Jesus Movies

1. Jesus Movies fall 2008 King/Malbon

2. Filmmaker authority Filmmakers use the Word to entertain when they … • select gospel scenes with the most visual drama and narrative simplicity, • avoid scenes of controversy, • dwell on characters in dramatic tension with Jesus, & • either illustrate famous scenes with little narrative architecture, or restructure the narrative per standards of character-driven narrative clarity.

3. Filmmaker authority Filmmakers deal with the unique claims to authority made by a holy text when they … • harmonize gospels as mutual checks on adaptation, • film in or near Palestine, • use historical sources as further checks, and • call on religious groups for approval, • … though they still invent story, in service of Hollywood’s conventions that motivate viewer interest in character arcs.

4. Filmmaker authority • The paradox is that filmmakers treat the Word as a transcendent authority that needs bolstering by the use of other sources. • Thus do they transpose Biblical verses and scenes, sort of relying on the gospels. • Isaiah 53 in The Passion of the Christ

5. Truth vs. entertainment • Gibson refused the religion/entertainment, Holy Ghost/Hollywood, gospel/screenplay distinctions. • He relied instead on traditions of art that also defied such distinctions, such as medieval painting (devotional & aesthetic) and his own war-movie corpus (action-oriented & moralistic). • This is the dual role of movie violence: moralistic and exciting—one because the other. Filmmakers who trade in violence can often lay claims both to entertainment and moral profundity.

6. Review: violence and belief • The results of immersion in spectacle include solidarity (pride in group membership), which inspires audiences to deem entertainment moral. • But artistic, media violence can also overwhelm reason and summon emotion to the opposite effect: anti-social aggression. • This fear joins the fear of idolatry at the heart of crusading against Jesus films—that the magic lantern that makes absence present can also move people in the wrong directions.

7. Truth vs. entertainment • This allows Gibson to stage the conflict between guilt and triumph, humility and entitlement: • Faithful viewers affirmed their shared guilt, but also bonded in triumphal solidarity against those who rejected the movie. • All of this helped the film work for a high-solidarity evangelical audience who already knew the story. • Such audiences also assessed realism differently than others did…

8. Realism in storytelling • Supporters of The Passion of the Christ argued that graphic depictions of scourging and crucifixion were appropriate to the religious subject. • The contrast, between this graphic style and the Hollywood tradition of avoiding bloodshed in the depiction of The Passion, inspired viewers to proclaim this film as uniquely realistic.

9. Realism in storytelling • But, by “realistic,” do such filmgoers imply that the filmmaker was only minimally involved in mediating the on-screen action, and that he presents what a first-hand witness to the event would have seen? • The Passion of the Christ avoids some of the more shocking and degrading elements of scourging and crucifixion in favor of tableaux and performance styles drawn from Renaissance and Modern art and Hollywood convention.

10. Realism in storytelling • The conventional nature of the style may help viewers who are so inclined to look past it. They can attribute the power of what they see to a correspondence to its historical truth rather than to the style of its presentation. • The irony of filmgoing is that viewers ignore matters of style and misattribute that power to the realism of the depictions. • Because supporters of The Passion of the Christ regard the events depicted as historically real, they judge emotionally compelling depictions realistic.

11. Jesus Movies fall 2008 King/Malbon

12. A crusade • The Motion Picture Association of American is a cartel of major studios, whose business model is to govern the ratings of all major releases and ensure that unrated films are treated as porn. • MPAA scandals of 1980 • Reentry of evangelicals into popular culture: • Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ • James Dobson’s Focus on the Family • Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority • Don Wildmon’s American Family Association

13. A crusade • A look at an early draft of the script for The Last Temptation of Christ revealed a fantasy of sex between Mary and Jesus, based on a Greek novel. • The structure of the script emphasized changing missions and thus the uncertainty of Christ. • Protests in 1988 demonstrated evangelical strength on relatively thin pretexts (a cancelled showing suggests a lack of deference). • No official censorship occurred, but many theaters backed out of agreements to exhibit.

14. Divided audiences • Though many hoped for conversational reconciliation during the release of The Passion of the Christ, division seemed more often to occur. • The film relies primarily on John: • ironic misunderstandings, by the stereotyped groups outside of Christ’s circle, of what he says, • lack of English-language dialogue, • Christ’s wordless exchanges with others, and • flashbacks that bear unexplained import for otherwise unmotivated characters.

15. Realism in storytelling • Storytelling involves real audiences, those people who hear/see the stories, • authorial audiences — familiar with the culture to which the author refers (they get the references and allusions), and • narrative audiences — who pretend to believe that the characters are real. • Unless a story requires a narrative audience to believe anything that the authorial audience would not, then they can find the story realistic.

16. Realism in storytelling • But Gibson did two things to keep many people from feeling included in his authorial audience: • First, he withheld so much character background, clear motivation, and explanation of flashbacks from the story, that people unfamiliar with the gospel found it difficult to follow it, in the feature-film terms of clearly-motivated characters. • Thus, following the story required that people really be members of the authorial audience—that they be educated in the gospel.

17. Realism in storytelling • Second, Gibson focused so heavily on priestly manipulation and the shedding of blood that he alienated those who do not share the Jew-blaming, blood-ransom theology. • Maintaining their places in the narrative audience required that some viewers pretend to be part of a subculture—an authorial audience—with which they disagree. Many refused to do so.

18. Realism in storytelling • Thus, the authorial audience was small — even gospel scholars felt marginal to it — though the group willing to join the narrative audience was large. • Thus, even people who wanted to believe in the characters (narrative audience) were kept from enjoying the movie if they didn’t share conservative/evangelical culture. • Such outsiders to the authorial audience found the story unrealistic and thus the violence gratuitous.

19. Divided audiences • The film served to reconcile only conservative Christian groups, who could view the bloodletting as a chance to bond over the shared theology of substitutionary atonement. • The interpretation of blood ransom as the satisfaction of the wrath of God may be a theological addition, by Matthew, John, etc., to the interpretation of it as liberation from tyranny. • One form of this interpretation stresses bloodshed as punishment, borne by Christ in sinners’ stead.

20. Coming up … • Why did this interpretation of the Passion, with its stress on the intrinsic value of bloodshed, become so popular at this point in history? • Look for an email on Reflection 5.