I’m not sure it’s SUPPOSED to be uplifting. I think who Gibson made the film for is a very good question. I personally think it was made mostly for himself, a sort of self-reminder that believers should not take for granted the magnitude of what was done on their behalf. The fact that the only time Gibson appears in the movie is when it shows his hands driving in the nails is telling. I still haven’t seen it, and certainly believe in what (I think), it’s trying to say. I guess I should, but I’m afraid of having my stomach turned. And like you said I think it will be turned for the wrong reason. The spiritual sacrifice of God made man and the Father turning his wrath on the Son is both beautiful and stomach turningly important. The sheer violence of that is really very secondary and not the focus of Christianity. This is not the movie C.S. Lewis would write, and yet is Aslan’s getting his mane shaved off any less effective?
I don’t know. I’m not sure you can tell the story the way it is presented in the Bible without a sense of triumph. Well, I guess clearly you can since that is what The Passion does, but there ought to have been uplift. The sacrifice is indeed something that perhaps need be remembered but certainly not at the cost of the point of it all, which is where Gibson dropped the ball because as a reminder of the suffering it works brilliantly. As a reminder of why all the suffering in the first place, he sort of skips that part.
Doctor Mac:
August 1st, 2006 at 10:30 am
I’m not sure it’s SUPPOSED to be uplifting. I think who Gibson made the film for is a very good question. I personally think it was made mostly for himself, a sort of self-reminder that believers should not take for granted the magnitude of what was done on their behalf. The fact that the only time Gibson appears in the movie is when it shows his hands driving in the nails is telling. I still haven’t seen it, and certainly believe in what (I think), it’s trying to say. I guess I should, but I’m afraid of having my stomach turned. And like you said I think it will be turned for the wrong reason. The spiritual sacrifice of God made man and the Father turning his wrath on the Son is both beautiful and stomach turningly important. The sheer violence of that is really very secondary and not the focus of Christianity. This is not the movie C.S. Lewis would write, and yet is Aslan’s getting his mane shaved off any less effective?
ironsoap:
August 1st, 2006 at 11:40 am
I don’t know. I’m not sure you can tell the story the way it is presented in the Bible without a sense of triumph. Well, I guess clearly you can since that is what The Passion does, but there ought to have been uplift. The sacrifice is indeed something that perhaps need be remembered but certainly not at the cost of the point of it all, which is where Gibson dropped the ball because as a reminder of the suffering it works brilliantly. As a reminder of why all the suffering in the first place, he sort of skips that part.