RE: Reiner: Gibson come clean on 'Passion'
First, Reiner seems to have spent most of the last thirty years trying very hard to live up to the "Meathead" moniker. Based on the last two or three public utterances I've heard from him, he seems to be getting better at it.
The Passion of the Christ is religious art in exactly the same vein as Michaelangelo's Pieta or his Cistene Chapel frescoes. It is like the paintings of the Flemish masters. As with that art, the intent was to make the words on the pages of scripture come to life. Gibson attempted to give a faithful portrayal of the events described in the Gospels from Gethsemane to Golgotha. In my opinion, he did a remarkable job.
One of the aspects of the passion story that has been soft-peddled in recent decades is the absolute brutality of Jesus' treatment at the hands of the Romans. Pontius Pilate was a sadistic butcher who had been warned by the Roman emperor Tiberius to lighten up on multiple occasions. Following the crucifixion of Jesus and other events in Jerusalem, complaints from Roman citizens about Pilate's sadistic tendencies prompted Tiberius to recall him to Rome. Gibson brought the brutality of that episode to viewers in a way that was almost physically painful.
Responsibility for the trial and execution of Jesus has been an item of contention for centuries. Gibson did a masterful job of portraying the implicit and explicit collusion between the Tetrarchy, the Sanhedron, and the Roman prefecture in accomplishing the public execution of a man who was acknowledged as a prophet of God.
The only way anyone could rationally assert that Passion was anti-Semitic would be if they also asserted that the Gospels are anti-Semitic as well. Maybe that is what Reiner believes, but if so, it makes little sense for him to insist that Gibson take responsibility for it. It is a fact that the Jews have Christ's blood on their hands. They handed him over to the Romans to be tortured and crucified. They had to djin up evidence of sedition in order to get the Romans involved. Their complicity is no less than that of someone who hires a hit-man to have someone killed. "Meathead" Reiner's assertions are exactly equivalent to those of every other race pimp who cries racism when bad behavior by members of an ethnic or racial group is reported.
The real question here is, why would anyone take anything Reiner says seriously?
The Passion of the Christ is religious art in exactly the same vein as Michaelangelo's Pieta or his Cistene Chapel frescoes. It is like the paintings of the Flemish masters. As with that art, the intent was to make the words on the pages of scripture come to life. Gibson attempted to give a faithful portrayal of the events described in the Gospels from Gethsemane to Golgotha. In my opinion, he did a remarkable job.
One of the aspects of the passion story that has been soft-peddled in recent decades is the absolute brutality of Jesus' treatment at the hands of the Romans. Pontius Pilate was a sadistic butcher who had been warned by the Roman emperor Tiberius to lighten up on multiple occasions. Following the crucifixion of Jesus and other events in Jerusalem, complaints from Roman citizens about Pilate's sadistic tendencies prompted Tiberius to recall him to Rome. Gibson brought the brutality of that episode to viewers in a way that was almost physically painful.
Responsibility for the trial and execution of Jesus has been an item of contention for centuries. Gibson did a masterful job of portraying the implicit and explicit collusion between the Tetrarchy, the Sanhedron, and the Roman prefecture in accomplishing the public execution of a man who was acknowledged as a prophet of God.
The only way anyone could rationally assert that Passion was anti-Semitic would be if they also asserted that the Gospels are anti-Semitic as well. Maybe that is what Reiner believes, but if so, it makes little sense for him to insist that Gibson take responsibility for it. It is a fact that the Jews have Christ's blood on their hands. They handed him over to the Romans to be tortured and crucified. They had to djin up evidence of sedition in order to get the Romans involved. Their complicity is no less than that of someone who hires a hit-man to have someone killed. "Meathead" Reiner's assertions are exactly equivalent to those of every other race pimp who cries racism when bad behavior by members of an ethnic or racial group is reported.
The real question here is, why would anyone take anything Reiner says seriously?
posted by Anonymous | 9:31 AM
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