July 23, 2003

I was in for a surprise on Tuesday.  I have spent the last year or so on the “leave it alone” side of the Mel Gibson saga that is The Passion.  I can understand that various Jewish groups, who have also enjoyed silencing the most subtly alternative views of Jewish life, are sincerely concerned that the “you killed out Lord” stuff might start up again, led by a movie superstar.  But I am not concerned about that.  Ideas, however much I might agree or disagree with them, should not be silenced.  I believe that every group should have a right to express their point of view and that no group should be allowed to silence another.  Period.

The fact is, I have admired Gibson’s reckless, daring, relentless effort to make this film happen.  No one would ever suggest that making a film in a foreign language, dead or modern, was a good commercial idea.  No one would be comfortable putting the weight of the project on actors who are not particularly bankable.  And most would say that the idea of one of the world’s biggest movie stars making a movie about religion would be tantamount to career suicide.

While my Franco-filing colleague Jeff Wells has been getting himself tied up in knots about whether Jesus was crucified with a loincloth on or whether the nails went into his hands or his wrists, I’ve been screaming, “Who cares?!?!  This is about art, not facts.”   If Mel Gibson wants to show Jews participating in the crucifixion of Christ, I’m not going to fight it… unless when I saw the film, I felt that there was some sense that Gibson was reaching to place unreasonable blame on Jews as a group, not individual Jews in a unique situation.

But somehow, on Tuesday, Mel Gibson started to push my buttons about modern history instead of 2000-year-old history.  What started as a rave from Matt Drudge and the report by Lloyd Grove about the screening Drudge attended being loaded with right-wing superstars, soon grew into a sense of discomfort when I read Paula Fredriksen’s account of her participation in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) analysis of the screenplay of Gibson’s The Passion. 

Remember, I live in a universe of he said/she said.   Everything in the film business is a rumor, whether personal gossip or studio news or economic analysis.   Truths exist, obviously.  But finding one’s way around the lies is the key skill an industry reporter must develop. 

There is petulance and self-important judgment to spare in Fredriksen’s analysis.  It would suggest inherent bias to take everything she writes on its face value, unquestioned.  But there are a number of things that have real resonance.  What strikes me most, as an industry analyst, is the idea that Gibson’s company, Icon, knew that this group was reading their screenplay… that Icon clearly had the opportunity to offer up the final draft of the screenplay if there were concerns that the screenplay they had was an inaccurate representation of the produced work… and that Icon waited until the response came back with a negative tone before going on the attack with claims of theft and bias.  All three of these things ring true for this project, just as they might for any other outside analysis of screenplay that comes back at a production company in public view with the “wrong” answer.  

Also, that the USCCB backing away from the report after legal and public pressure from Icon strikes me as unsurprising.  But I do not believe that I have ever seen this group coming out and saying that their “blue ribbon” panel was wrong… just that the methodology of using a “stolen” screenplay was unacceptable. 

Gibson’s response since this flair up in April has been, it seems to me, more defensive than offensive.  But a good defense is now becoming more than a little offensive.  This artist, seeking to make a film about a moment that stands as the center of his faith, is suddenly behaving more like the fearful people who crucified Jesus than like Jesus, whose example Gibson presumably wishes to follow. 

He is now seeking to control the dialogue by showing the film only to those who he knows to be on “his side” and then allowing his minions to spread the message that the “other side” hasn’t even seen the movie, so any of their questions about the history are devalued.  Nice trick… but not honest.   Worse, the people in the media to whom Gibson is showing his film are people who have made their careers by promoting an “us versus them” attitude. 

Isn’t the lesson of Jesus to be above such street fighting?  Is picking sides the way to encourage a theological discussion?  Gibson, an underappreciated talent no matter how big a movie star, keeps claiming that he is not looking to place blame on an individual group or to divide people.  Yet, he is lining up an army on his side, the very gathering of which assures that others, kept on the outs, will gather their own forces. 

I will fight to the death for Gibson’s right to distribute and exhibit his vision – any vision he has – as widely and freely as any other film, be it Hollywood crap or art quality.  I will not fight for this man’s right to pick a fight.  And right now, that seems to be where he is heading. 

I am sure that Marvin Heir and the gang at the Simon Wiesenthal Center would say that I am being too generous… that my comfort with free speech that could promote anti-Semitism in any way is a product of being a generation or two separated from the Jewish Holocaust of World War II.  Perhaps.  But it is my belief.  I believe that our only protection from an event like that is out free speech.  And good intentions are no excuse for an infringement on that principle. 

But the very nature of free speech most often leads to dissenting speech.  If Rabbi Heir saw The Passion and came out saying that this film should not be allowed to be seen and pressured studios not to distribute the film, I would be the first unbiased voice to scream in rage about Heir’s audacity.  I didn’t particularly like The Believer, but I felt that the Wiesenthal Center’s complicity in the disenfranchisement of that film was a disgrace and wrote just that. 

My guess is that if Heir did see the film and did argue that it should be kept from circulation in some way, much of Jewish Hollywood would run and hide.  I don’t think Steven Spielberg believes in censorship and I don’t think that he would want to be associated with censorship.  But coming out against Heir & Co would be a major leap.  A tough problem.  But that doesn’t give right-wingers like Matt Drudge or Bill O’Reilly, who actively believe in silencing those who disagree with them, the high ground. 

The magical reality that seems to be missing here is that Gibson is making a work of art and not a documentary.  The sooner he stops defending himself for his choices and simple says, “This is what I believe,” the better for us all. 

If I were advising Gibson – and I guess I am trying to here – I would say that the discussion should now be put back in the hands of film people, not politicians posing as talk hosts.  Where is the screening for film critics in New York and Los Angeles?  I suppose that the downside of such screenings is negative reviews.  But even if the split is 50/50, which I can hardly imagine given the trailer, the film wins.  And most importantly, it takes this whole mess back to the discussion of art and the impact that art can have. 

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”  Luke 6:37 NIV

An entire array of articles about The Passion, from a variety of perspectives, is available here on MovieCity News.com.

E ME:  Let fly the hounds of hell…

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