I didn't know if this was mentioned or not, it may have just been noticed regionally.

A woman seeing the film at a theatre in Wichita, KS died of a heart attack during the screening. I tried to hunt down a link but no luck. Anyone else hear, or have link?

Yeah, I heard about that too.

Here's a link.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/0...on.death.reut/

I saw it yesterday. I must say the violence is pretty intense and graphic. But despite all that it was really moving. I would definitely recommend seeing it.

... Um, just be careful if you have heart problems I guess.

I finally saw the film last night and I'm not sure what to think of it. I liked it and I didn't. I thought the film was visually gorgeous...I loved the score...the acting was great. I guess it was directed at Christans more than I had hoped it would be. I know, everyone would say to that, "no sh#t!" I'm not a Christan, but I do believe Jesus exsisted and that he was a great man. I guess I was just hoping for a film that would appeal to everyone of all beliefs. I also didn't really like the fact that it isn't a film that can just stand on it's own. If you are someone who doesn't know much about the story of Christ, you'll probably be a little confused. You never even hear the names of some of the characters.

PS - If you happen to live in the Los Angeles area and you haven't seen it yet, go see while it's still playing in the Cinerama Dome at the Arclight...what a great theater!!

well lets see as one of the few memebers here that is a christian.. (no i will see i tomorrow)

why not show what jesus went through.. you do understand according to the christian belief.. he got beat up pretty bad.. the part that most miss is this..

he had to. and wait. he had to die on the cross for to pay for everyones sins..

guess what no matter what they did to him before he went on the cross he couldnt die.. now you know that no one other than him could survive that much pain and suffering. sure show him with blood.. truth hurts heh.. what he went through

for those that are jewesh and complain about this movie.. ts i say.. get your own movie.. anyway you look at it the jews were responsible to sending a man named jesus christ to the cross.. weither the world belives he was the son of God is irrelevent.. history states that a man named jesus christ was put on a cross and died..

although as a christian it lets me understand a bit more..

what i love ol mel most is the fact he didnt use popular actors in this movie.. you dont focus on the actor as you would other movies.. this will allow you to follow what is going on.. also.. with the subtitles.. you dont have a ton of mindless drones sitting infront of a screen stuffing snacks down their throats.. they actually have to pay attention.

to me.. those that get up and leave.. sorry they are under conviction in thier lives.. on some deep level someone just struck a cord and they choose to ignore it.. thats my way of seeing life so dont flame me for it.. not preaching here lol just giving a reason for the way it goes on the movie.

others complain about violence.. good lord watch LOTR or resident evil.. whats the difference..

any hew getting ready to get the night going..

I'm christian. And I didn't like the Passion. Why?

One reason: The fantasy elements. I know Jesus performed miracles, that I didn't have a problem with, but the devil-children taunting Judas, that strange beast that popped out that had no particular purpose other than the "Boo!" factor, and worst of all, SATAN. Where, oh where, in the gospels, when it talks about The Passion, does it mention Satan roaming around the crowd of the jews, looking evil and sinister, or carrying around it's antichrist baby? It just completely took the realism out of a movie that is supposed to be "the most realistic depiction of the Passion ever put on film."

Whatever, I want my 8 bucks back.

I saw a program tonight on the Discovery channel about the Roman Colosseum. It said that over 700,000 people died there. I wonder how many more died in other parts of the Empire. The ones who died were enemies of Rome, murderers, Gladiators and lets not forget Christians. The Romans was a bloodthirsty society that enjoyed blood, carnage and death. So The Passion depicts a small part of their legacy.


Glad

*shrug* That's Hollywood. It always finds something to screw up.

That would be my only gripes with The Passion. Other than the first devil ssequence where it is Jesus' last tempation to walk away from it, there really wasn't any need to include all the other Devil scenes.

I just got back from watching this movie, and I've got to say there wasn't any anti-jew, or any other anti-religion. What I came back with is this movie was ANTI-MANKIND. I feel no one has suffered as much as Jesus did in the cruxifiction, but what they did to Jesus is a major wake up to what Man is doing to their fellow man every day.

My sentiments exactly.

Jesus loved us so much that he was willing to endure all the pain and suffering for us and ultimately die. If it wasn't for His blood to wash away our sins, we will be doomed in Hell for eternity.

Glad

what jesus killing the snake fullfilled what was said in gensis.. the snake would bruise the heel of the foot but would be crushed.

the child is a mocery meant to tempt jesus.. see the bible says that you must become as a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. satan holds the keys to death .. jesus when he died for our sins.. was held bound by satan for 3 days.. then bam.. he comes back..

this is all on the christian thing.. so like i said before .. if your not christan .. then . heh.. kinda pointless

and what makes you think there wasnt demons around at that time? there were many instances in the bible where demons were mentioned.. who do you think whispers in the ears of people tempting them. the devil childern were a manifastation of demons from what i saw.. but true.. know one knows really what went through judas' mind to send him to the tree to hang.

i mean think about it.. jesus was one of satans worries.. yet why would it and its minions pass up the chance to "get back at God" by having a hand in killing His son.

on a side note.. do you really know how hard the stress and anguish has to be for a person to cry blood?

also the bible states that the description of Jesus after they beat him.. he was unrecognizeable as a man. thats pretty bad.. hell the romans were so good at that scourge thing .. they could hit a person on thier side and pull out a rib.. pretty bad..

Damn you, Evil Milkman! You ruined the ending for me!!!

Just kidding. ;)

On a serious note, while I thought that graphically the movie was incredible, I'm now convinced that Mel Gibson couldn't direct his way out of a paper bag. Seriously. With the subject of the movie and that much blood and gore it's hard to make a movie that doesn't punch you in the guts, but if you want more than that then you've got to DIRECT. After watching it I watched Last Temptation of Christ and while it wasn't nearly as brutal or biblically accurate I really connected and cared for the characters. Scorsese really knows how to do it, and Mel just didn't have the chops to deliver a great movie. I'll still get it on DVD, but for some reason it just didn't do the trick for me.

Seems like the only thing that Mel brought to the movie was the capital to get it made, some Catholic dogma and a bunch of cheesy SFX shots of an ugly satan, scary children and a phantasm that goes "BOO!" to Judas. Wow, thanks for the contribution Mel. Hopefully someone who isn't a wannabe-director will someday give this incredible story the treatment it deserves, because it hasn't happened yet.

I'm not Christian, and I thought it was a great film. Cinematography was good, and there wasn't nearly as much focus on the scourging of Christ as people have whined about. That said, it is still not a movie for children -- it is incredibly violent, and children can handle the Disney version (no pun intended) of the Bible until they get old enough to see The Passion.

Tell that to the idiot couples that brought their 5 yr olds to the showing I was at.

....grrrrr....

I dont mean to thread jack, but I must ask... why?

Of course being crucified was agonising, but Jesus (or Yoshua Ben Josef, as I think he would have called himself?) was hardly the only person ever to be crucified. Why doesnt the suffering of a holocaust victim tortured to death in the interogation bunker at Auschwitz absolve the world of sin?

well Famous it all comes back to the christian dogma.. before jesus came living under the "law of God" was almost impossible. You had to sacriface animals to absolve your sins.

When Jesus came, he made it possible for anyone to absolve thier sins through him. See He died so that all could come to the father. (God)

If you believe he was the son of God in the flesh.. you know he was more than just human. unlike the holocaust victims.. which i think at that time in history was a bit sad in its own rights.

well i really wanna see the fil but since i live in mexico the movie will not be shown yet, i guess in about a month or so it will hit the theaters hope they dont edit it too much though :S

The film release of “The Passion” directed by Mel Gibson seems to have inspired audiences across the world. Unfortunately the viewers are following this trend like lambs to the slaughter. The only publicity this movie needed was encouraging anti-Semitic perceptions. The movie doesn’t seem too anti-Semitic except for that Jesus is a white guy. Why doesn’t he look more Jewish? Gibson tried to make a more accurate portrayal of The Passion by casting Italians as co-stars but they’re still technically too light. Jesus wasn’t white no matter what you see on the screen.
For the ignorant who blame Jews for Jesus’ death, Roman soldiers beat him and put him on that cross and Pontius Pilate wasn't that sympathetic in The Bible. If Jesus had been born in another part of the world those folks would be getting blame for crucifying him too. Jesus knew he was going to die, it was part of the plan, otherwise we wouldn’t have that whole forgiveness for our sins part. So no blame should be placed. Remember it was our sins that put him on that cross.
Why do so many people want to see this movie anyway? They can’t read the Bible or go to Church? People are so dependent on the media, that they will believe everything in this movie and forget that it is only Mel Gibson’s perspective on the matter. Try to educate yourself first. It seems like no one knew Jesus died in such a bloody way until the movie was released, even if this event has been a staple of the Christian faith for awhile now. Gibson was smart to make a movie of The Passion instead of one that focused on Jesus’ teachings. Who would pay to see that? That would be way too boring for people to watch. People only want to watch when someone is getting flogged and crucified. Kind of like that crowd following Jesus as he carried his cross to the hill.
Also why all these churches buying huge amounts of tickets to give to their congregation? That money could have been better spent on charity than Hollywood. I guess no one is bothered by the fact that Gibson is out to make a dollar off of Christ’s suffering as entertainment for the masses, that’s what movies are entertainment not a substitute for religious beliefs.
As for you people that went to see the movie, why didn’t you just go to church instead for two hours or volunteer for a good cause? You already know how the movie ends. If you have to see Christ brutally murdered in order for you to become sympathetic and religious again, I think you have bigger issues. If everyday life doesn't remind of the horrible atrocities people are able of committing against each other and the suffering that goes on daily, maybe you need to quit being so self involved. Just remember that when you’re caught up in your religious frenzy while seeing this movie, mob mentality killed Christ in the first place.

Actually most saints and maryters where killed in much more brutal ways than Christ was. He wasn't even crucified upside down which was a more common practice. Also being torn apart by lions, stoned to death, having their heads served but continuing to survive for 3 days. Just thought you should be a bit more updated on biblical proceedings

As a movie, I think "The Passion" failed horribly. If someone who had no idea who Jesus was or hadn't ever read the Bible came into watch the film, they would be pretty lost. The film can't stand up on its own unless you know the story.

The dialogue was a little dry, but they did take most lines directly from the Bible so that's to be expected. Also, Gibson uses a little too much slow motion is some scenes to the point of excess in my opinion. However, the cinematography is just awesome. The way certain shots line up remind me of the many images of the cruxifiction I've been exposed to.
Overall, I think Gibson was trying to convey the suffering of Jesus and that he really did die for our sins, and the movie conveys that well. It's a good movie, but I don't think it's as great as everyone says it is.

cynicalgrrlll for the most part I agree with you. Yet another reason I haven't bothered to see it. I read that Mel Gibson stands to make $100+ million in personal profit from this movie. Any other movie, I'd see no problem with that, but the way he's billed this one, I will not be satisfied unless I hear that he donates all profits he makes to some good cause and keeps only what is needed to make up for his expenses.

Just saw it.

Incredibly powerful.

Every movie I have ever seen, I have seen at least a half-dozen or more times.

I will not need to see this movie again. Ever. It's burned in.

Saw the movie yesterday. All I can say is wow, I left the theater emotionally drained. I think it was a great movie, but I don't think I'll ever see it again.

Same here, I saw it a few days ago, very hard to watch. I don't think its the kind of movie that you keep going back to see.

Its one of those movies that you HAVE to see once, but after that, you're done...

I don't think that I could bare going back and watching it all over again. I mean, I didn't cry when I saw it, but there were a few times when it was pretty close (the end, when he's getting his hands nailed to the cross). Alls that I didn't was constantly wince and cringe during the part where they're just WAILING on him...

This was the first time that after the movie is over, and everyone is supposed to clear out...everyone just sat there in silence, and stared at the screen. The people that I went with didn't even discuss it at all on the way home from the theater, we just kind of kept out own opinions to ourselves. There was quite a few people in the theater crying, and only 1 or 2 left, that I saw...

So I definately recommend it, but I guess that you either love or or hate it, and I can see why theres so much controversy.

Film Review: The Passion of the Christ:
 

The dust of reviews has settled on this film and so: the time has come, perhaps, for a more dispassionate, a more considered, a more reflective, little review---but no less provocative than the most provocative you’ve read thusfar....

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: A Film Review by Ron Price

This film is not intended to be a masterful historical documentary as, say, Ken Burns' work on the Civil War or one of many others done in the first century of the existence of the cinema. Gibson's work is far from possessing what some might call an intellectual poverty in its pretensions at historical documentary. Shawn Rosenheim says all TV documentaries possess an intellectual poverty. If Rosenheim is right the visual media are simply incapable of producing historical documentary.1 Even if Rosenheim is wrong historical documentary of an event 2000 years ago is impossible. We simply do not know enough.

We all know that Gibson did not take his camera crew to downtown Jerusalem in some kind of time-warp to produce an anti-Jewish, anti Roman clip for the evening news. Even if he had and he then produced for us all an evening two hour special, spectacle, called "the crucifixion," there would still be questions about visual manipulation and the program's service in the name of directing popular thought toward a new religious movement. New reliigous movements have always had trouble getting popular exposure.

No one would claim that Gibson's is a neutral recording of objective events. It is a construct operating from a certain point of view. It is a rhetorical argument achieved through the selection and combination of elements that both reflect and project a world, a world view, a cosmology if you like. It is achieved by certain cinematic conventions that try to erase any signs of cinematic artificiality. An ideology is promoted by linking the effect of reality to social values and institutions in such a way that these values seem natural and self-evident. In the case of Mel Gibson's work, a work that I found quite stimulating in its own way, the ideology is simply and strongly: fundamentalist Christianity.

I've never been attracted to Christianity in any of its fundamentalist forms. But I liked this film. Film can often get to people in ways that words, ideas and simple beliefs cannot. It was not because of its historical accuracy that I liked it. I liked All the Presidents Men and a number of other films based on and rooted in some historical theme. Rarely are historical films accurate; the main reason they seem so is that the people watching them know so little about the theme, the event, that it seems plausible to them. Sadly, but truly, we know so little about the events of the life of Jesus of Nazereth that a good script writer, a good cinematographer and a big band of men and women can bring something to life that may never have happened at all.

Bertrand Russell wrote in his Why I'm Not a Christian that, in a court of law, there is little evidence for even the existence of Jesus let alone his manner of death. Historicity simply does not exist when it comes to the events in the life of a man who has had a profound affect, I believe, on history. But what I believe and what I know; what you believe and what you actually know about Jesus are in two different worlds. The distance between the pulpit and the academic chair of religion has been widening for at least two centuries. In fact for millions of men and women these days historicity is irrelevant to their beliefs. History has become, for those millions, what it was for Henry Ford: bunk or was it bunkum? Mel, you've given us a thriller. To hell with history! 5 out of 5.

As a sort of epilogue to this brief comment on the film: one of the main reasons I am a Baha'i is that historicity is important to me. In a religion that has grown up in the modern age historicity does not present major issues. At least not yet. The revelation of Baha'u'llah, confined as it is to only 6 million adherents, has grown slowly since the mid-nineteenth century.

The originating impulse for each of the major religions of history, an impulse that led to the phenomenon of revelation or some defining religious experience has receded so far into history as to be accessible to us in only a very limited and unsatisfactory degree. Far otherwise with the work of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith. The details of His life are massively documented. And one day film-makers will make films about this Life that draw on historical facticity, historical reality. But history has a thousand faces, a thousand forms, and Mel Gibson has given us some very stimulating ones in his film ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ They will serve for some of the millions who watched it to bring them closer to One whom Baha'u'llah said: when Christ was crucified the world wept with a great weaping.

:cool: 1 The Historical Film: History and Memory in Media, editor, Marcia Pandy, the Athone Press, London, 2001.

Just saw it tonight on DVD. I liked it (as much as you can like a film that is that hard to watch).

Only part I didn't like was Spoiler: All of the Satan imagery. It's not in the bible, and it was a bit over the top. I felt like saying "Okay, okay Mel, I get it. This guy is doing something evil. I'm with you buddy!" Didn't need to see Satan present every time someone was doing something against Jesus.

Don't think I could watch it again for awhile. The violence is very graphic, and though you ultimately get used to seeing Jesus as a bloody mess, there are still parts that I could barely watch. Hats off to Jim Caviezzel (sp?) as this role had to be extraordinarily draining both mentally and physically.

I thought it was absolute garbage. I did not find it moving in the least bit. It has that "if your not christian, you will burn in hell" message and that ruined it for me. I also think religion is absolute bullshit as well, so that factors in.

Interesting POV, since I didn't feel that the movie was terribly skewed toward the spiritual side of things. I saw it more as a man who knew that dying in this manner would martyr him to his followers, and in doing so, propel his teachings farther and faster than he could do on his own.

Wait a minute, are you sure you're thinking of the right movie!? Because I didn't get that message in the very least.

I don't cry. I don't have emotion. But I cried at least 3 times during that movie. It was absolutely heartwrenching. It burns right through the soul.

This isnt a spoiler really but several scenes that made me come this conclusion are Spoiler: the scene when the guy on the cross gets his eyes gouged by a crow just because he ridiculed Jesus. The man is nailed to a cross and he is supposed to be praising Jesus? He is going to burn in hell for that reason, yet the other guy who praises Jesus while on the cross gets a one way ticket to heaven. Or how about the devil children chasing whats his name till he hung himself. Or maybe Jesus' own words of "the only way to the lord is through me." Maybe you were watching the wrong movie.

Haven't seen the movie and I don't want to.

Will be renting this soon....know several ppl that have seen it, but I would like to have my own opinion.

Nope I was watching the same movie. And the two things you mentioned don't give me the impression that "if you're not christian, you will burn in hell." I did not think that was the point of the movie at all. The point of the movie was to show the story of a man who believed that by giving his life he would save humanity by dying for their sins. But then again, you did say that you felt that religion is absolute bullshit, so I'm not surprised you got that message from the movie.

just watched it the other day... i won't say masterpiece but having grown up reading the bible from cover to cover several times, it does cover that section very well and with good detail. I'm not sure about the authenticity of facts and such of the goods and garment available or the historical accuracies.

The tale is told well in a manner that the written word affected all those people back in the day has moved similar numbers in the new format of film.

I'll watch it again. The subtitles are always distracting to me the first go round.