Like all action movies, Passion of The Christ works using violence and the creation and release of tension, although not in the usual way.
The usual way relies on ratcheting up tension in the audience and then releasing it in a way that has dramatic elegance (symmetry, catharsis etc.). The resolution of the modern movie's conflict lies in the first 20-30 pages of the script. The turning point in the first 20-30 pages signal a departure from normalcy, and we are returned to modified normalcy in the last 10 pages or so. The modern movie depicts its imbalance in all kinds of ways, and the action movie, from which Passion gets at least a fair amount of its DNA, usually relies on some form of brutality. In the war movie it's often atrocities by an unfeeling enemy and in Charles Bronson movies it's usually some poor underaged girl getting kidnapped and raped, but it's all doing the same big dumb thing: providing the emotional fuel necessary to make us embrace the violence that's going to set things right.
At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to be clever, I turn now to Wikipedia:
"The Latin phrase (deus ex machina) originated with Greek and Roman theater, when a mechane would lower actors playing a god or gods on stage to resolve a hopeless situation. The phrase is often translated as "god from the machine", where the machine referred to is the crane device employed in the task."
Now, we modern people (modern meaning post-Aristotle) typically think of deus ex machina as a cheap, unsatisfying way to solve dramatic situations. But if it's so cheap and crappy, how did it once become so popular?
One answer is that if faith in and surrender to the deus in question are perceived by the audience as the only real and true ways to solve problems, deus ex machina starts to look a lot less cheap and crappy. Theater becomes a devotional ritual rather than a humanistic one. The surrender of one's ego-centric desires to faith in a higher power is an alternative way to release the anxiety created by conflict in the narrative. Most Christians believe that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to salvation, and Passion relies on this belief to solve its dramatic problems. Anger at the injustice done to Jesus is relieved by knowing that He is reborn, and that his rebirth not only solves all of His problems, but ours as well. Looking at the movie this way, it's easy to understand why so many people found the charges of anti-semitism to be beside the point: we don't leave the theater angry at the Jews because the problems of the movie have been solved without revenge. So although I found myself shaking my head and thinking, "those stupid Jews" a bunch of times (come on, admit it, so did you), I really don't think the movie's trying to stir up hatred. In the end I just felt sorry for the Jews, and is stirring up condescension really such a crime?
That aside, Passion stirs up all kinds of other emotions through its extreme violence, and it's fair to examine the way it does this and to ask whether what it's doing is ethical and honest. The scenes of Jesus being tortured and humiliated are excruciating to watch. We watch them bracing ourselves at the blows that tear his flesh, at the extreme violence done to his body. We are filled with anxiety, and the movie uses this anxiety to bully us into accepting the resolution to its story: it freaks us out as much as it possibly can and gives our emotional pressure a singular escape route. People believe in Jesus as the savior for all kinds of reasons, but the least compelling one, and the only one that Passion's narrative thrust relies on, is that He was tortured to death. This is manipulative and cheap, partly because it's exploiting pre-existing assumptions that the audience presumably finds meaningful and important to add backbone to an unreflective narrative roller-coaster, but mostly because it's relying on the creation and alleviation of anxiety and repulsion to do this. How can there be any meaning in a journey that gets all its fuel from fear and repulsion? I don't see how its ray of hope at the end -- shining on an immaculate, naked Jim Caviezel with a CGI stigmata -- could seem satisfying to anyone who doesn't feel like being bullied into believing something, whether they already believe it or not.
The usual way relies on ratcheting up tension in the audience and then releasing it in a way that has dramatic elegance (symmetry, catharsis etc.). The resolution of the modern movie's conflict lies in the first 20-30 pages of the script. The turning point in the first 20-30 pages signal a departure from normalcy, and we are returned to modified normalcy in the last 10 pages or so. The modern movie depicts its imbalance in all kinds of ways, and the action movie, from which Passion gets at least a fair amount of its DNA, usually relies on some form of brutality. In the war movie it's often atrocities by an unfeeling enemy and in Charles Bronson movies it's usually some poor underaged girl getting kidnapped and raped, but it's all doing the same big dumb thing: providing the emotional fuel necessary to make us embrace the violence that's going to set things right.
At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to be clever, I turn now to Wikipedia:
"The Latin phrase (deus ex machina) originated with Greek and Roman theater, when a mechane would lower actors playing a god or gods on stage to resolve a hopeless situation. The phrase is often translated as "god from the machine", where the machine referred to is the crane device employed in the task."
Now, we modern people (modern meaning post-Aristotle) typically think of deus ex machina as a cheap, unsatisfying way to solve dramatic situations. But if it's so cheap and crappy, how did it once become so popular?
One answer is that if faith in and surrender to the deus in question are perceived by the audience as the only real and true ways to solve problems, deus ex machina starts to look a lot less cheap and crappy. Theater becomes a devotional ritual rather than a humanistic one. The surrender of one's ego-centric desires to faith in a higher power is an alternative way to release the anxiety created by conflict in the narrative. Most Christians believe that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to salvation, and Passion relies on this belief to solve its dramatic problems. Anger at the injustice done to Jesus is relieved by knowing that He is reborn, and that his rebirth not only solves all of His problems, but ours as well. Looking at the movie this way, it's easy to understand why so many people found the charges of anti-semitism to be beside the point: we don't leave the theater angry at the Jews because the problems of the movie have been solved without revenge. So although I found myself shaking my head and thinking, "those stupid Jews" a bunch of times (come on, admit it, so did you), I really don't think the movie's trying to stir up hatred. In the end I just felt sorry for the Jews, and is stirring up condescension really such a crime?
That aside, Passion stirs up all kinds of other emotions through its extreme violence, and it's fair to examine the way it does this and to ask whether what it's doing is ethical and honest. The scenes of Jesus being tortured and humiliated are excruciating to watch. We watch them bracing ourselves at the blows that tear his flesh, at the extreme violence done to his body. We are filled with anxiety, and the movie uses this anxiety to bully us into accepting the resolution to its story: it freaks us out as much as it possibly can and gives our emotional pressure a singular escape route. People believe in Jesus as the savior for all kinds of reasons, but the least compelling one, and the only one that Passion's narrative thrust relies on, is that He was tortured to death. This is manipulative and cheap, partly because it's exploiting pre-existing assumptions that the audience presumably finds meaningful and important to add backbone to an unreflective narrative roller-coaster, but mostly because it's relying on the creation and alleviation of anxiety and repulsion to do this. How can there be any meaning in a journey that gets all its fuel from fear and repulsion? I don't see how its ray of hope at the end -- shining on an immaculate, naked Jim Caviezel with a CGI stigmata -- could seem satisfying to anyone who doesn't feel like being bullied into believing something, whether they already believe it or not.