups, mostly of priests and ministers.
"It didn't work in the focus screenings," the associate said. "Maybe it was thought to be too hurtful, or taken not in the way it was intended. It has been used terribly over the years."
Jewish leaders had warned that the passage from Matthew 27:25 was the historic source for many of the charges of deicide and Jews' collective guilt in the death of Jesus.
Mr. Gibson's decision to remove the scene could indicate that he was being responsive to concerns of Jewish groups that the film will fuel anti-Semitism. Mr. Gibson was the co-writer, director, producer and financier of the $25 million film, which will be released in more than 2,000 theaters on Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday.
Mr. Gibson also responded to a letter from Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who had requested a meeting and asked Mr. Gibson to consider a postscript that would "implore your viewers to not let the movie turn some toward a passion of hatred."
Mr. Gibson did not respond to those requests directly, writing only: "I hope and I pray that you will join me in setting an example for all of our brethren; that the truest path to follow, the only path, is that of respect and, most importantly, that of love for each other despite our differences."
Mr. Foxman responded in turn on Monday that "your words do not mitigate our concerns about the potential consequences of your film — to fuel and legitimize anti-Semitism."
This reporter was shown a two-hour version of the R-rated movie this week. The film features agonizing passages as Jesus, played by Jim Caviezel, is mercilessly beaten by Jewish and then Roman guards, and jeered and hounded by a Jewish mob on his way to his Crucifixion. It is unclear how close this version is to Mr. Gibson's final film.
In this version, the Roman leader Pontius Pilate is depicted as being reluctant to harm Jesus, who Pilate's wife warns is holy. Largely to mollify a restive Jewish mob outside his window, Pilate agrees to a severe lashing and scourging of Jesus, but the crowd and the high priest demand more.
Pilate says in Latin: "Ecce ****" — "Behold the man" — displaying the broken and bleeding Jesus to the crowd. But the high priest insists, in Aramaic, "Crucify him." Pilate responds, "Isn't this enough?" The mob roars, "No," and only then does the Roman leader agree to the Crucifixion.
Because passion plays historically preceded outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence in Europe, the film passage is a particularly sensitive matter with Jewish groups at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in parts of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
But Mr. Gibson further raised hackles among Jewish leaders in an exclusive interview by the writer Peggy Noonan published in the March issue of Reader's Digest.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, accused Mr. Gibson of insensitivity when he compared Jewish suffering in the Holocaust to that of millions of others who died in the war.
Ms. Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, asked Mr. Gibson about his father, a conservative Catholic who was quoted in a New York Times Magazine article last March as denying that Holocaust took place. Mr. Gibson answered that he loved his father. Ms. Noonan insisted: "You're going to have to go on record. The Holocaust happened, right?"
Mr. Gibson responded: "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."
In a letter to Mr. Gibson, Rabbi Hier wrote: "We are not engaging in competitive martyrdom, but in historical truth. To describe Jewish suffering during the Holocaust as `some of them were Jews in concentration camps' is an afterthought that feeds right into the hands of Holocaust deniers and revisionists."
Mr. Gibson's spokesman, Alan Nierob, denied that the director was looking to further inflame those leaders.
"There's no doubt in my mind that not only does he know the Holocaust and acknowledge it, he has shed tears over it, with me," he said.
Rabbi Hier responded that Mr. Gibson missed a chance to reduce the tension with Jewish groups. "I think he was lobbed an easy question. He could've used the occasion to take us on a different road, instead he marginalized the Holocaust, he diluted its significance, and it's a lie," he said. "Either he is very ignorant of sensitivities in Jewish communities of riling survivors, those who have lost loved ones, or he is doing it deliberately."
Mr. Foxman also protested Mr. Gibson's remark on the Holocaust. "At the very least it was ignorant, at the very most its insensitive. And you know what? He doesn't get that either. He doesn't begin to understand the difference between dying in a famine and people being cremated solely for what they are."
Gibson to Delete a Scene in 'Passion'
By SHARON WAXMAN
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 3 — Mel Gibson, responding to focus groups as much as to protests by Jewish critics, has decided to delete a controversial scene about Jews from his film, "The Passion of the Christ," a close associate said today.
A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children," will not be in the movie's final version, said the Gibson associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The passage had been included in some versions of the film that were shown before select groups, mostly of priests and ministers.
"It didn't work in the focus screenings," the associate said. "Maybe it was thought to be too hurtful, or taken not in the way it was intended. It has been used terribly over the years."
Jewish leaders had warned that the passage from Matthew 27:25 was the historic source for many of the charges of deicide and Jews' collective guilt in the death of Jesus.
Mr. Gibson's decision to remove the scene could indicate that he was being responsive to concerns of Jewish groups that the film will fuel anti-Semitism. Mr. Gibson was the co-writer, director, producer and financier of the $25 million film, which will be released in more than 2,000 theaters on Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday.
Mr. Gibson also responded to a letter from Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who had requested a meeting and asked Mr. Gibson to consider a postscript that would "implore your viewers to not let the movie turn some toward a passion of hatred."
Mr. Gibson did not respond to those requests directly, writing only: "I hope and I pray that you will join me in setting an example for all of our brethren; that the truest path to follow, the only path, is that of respect and, most importantly, that of love for each other despite our differences."
Mr. Foxman responded in turn on Monday that "your words do not mitigate our concerns about the potential consequences of your film — to fuel and legitimize anti-Semitism."
This reporter was shown a two-hour version of the R-rated movie this week. The film features agonizing passages as Jesus, played by Jim Caviezel, is mercilessly beaten by Jewish and then Roman guards, and jeered and hounded by a Jewish mob on his way to his Crucifixion. It is unclear how close this version is to Mr. Gibson's final film.
In this version, the Roman leader Pontius Pilate is depicted as being reluctant to harm Jesus, who Pilate's wife warns is holy. Largely to mollify a restive Jewish mob outside his window, Pilate agrees to a severe lashing and scourging of Jesus, but the crowd and the high priest demand more.
Pilate says in Latin: "Ecce ****" — "Behold the man" — displaying the broken and bleeding Jesus to the crowd. But the high priest insists, in Aramaic, "Crucify him." Pilate responds, "Isn't this enough?" The mob roars, "No," and only then does the Roman leader agree to the Crucifixion.
Because passion plays historically preceded outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence in Europe, the film passage is a particularly sensitive matter with Jewish groups at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in parts of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
But Mr. Gibson further raised hackles among Jewish leaders in an exclusive interview by the writer Peggy Noonan published in the March issue of Reader's Digest.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, accused Mr. Gibson of insensitivity when he compared Jewish suffering in the Holocaust to that of millions of others who died in the war.
Ms. Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, asked Mr. Gibson about his father, a conservative Catholic who was quoted in a New York Times Magazine article last March as denying that Holocaust took place. Mr. Gibson answered that he loved his father. Ms. Noonan insisted: "You're going to have to go on record. The Holocaust happened, right?"
Mr. Gibson responded: "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."
In a letter to Mr. Gibson, Rabbi Hier wrote: "We are not engaging in competitive martyrdom, but in historical truth. To describe Jewish suffering during the Holocaust as `some of them were Jews in concentration camps' is an afterthought that feeds right into the hands of Holocaust deniers and revisionists."
Mr. Gibson's spokesman, Alan Nierob, denied that the director was looking to further inflame those leaders.
"There's no doubt in my mind that not only does he know the Holocaust and acknowledge it, he has shed tears over it, with me," he said.
Rabbi Hier responded that Mr. Gibson missed a chance to reduce the tension with Jewish groups. "I think he was lobbed an easy question. He could've used the occasion to take us on a different road, instead he marginalized the Holocaust, he diluted its significance, and it's a lie," he said. "Either he is very ignorant of sensitivities in Jewish communities of riling survivors, those who have lost loved ones, or he is doing it deliberately."
Mr. Foxman also protested Mr. Gibson's remark on the Holocaust. "At the very least it was ignorant, at the very most its insensitive. And you know what? He doesn't get that either. He doesn't begin to understand the difference between dying in a famine and people being cremated solely for what they are."
02-03-04, 09:45 PM
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Screw Mr. Mel Gibson. He has no real integrity.
By the time this hits dvd it's going to be rated PG and have a cameo by winners of the american idol contest.
By the time this hits dvd it's going to be rated PG and have a cameo by winners of the american idol contest.
02-03-04, 09:46 PM
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He's not presenting it in any different light than what is in the bible and what has been taught in churches for 1500 years. Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic? Maybe blaming the people who were present during the event, 2000 years ago, but not their descendants! Besides, the whole reason he came down here was to die. It was prophesiesed that it would happen, so it wasn't a big shocker to him when it did.
02-03-04, 09:53 PM
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Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic? Maybe blaming the people who were present during the event, 2000 years ago, but not their descendants!
That having been said, the reason why some Jews (and I really mean only some... Foxman and the ADL represent a loud and vocal minority of Jewish people. It's like saying Falwell, Robertson, et. al represent all Christians) are worried is because the "Christ-killer" label has been used as justification by many for pogroms, genocide, and persecution against Jews for well over a thousand years... up to and including the Nazi regime, not two generations ago.
As a people, Jews are pretty sensitive about that. There's historical reasons for it. But I don't think Mel should alter his movie, and I definitely don't think the movie should be picketted, boycotted, etc.. I will be first in line to see it -- as I mentioned before, it sounds like a fascinating project, and if the advance buzz is any indication it might be one of the best films of the year!
02-03-04, 11:15 PM
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Originally posted by diacritic
wow, ho-mo (from ecce ho-mo) is censored in the article, or is it a dvdtalk censor?
wow, ho-mo (from ecce ho-mo) is censored in the article, or is it a dvdtalk censor?
OK, we used to be able to. Nevermind, then.
02-04-04, 12:06 AM
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Originally posted by shaun3000
Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic?
Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic?
God forbid..
02-04-04, 12:34 AM
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Oh Mel.
02-04-04, 02:30 AM
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Originally posted by wm lopez
Why not just go the liberal hollywood pc solution and make it the Nazies responsible for the Crucifixion.
Why not just go the liberal hollywood pc solution and make it the Nazies responsible for the Crucifixion.
After Jesus is crucified, she'll hunt down Caiaphas and make his sorry ass pay. Then she'll go after Pilate, but since he was such a *****, she'll hand him a 9mm, and tell him he knows what to do with it.
As she's walking away, rain starts to fall, the camera zooms in on her eyes as we see Pilate, blurred in the rain and background, stick the gun in his mouth. Cut away as we hear a loud BANG.
Credits roll to a Limp Bizkit song.
02-04-04, 03:22 AM
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Re: Gibson to delete scene in 'The Passion of The Christ'
Originally posted by Lara Means
Taken from the NEW YORK TIMES:
Taken from the NEW YORK TIMES:
EDIT: I do want to point out that I've been to the Holocaust museum in D.C. twice, and I am sensitive to what has happened in those camps. It's a good thing that the user above pointed out that that individual is like the Jerry Fallawell of the Jewish religion. Otherwise, it would seem to be too weird to hear this kind of uproar from all the Jews.
Last edited by scroll2b; 02-04-04 at 03:40 AM.
02-04-04, 07:34 AM
#14
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Originally posted by shaun3000
Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic?
Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic?
02-04-04, 07:56 AM
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Originally posted by Groucho
Most of it is because Gibson's father is a Holocaust denier. It shouldn't even be a factor, but people are taking it out on Mel and the film. If the exact same film were made with another director at the helm, you wouldn't see all the controversy.
Most of it is because Gibson's father is a Holocaust denier. It shouldn't even be a factor, but people are taking it out on Mel and the film. If the exact same film were made with another director at the helm, you wouldn't see all the controversy.
Originally posted by shaun3000
He's not presenting it in any different light than what is in the bible and what has been taught in churches for 1500 years. Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic? Maybe blaming the people who were present during the event, 2000 years ago, but not their descendants! Besides, the whole reason he came down here was to die. It was prophesiesed that it would happen, so it wasn't a big shocker to him when it did.
He's not presenting it in any different light than what is in the bible and what has been taught in churches for 1500 years. Why is everyone up in arms about it being anti-Semitic? Maybe blaming the people who were present during the event, 2000 years ago, but not their descendants! Besides, the whole reason he came down here was to die. It was prophesiesed that it would happen, so it wasn't a big shocker to him when it did.
02-04-04, 10:19 AM
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Originally posted by Groucho
Catholics have gotten angry about certain films. Priest and Dogma come to mind.
Catholics have gotten angry about certain films. Priest and Dogma come to mind.
But there were never any "screenings" to make sure that EXTREME Catholics would not be offended by a watered-down end product.
But then again, the EXTREME Catholics don't run hollywood. There....I said it.
(By request of the committee, after viewing my post, it has been EXTREMELY edited.)
Last edited by BRIAN 1972; 02-04-04 at 11:14 AM.
02-04-04, 10:59 AM
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Groucho, Brian... could you please change your posts to read "some extremist Catholics"?
As far as I can tell, Foxman believes he's right. Then again, so do Limbaugh, Falwell, etc.
I'm surprised that Gibson's managed to stay strong through this. I'm glad a major studio didn't make this - it would have been taken away from him by now.
As far as I can tell, Foxman believes he's right. Then again, so do Limbaugh, Falwell, etc.
I'm surprised that Gibson's managed to stay strong through this. I'm glad a major studio didn't make this - it would have been taken away from him by now.
02-04-04, 11:00 AM
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Originally posted by DonnachaOne
Groucho, Brian... could you please change your posts to read "some extremist Catholics"?
Groucho, Brian... could you please change your posts to read "some extremist Catholics"?
02-04-04, 11:05 AM
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Originally posted by Groucho
I find it interesting that you didn't make the same request of dave-o.
I find it interesting that you didn't make the same request of dave-o.
I have to ask anyone - dave-o included - to understand that those so outraged in the outcry over this film, and other films, are never accurate representation of that group of people. I ask that your posts reflect this.
I'm Catholic, and I love Dogma. My friend Ed's really looking forward to The Passion. He's jewish.
02-04-04, 11:16 AM
#22
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Originally posted by DonnachaOne
Groucho, Brian... could you please change your posts to read "some extremist Catholics"?
As far as I can tell, Foxman believes he's right. Then again, so do Limbaugh, Falwell, etc.
I'm surprised that Gibson's managed to stay strong through this. I'm glad a major studio didn't make this - it would have been taken away from him by now.
Groucho, Brian... could you please change your posts to read "some extremist Catholics"?
As far as I can tell, Foxman believes he's right. Then again, so do Limbaugh, Falwell, etc.
I'm surprised that Gibson's managed to stay strong through this. I'm glad a major studio didn't make this - it would have been taken away from him by now.
My question stands - why were Catholics not given a screening to the above mentioned movies? I am Catholic, and love every one of them.
02-04-04, 11:19 AM
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I believe you are mistaken if you believe that it is just the "extremist" Jewish people who are worried about this film. It may be only extremists who are heard, b/c they are the loudest and often make absurd comments. but I assure you that although many Jewish people don't want the movie censored and may even want to see this movie, they most likely have some worries about how the anti-semitic people of the world (of which there are probably more of than we would like to admit) will interpret the film.
02-04-04, 03:23 PM
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I don't understand the reaction to the Pontius Pilate scene as related in the article.
This scene sounds IDENTICAL to what is in 'Jesus Christ Superstar' (both the play and the film). Why did they not object to JCS?
This scene sounds IDENTICAL to what is in 'Jesus Christ Superstar' (both the play and the film). Why did they not object to JCS?
02-04-04, 03:36 PM
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Those people make me angry! They ask Gibson to admit there was a Holocaust...he does. Then they come down hard on him for not admitting it...enough? You know, millions of other people DID die in WW2, are we to believe their lives were less important than those who died in the Holocaust? Gibson is marginalizing the Holocaust by taking note that many people died in WW2, including Jewish people?
These people are insane, and hopefully no one of note actually thinks they have a point.
I can sympathize why that one line was removed in the film. But the Pontius Pilate scene...they better not change that. That is biblically correct. Unless Jewish leaders would like to see the Bible changed so instead, Nazgul swoop down from the sky and force Pntius to beat Jesus with a light saber, complaining about a scene like that is completely inane.
These people are insane, and hopefully no one of note actually thinks they have a point.
I can sympathize why that one line was removed in the film. But the Pontius Pilate scene...they better not change that. That is biblically correct. Unless Jewish leaders would like to see the Bible changed so instead, Nazgul swoop down from the sky and force Pntius to beat Jesus with a light saber, complaining about a scene like that is completely inane.