Gibson’s film not only omits this unsavory flourish, but goes in the opposite direction, giving a humanizing detail not found in the gospels.įor all this, though, the single most overwhelming aspect of the scourging at the pillar remains its sheer savagery. Emmerich’s account includes a strikingly different account of the Jewish onlookers during the scourging: She depicts Jewish leaders paying the Roman soldiers and plying them with drink to induce them to even more brutality. Significantly, this humanizing touch in Caiaphas’s characterization comes neither from the gospels, nor from sources such as Sr. We also see the high priest Caiaphas watching the scourging - not sadistically reveling in the spectacle of Jesus’ sufferings, but clearly troubled, finding it painful to watch. The depiction of the Jewish mob may be unflattering, but it pales to insignificance beside the unmitigated barbarism of the Roman brute squad. The other thing the scourging scene makes clear is the hollowness of activist complaints about the film’s supposed antisemitism.
Never."Īt certain points this androgynous figure is depicted in opposition to the Virgin Mary - but never more arrestingly so than before the pillar, where there is a kind of anti-Marian vision that I will not describe, except to say that it is so bizarre and grotesque, yet ultimately meaningless, that it seems to come straight from hell. We first see it in the garden of Gethsemane, where its attempts to dissuade Jesus from his mission are a nihilistic litany of negation: "No man can bear this burden… No one. A satanic figure haunts the film, watchful and inscrutable. The scourging at the pillar is also the occasion of one of Gibson’s own most singular, unnerving imaginative flourishes. Not all of the film’s glosses on the gospel accounts come from Emmerich.
The scenario is strikingly evocative of Catholic piety regarding Jesus’ precious blood, but doesn’t reflect a historiographical concern with sticking to the gospel accounts. This incident, found nowhere in the gospels comes from the visionary writings of Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, the 19th-century stigmatic and mystic whose Dolorous Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ significantly influenced the screenplay for The Passion of the Christ. After Jesus is taken away, the two Marys go down on the flagstones and begin mopping up the blood of Jesus which has been spilled around the pillar.
Rather, while following the basic outline of the passion narratives, the film is an imaginative, at times poetic reflection on the meaning of the gospel story in light of sacred tradition and Catholic theology.Ĭonsider the following incident: As Jesus is being flogged, Claudia, the wife of Pilate, approaches the Blessed Virgin and Mary Magdalene bearing folded linens, which she gives to them. Watching this scene, two things become transparently clear.įirst, notwithstanding at-times exaggerated claims of historical accuracy and fidelity to the gospels from some of the film’s defenders, The Passion of the Christ is not an attempt to depict the sufferings of Christ exactly as described in the New Testament. The scourging at the pillar also stands out for the way it cuts through the smoke of confusion and misinformation coming from both sides of the controversy surrounding the film. The larger point is that, for the first time since the silent era, a cinematic Jesus is unencumbered by British-accented (or worse, American-accented) English, or by a European romance language, etc. Put aside linguistic quibbles about what first-century Latin actually sounded like, or whether Jews and Romans wouldn’t have used Greek rather than Latin to converse with one another. That the story was filmed in Latin and Aramaic at all is worthy of note. As necessary as they may be in some scenes, especially on a first viewing, when the film becomes available on DVD everyone who buys it should watch it at least once with the subtitles turned off. Subtitles would be an unnecessary distraction.Īt other points throughout the film, Gibson ultimately found it necessary to use subtitles still, some of the most effective scenes remain the ones for which he was able to avoid them. We don’t know what they’re saying, and we don’t need to know.
As the Roman centurions flog Jesus, their brutal, laughing mockery and derisive taunts go on for long minutes - and the Latin is left untranslated. The sequence is also an outstanding example of Gibson’s original vision of telling the story in the languages of the day, without subtitles. One reason, certainly, is that it is the most horrifying sequence in the film, more agonizing even than the crucifixion itself, or the carrying of the cross.