The Passion of Mel Gibson
2004; Salisbury University; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
ResumoThere's something almost hoary about Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004). Not that John Debney's score isn't hip (voices, flutes, thrumming electronic drums) and Gibson's Jesus stoic and cool and capable of sustaining pain beyond normal human limits. No, what I mean that the film, no matter its message, can't help but expose its venerable cinematic underthings to the viewer. Every dolly, every pan, cut, dissolve, altered frame speed, and subjective camera technique are laid right out there, while the characters emote in Aramaic and Latin (though often they sounded to me like Nicol Williamson as Merlin chanting a spell in John Doorman's powerfully mysterious and religious Excalibur [1981]), as if what we were watching was supposed to be, well, the Gospel, but obviously it's not. Movies in general have a poor record of historical accuracy and Gibson's The Passion of the Christ no exception. Pontius Pilate, for example, as David Denby noted in his New Yorker review, is not the bloody governor of history [. . .] but a civilized and humane leader tormented by the burdens of power-he holds a soulful discussion with his wife on the nature of truth (84). Pasolini managed to cut through the gauze to revelation in his The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1966), but such an aesthetic feat beyond Gibson's more commercial sensibilities. Gibson's movie opens with a shot of a full and cinematic Gothic moon in a cloudy night sky tinged a grayish blue, as the fog, then Caleb Deschanel's fluid camera pulls down and dollies through on its search for Jesus and a few of his disciples in a garden somewhere outside Jerusalem (Gethsemane). Jesus's back (played by the makeup team and the torso of James Caviezel) looks like a crumpled map riven with blood canals. The film's color-coding at the beginning-blue for Jesus, gold for the greedy Jewish priests in the temple-also partakes of the film's quaintness. Even the demons that whiz by Judas (Luca Lionello) seem a bit old-fashioned with their startle effects, as do other filmic devices, e.g. Mary shot from ground level as she clutches the dust and dirt where Jesus's blood recently was splattered for some twenty minutes of screen time, then the camera descending through the earth to Jesus chained in a room, head raised, sensing his mother above-a minor example of this film hero's supernatural abilities. Christ also replaces a soldier's lopped off ear lost when the disciples fight hack, briefly and in slow and stutter motion, as Jesus arrested. Monsters have a grand film history, but, like comedy, are hard to do. Children with demon eyes harass Judas until he hangs himself. In the arms of Satan we see the back of a child's head, until it turns to reveal its demon face, reminiscent of Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973), another filmed venture into the Christian Gothic. Gibson's eyebrowless, androgynous (at best) Satan (played by the actress Rosalinda Celentano) eyes Jesus seductively, lets an insect wriggle into her nose, and releases from somewhere under her robe a snake. Near the end we see this cartoonish devil (isn't there also a hint in her figure of Bergman's Death from The Seventh Seal [1956]?) in an overhead shot curling in agony and despair because she's lost another one to Jehovah. Then Satan dissolves into the cloudy evening sky whence the film began and where no doubt, even as I write, the cosmic battle rages on. Like voyeurs we track Jesus, as does Satan on one side of the crowd, Mary (Maia Morgenstern) or Mary Magdalene (Monica Bellucci) on the other. Neither they nor we can get enough of the spectacle of torture. Only a few in the crowd are disturbed enough to turn away or offer Jesus succor. But Gibson doesn't shy away from Jesus's pov cither. Breughelesque uglies leer at the camera and hand-held shots subjectively swirl and turn and fall with Jesus before he impressively thunks to earth, though none of these thunks are as forceful as the stomp Jesus gives the snake that slithered out from under Satan's dress earlier in the movie. …
Referência(s)