Someone I know has been referring to it as "Jesus Chainsaw Massacre"
I do keep hearing that it's NOT about the life of jebus or his message - JUST about his death.
I also keep hearing (on the radio, even) that there are a lot of churches buying out shows to give tickets away in an effort to convert them. As gory and violent as the movie sounds (and rated R) I have to wonder if they even watched it before deciding to buy the tickets.
"Jesus Chainsaw Massacre" comes from a reviewer; if you care, I'll track down which one. I stumbled across it and quoted it in a comment to somebody else's journal ... probably silmaril's journal, I think.)
As for being just about His death, well to be fair that's all it tried to be, all it ever claimed to be, and even exactly what the title says it is: our modern meaning for the word "passion" derives from an older meaning that meant "suffering", and in this context it means exactly what this movie portrays. So that's not a valid complaint about the job they did making the movie/telling the story (but it is a valid complaint about which movie they decided to make, which part of the story they decided to tell).
As others have pointed out, there's a long history of "passion plays"; at the same time (again, as others have pointed out), trying to use this to convert people instead of a telling of the larger story that makes this ending meaningful in the first place, is a bizarre choice. (And (again, not my own observation or research), denying the inflammatory nature of the movie given the historical correspondence between passion plays and anti-Semitic violence, is suspicious at best.)
I think that the churches giving away tickets aren't thinking "gory and violent" so much as "realistic and spectacular" -- think "shock and awe". But I still find it really odd to use just the ending, without the message part of the story, to try to win converts. For somebody who already believes, I can see an excruciatingly graphic depiction driving home just how much He suffered for us to give us the gift of Salvation (in other words, the movie is a reminder that it wasn't, "Oh okay, the point in the story when I die now -- see y'all in a couple of days, and have a nice weekend!", that instead it involved real suffering, torture). I can't see someone who doesn't already believe, reacting to a couple hours of brutality inflicted on a character they don't already have that personal attachment to, saying, "Gee, all that gore and pain has opened my eyes to how much God loves us!" or something.
So I think the Christians who say things like, "I dare anyone to watch this and not believe," are mistaking their feelings of having their existing belief emphasized and personalized, for the acquisition of new faith. Sloppy thinking. Grrrr.
Me, I'm already a believer but I'm not sure I really want to sit through this movie based on what I've heard. Further thoughts on the reasons for that might venture into TMI-land, but I may get around to organizing them into words eventually anyhow.
Re: A friend of mine had to review it for his job...
I do keep hearing that it's NOT about the life of jebus or his message - JUST about his death.
I also keep hearing (on the radio, even) that there are a lot of churches buying out shows to give tickets away in an effort to convert them. As gory and violent as the movie sounds (and rated R) I have to wonder if they even watched it before deciding to buy the tickets.
Re: A friend of mine had to review it for his job...
As for being just about His death, well to be fair that's all it tried to be, all it ever claimed to be, and even exactly what the title says it is: our modern meaning for the word "passion" derives from an older meaning that meant "suffering", and in this context it means exactly what this movie portrays. So that's not a valid complaint about the job they did making the movie/telling the story (but it is a valid complaint about which movie they decided to make, which part of the story they decided to tell).
As others have pointed out, there's a long history of "passion plays"; at the same time (again, as others have pointed out), trying to use this to convert people instead of a telling of the larger story that makes this ending meaningful in the first place, is a bizarre choice. (And (again, not my own observation or research), denying the inflammatory nature of the movie given the historical correspondence between passion plays and anti-Semitic violence, is suspicious at best.)
I think that the churches giving away tickets aren't thinking "gory and violent" so much as "realistic and spectacular" -- think "shock and awe". But I still find it really odd to use just the ending, without the message part of the story, to try to win converts. For somebody who already believes, I can see an excruciatingly graphic depiction driving home just how much He suffered for us to give us the gift of Salvation (in other words, the movie is a reminder that it wasn't, "Oh okay, the point in the story when I die now -- see y'all in a couple of days, and have a nice weekend!", that instead it involved real suffering, torture). I can't see someone who doesn't already believe, reacting to a couple hours of brutality inflicted on a character they don't already have that personal attachment to, saying, "Gee, all that gore and pain has opened my eyes to how much God loves us!" or something.
So I think the Christians who say things like, "I dare anyone to watch this and not believe," are mistaking their feelings of having their existing belief emphasized and personalized, for the acquisition of new faith. Sloppy thinking. Grrrr.
Me, I'm already a believer but I'm not sure I really want to sit through this movie based on what I've heard. Further thoughts on the reasons for that might venture into TMI-land, but I may get around to organizing them into words eventually anyhow.