![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Night at the Movies
Feb. 27th, 2004 09:28 pmI just went to see The Passion of the Christ.
I went alone.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blckwngdorcl had no interest in seeing it, and it was his gaming night, so it seemed like a good time for me to go. I made a few phone calls to see if I could catch anyone to go with me, but no such luck. Turns out that was just as well, since I literally got the last ticket for the 6:30pm showing at Barrett Commons. Even so, there were a lot of seats open. I ended up in line towards the front, and pretty much got just one or two seats away from my preferred seat at theatres, which was pretty cool. Waiting for the movie, I felt out of place, almost defensive. I haven't really talked to any other pagans, so I didn't know if I was the only one really interested in seeing it, and certainly I didn't know of any who had already seen it. I wished I had one of those hood ornament-like pentacles to wear. I'm not even sure why. Perhaps I didn't want to be guilty by association, as it were. I know that part of me wanted to do it almost as an outreach. Kind of a "Look, I'm pagan, and I'm not afraid to come to this movie. I'm interested. Learning about other religions isn't scary, see?"
I wondered, as the previews were about to start, what kind of previews one would put in front of a movie like this. I mean, theatres target previews to the audience, based on the movie. Action movies will have action movie previews, comedy will have comedy, and so on. Plus a few generic ones, known to be enjoyed by people who frequent certain types of movies. The previews were The Alamo, which was pretty generic. Not likely to offend any fundies who might be there. The first preview was actually one I'd never seen before, called Two Brothers, about a couple of tiger cubs. Think The Fox and the Houndmeets The Ghost and the Darkness. It made me cry, for some reason. I mean, yeah, the cubs were adorable, and reminded me of my cats (especially Smithers), so there was that, but not sure what else. Such short scenes. Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that they're tigers. I'll see the movie when it comes out, I think. If there was a third preview, I don't remember it.
Once the movie started, pretty much everything else just went away. It was obvious that Gibson assumed people knew the story already. There were some references I'd heard growing up in Sunday school, that, I think if I hadn't already been indoctrinated with that dogma, I wouldn't have understood as poignantly. Even so, I wonder what it would have been like to watch that film as a Christian.
The film started out at the Garden of Gethsemene, and went through to the rolling away of the stone. There were a few flashbacks, but most of it was set around the condemnation and punishment of Jesus.
I don't think I've ever seen anything so unrelentingly brutal. I'm not going to try to describe how brutal. Words wouldn't do it justice. Maybe the closest thing I've seen are the Faces of Death movies, which show real deaths. Even so, those movies are made rather emotionlessly, more like documentaries. This showed the emotional brutality of it, as well. Kinda like Reservoir Dogs, which I've only seen once, and the cop-beating scene rather disturbed me. All the worst qualities of both. As I said, there were a few flashbacks, which, if nothing else, helped you remember what his face looked like before it was all bruised and bloodied. They kept the (what I consider) good messages (love one another), but also kept the (what I consider) bad ones (the only way to the father is through me). They kept one of the more annoying mistranslations (is that a word?)... at least I've read it's not correct. Jesus the Nazerene, from what I've read, is completely different than saying Jesus of Nazareth. Apparently, the first is correct, and actually refers to a sect, or set of beliefs, or something like that, and the second is based on geography, except that, in this case, the geography isn't correct. There was something else that bugged me a bit, but I don't remember what it was. Oh, well.
When I left the theatre and went outside, there was a guy there that stopped me to talk to me about the movie. He seemed to be treading lightly around evangelizing, but I stopped and talked to him, anyway. Partially out of curiousity, partially to allow myself the opportunity to place myself in the situation I mentioned earlier about a pagan watching a Christian movie. Maybe partially because I was still digesting the whole thing, but I was having trouble wrapping my mind around concepts like being unappreciative of preaching. I could hear the words in my head, but I couldn't quite remember why I would want to say them. At the end of the brief conversation, the guy asked if I wanted him to pray for me about anything. I told him, with a gentle and somewhat smirky smile that I did pretty well praying for myself. Afterwards, though, I thought of a prayer that I would like to be said.
I pray that this film's message be that of awe. Regardless of the doing-this-to-save-your-souls message, I hope that people who see this film take away the concept of supreme love. Whether or not there were actually any souls being saved, or even any need for them to be saved at all, the guy in this film felt that he was doing it, felt that he could stop the process at any point, and didn't. Kinda like in Lord of the Rings, where Sam tells Frodo that the thing that makes the great stories great is that the heroes had lots of opportunities to turn back, and didn't. Whether or not you believe the dogma, the story as it's told in the Bible, or anything else, if you go strictly by the movie, this guy put himself through some indescribable shit to show love. That's worth something.
I pray that fundies don't use the brutality as an excuse to be brutal themselves. The school of spare the rod and spoil the child. If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you. You think what I'm doing to you is bad? Just think about what happened to our Lord and Savior, and what he went through to save your sorry ass, and still you sin, sin, sin! Now go get me my belt and pull down your pants.
Shit. You hear about that bullshit every day already.
I pray that Christians don't come away from this with a sense of guilt. What happened in that movie was horrific. I can't imagine the kind of impact that must have on someone who believes it was done to save their personal soul from torment. The Church fosters enough guilt already, and this could easily be added as fuel to that fire.
I pray that Christians... all people, actually... take away the message of love, not martyrdom. There, there, dear, I know your husband beats you, but think of what our Lord went through, and think of the reward you'll get in heaven after this life. Blessed are the meek. Why don't you offer him your other cheek? Oh, wait, that's bruised, too... Oh, well.
Such a strong movie. Brutal in most places, beautiful in others. Strangely enough, Satan was the most breathtakingly beautiful character, in my opinion. I would never have guessed that he was played by a woman. Jesus was beautiful, too. I kept thinking they CGed his eyes, but later decided that was all natural. Brown one minute, sunlight-through-honey the next. An extremely well-done movie (although there were a couple of editing things that seemed kinda fucked). Gibson's gonna make (more) millions off this. I pray that it's not just more fodder for hatred in the name of the Divine.
I went alone.
blckwngdorcl had no interest in seeing it, and it was his gaming night, so it seemed like a good time for me to go. I made a few phone calls to see if I could catch anyone to go with me, but no such luck. Turns out that was just as well, since I literally got the last ticket for the 6:30pm showing at Barrett Commons. Even so, there were a lot of seats open. I ended up in line towards the front, and pretty much got just one or two seats away from my preferred seat at theatres, which was pretty cool. Waiting for the movie, I felt out of place, almost defensive. I haven't really talked to any other pagans, so I didn't know if I was the only one really interested in seeing it, and certainly I didn't know of any who had already seen it. I wished I had one of those hood ornament-like pentacles to wear. I'm not even sure why. Perhaps I didn't want to be guilty by association, as it were. I know that part of me wanted to do it almost as an outreach. Kind of a "Look, I'm pagan, and I'm not afraid to come to this movie. I'm interested. Learning about other religions isn't scary, see?" I wondered, as the previews were about to start, what kind of previews one would put in front of a movie like this. I mean, theatres target previews to the audience, based on the movie. Action movies will have action movie previews, comedy will have comedy, and so on. Plus a few generic ones, known to be enjoyed by people who frequent certain types of movies. The previews were The Alamo, which was pretty generic. Not likely to offend any fundies who might be there. The first preview was actually one I'd never seen before, called Two Brothers, about a couple of tiger cubs. Think The Fox and the Houndmeets The Ghost and the Darkness. It made me cry, for some reason. I mean, yeah, the cubs were adorable, and reminded me of my cats (especially Smithers), so there was that, but not sure what else. Such short scenes. Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that they're tigers. I'll see the movie when it comes out, I think. If there was a third preview, I don't remember it.
Once the movie started, pretty much everything else just went away. It was obvious that Gibson assumed people knew the story already. There were some references I'd heard growing up in Sunday school, that, I think if I hadn't already been indoctrinated with that dogma, I wouldn't have understood as poignantly. Even so, I wonder what it would have been like to watch that film as a Christian.
The film started out at the Garden of Gethsemene, and went through to the rolling away of the stone. There were a few flashbacks, but most of it was set around the condemnation and punishment of Jesus.
I don't think I've ever seen anything so unrelentingly brutal. I'm not going to try to describe how brutal. Words wouldn't do it justice. Maybe the closest thing I've seen are the Faces of Death movies, which show real deaths. Even so, those movies are made rather emotionlessly, more like documentaries. This showed the emotional brutality of it, as well. Kinda like Reservoir Dogs, which I've only seen once, and the cop-beating scene rather disturbed me. All the worst qualities of both. As I said, there were a few flashbacks, which, if nothing else, helped you remember what his face looked like before it was all bruised and bloodied. They kept the (what I consider) good messages (love one another), but also kept the (what I consider) bad ones (the only way to the father is through me). They kept one of the more annoying mistranslations (is that a word?)... at least I've read it's not correct. Jesus the Nazerene, from what I've read, is completely different than saying Jesus of Nazareth. Apparently, the first is correct, and actually refers to a sect, or set of beliefs, or something like that, and the second is based on geography, except that, in this case, the geography isn't correct. There was something else that bugged me a bit, but I don't remember what it was. Oh, well.
When I left the theatre and went outside, there was a guy there that stopped me to talk to me about the movie. He seemed to be treading lightly around evangelizing, but I stopped and talked to him, anyway. Partially out of curiousity, partially to allow myself the opportunity to place myself in the situation I mentioned earlier about a pagan watching a Christian movie. Maybe partially because I was still digesting the whole thing, but I was having trouble wrapping my mind around concepts like being unappreciative of preaching. I could hear the words in my head, but I couldn't quite remember why I would want to say them. At the end of the brief conversation, the guy asked if I wanted him to pray for me about anything. I told him, with a gentle and somewhat smirky smile that I did pretty well praying for myself. Afterwards, though, I thought of a prayer that I would like to be said.
I pray that this film's message be that of awe. Regardless of the doing-this-to-save-your-souls message, I hope that people who see this film take away the concept of supreme love. Whether or not there were actually any souls being saved, or even any need for them to be saved at all, the guy in this film felt that he was doing it, felt that he could stop the process at any point, and didn't. Kinda like in Lord of the Rings, where Sam tells Frodo that the thing that makes the great stories great is that the heroes had lots of opportunities to turn back, and didn't. Whether or not you believe the dogma, the story as it's told in the Bible, or anything else, if you go strictly by the movie, this guy put himself through some indescribable shit to show love. That's worth something.
I pray that fundies don't use the brutality as an excuse to be brutal themselves. The school of spare the rod and spoil the child. If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you. You think what I'm doing to you is bad? Just think about what happened to our Lord and Savior, and what he went through to save your sorry ass, and still you sin, sin, sin! Now go get me my belt and pull down your pants.
Shit. You hear about that bullshit every day already.
I pray that Christians don't come away from this with a sense of guilt. What happened in that movie was horrific. I can't imagine the kind of impact that must have on someone who believes it was done to save their personal soul from torment. The Church fosters enough guilt already, and this could easily be added as fuel to that fire.
I pray that Christians... all people, actually... take away the message of love, not martyrdom. There, there, dear, I know your husband beats you, but think of what our Lord went through, and think of the reward you'll get in heaven after this life. Blessed are the meek. Why don't you offer him your other cheek? Oh, wait, that's bruised, too... Oh, well.
Such a strong movie. Brutal in most places, beautiful in others. Strangely enough, Satan was the most breathtakingly beautiful character, in my opinion. I would never have guessed that he was played by a woman. Jesus was beautiful, too. I kept thinking they CGed his eyes, but later decided that was all natural. Brown one minute, sunlight-through-honey the next. An extremely well-done movie (although there were a couple of editing things that seemed kinda fucked). Gibson's gonna make (more) millions off this. I pray that it's not just more fodder for hatred in the name of the Divine.
