Preview of "The Passion"

[TSElliott]

If anyone is interested here is a link. The preview in my opinion looks fantastic and I must give Mel credit for directing such a controversial movie. I actually cannot wait to see the movie I just hope that it compares to Scorese's "Kundun".

http://www.harvest.org/special/index.php/1/2/6.html

[Walt Starr]

1. I don't view movies in a foreign language

without subtitles.

It's against my religion.

I especially hate movies in a foreign language that nobody knows if it's being spoken correctly because nobody knows for sure how the language is spoken.

[TSElliott]

3. If it had subtitles...

would you see it? I see Japanese movies all the time where they get the subtitles wrong but no one seems to care if the language is correct.

[Walt Starr]

5. Probably

Gibson doing it in "Aramaic" is very pretentious since nobody has heard that language spoken in nearly 2000 years so nobody knows how to speak it.

I'm not into pretentious movies either.

[Astarho]

6. Actually

There's still 10,000-20,000 people in thr Middle East that speak modern forms of Aramaic. (unless he's doing it in Classical Aramaic)

But, I do agree the whole thing is pretentious.

[Walt Starr]

7. It's allegedly Classic Aramaic

Which is a dead language.

[Astarho]

10. Funny

The only ones who will understand it without subtitles would be priests from the Assyrian Church. I'm not sure of the exact situation, but I do know there are differences of doctrine between Rome and the East, so it would be interesting to hear what the Assyrians think of it.


BTW, cool dragon.

[Redleg]

13. I saw a small clip on TV today and I heard the words Ecce Homo

which are latin meaning "behold man."

[tjdee]

11. Do you hate opera?

Lots of people enjoy opera without speaking a word of Italian/German/whatever....

I'm not crazy about it, myself. I need to know what's going on, at least. I think everyone pretty much gets what's going on in this film, LOL!

[incontrovertible]

12. aramaic

or the closest thing to it, is still spoken by Kurdish Christians in northern Iraq, IIRC.

Latin has always been spoken, or at least as long as there's been a Western Civilization. Unfortunately, the Roman occupiers of Judea would have been speaking Greek, as would most everyone else. Jesus would've given most of his sermons in Greek. It was the lingua franca, if I used the right term.

This'll unfold in an interesting manner. People who celebrated The Last Temptation of Christ will most likely despise The Passion, and vice-versa. Yee-haw! We're grilling hypocrisy burgers tonight, free speech fans!

[incontrovertible]

15. the best movie that'll never be made

is Alien Vs. Predator, presented without subtitles, and without a single word of human language spoken throughout.

Tell me that wouldn't make a quarter billion.

[roughsatori]

2. Isnt Harvest the ex-gay Christian Cult?

Or it that another Harvest?

[TSElliott]

4. No idea...

I am not a Christian and I could not tell you anything about this organization other than they have a preview of the movie.

[roughsatori]

8. Exodus is the group

But in the Philly area they advertise as Harvest. They do not let you know it is to "cure" you, until you get there. They know people are onto Exodus. I do know someone who used to attend Harvest meetings in Philly. He loved it, he said he never got so much sex as when he attended their meetings.

[IndianaGreen]

9. "The Jews didn't kill Christ... they just worried him to death."

The movie was shown to rightwing extremist Jews like David Horowitz and Michael Medvek, and to the Christian evangelical cult "Jews for Jesus." Why are mainstream Jews being kept from previewing this film?

FRANK RICH
Mel Gibson's Martyrdom Complex

The Jews didn't kill Christ," my stepfather was fond of saying. "They just worried him to death." Nonetheless, there was palpable relief in my Jewish household when the Vatican officially absolved us of the crime in 1965. At the very least, that meant we could go back to fighting among ourselves.

These days American Jews don't have to fret too much about the charge of deicide — or didn't, until Mel Gibson started directing a privately financed movie called "The Passion," about Jesus' final 12 hours. Why worry now? The star himself has invited us to. Asked by Bill O'Reilly in January if his movie might upset "any Jewish people," Mr. Gibson responded: "It may. It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. . . . Anybody who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own culpability."

Fears about what this "truth" will be have been fanned by the knowledge that Mr. Gibson bankrolls a traditionalist Catholic church unaffiliated with the Los Angeles Roman Catholic archdiocese. Traditionalist Catholicism is the name given to a small splinter movement that rejects the Second Vatican Council — which, among other reforms, cleared the Jews of deicide. The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages, which have lavished praise on Mr. Gibson and his project, reported in March in an adulatory interview with the star that the film's sources included the writings of two nuns: Mary of Agreda, a 17th-century Spaniard, and Anne Catherine Emmerich, an early-19th-century German. Only after Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, among others, spoke up about the nuns' history of anti-Semitic writings did a Gibson flack disown this provenance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/arts/03RICH.html

Months Before Debut, Movie on Death of Jesus Causes Stir
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

With his movie about the death of Jesus under attack as anti-Semitic, Mel Gibson is trying to build an audience and a defense for his project by screening it for evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, right-wing pundits, Republicans, a few Jewish commentators and Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

<snip>

The controversy has been cast by many of his supporters as the Jews versus Mel Gibson. But it began when several Roman Catholic scholars voiced concern about the project because of Mr. Gibson's affiliation with a splinter Catholic group that rejects the modern papacy and the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which in 1965 repudiated the charge of deicide against the Jews.

Mr. Gibson has been screening "The Passion" for a few weeks for friendly audiences, but has refused to show it to his critics, including members of Jewish groups and biblical scholars. In Washington, it was shown to the Web gossip Matt Drudge, the columnists Cal Thomas and Peggy Noonan and the staffs of the Senate Republican Conference and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and others. In Colorado Springs, the capital of evangelical America, the film drew raves. A convention of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative Roman Catholic order of priests, saw a preview, as did Rush Limbaugh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/national/02GIBS.html

[Classical_Liberal]

14. Rich's comments on Mel's statement about culpability

reflect a clear lack of knowledge of Christian theology. The view is that Jesus died for our sins, so we are ALL responsible. This is the view of liberal and conservative Christians alike. That has nothing to do with blaming Jews. I consider adl to have gone right wing and I particularly consider Foxman to be as right wing as Drudge, Medved, and Horowitz. Foxman has been sucking up to the republicans, particularly the religious wrong, for 2 yrs now, and Medved, Horowitz and Drudge are right to be mad at Foxman for spoiling the fun. Frankly he is doing it over something really silly as well. A film he has never seen.

Please read all about Foxman's cozying up to smarmy Ralph Reed!

http://www.google.com/search?q=Abraham+Foxman+and+Ralph+Reed&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

[aquart]

16. Oh, dear.