The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen Edition)

The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen Edition)
by Mel Gibson

The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen Edition)
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DVD details

Actor: Christo Jivkov, Francesco De Vito, James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci
Director: Mel Gibson
Brand: TCFHE
Cinematographer: Caleb Deschanel
Producer: Mel Gibson
Writer: Mel Gibson
Producer: Bruce Davey
Producer: Enzo Sisti
Producer: Stephen McEveety
Writer: Benedict Fitzgerald
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Hebrew (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 127 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-08-31
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

DVD Reviews of The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen Edition)

DVD Review: The Passion of the Christ
Summary: 5 Stars

This film was so well done. Mel Gibson took a great risk to make a film version of a historical event that is so well known and cherished. There were times that I could not stop crying. This is a very powerful movie.

DVD Review: Will Give You Pause To Think About The Reality Of The Crucifixion
Summary: 4 Stars

Until I saw this film, my visual representation of the events that transpired during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was confined to TBN specials or staged Passion Plays, where the crown of thorns is made of styrofoam, the "blood" is red food-coloring, and the nails go in between the fingers, not through them. That all changes with "The Passion of the Christ".

I don't want to get into the nit-picking of this film, as in all honesty I do not have a strong scriptural grasp on all the passages that director Mel Gibson tries to portray, but instead I view it from just one perspective: Beginning with the night that Jesus was taken into Roman custody until the stone was rolled away from the tomb, this film is a very visceral interpretation of one possible scenario that may have played out. It is sort of like a "historical-fiction" telling of the crucifixion story, as no one knows exactly what transpired.

From a plot perspective, the film doesn't at all delve into the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion (to save the world from their sins so we can join him in heaven someday), but takes a "just the facts, m'am" approach to the story. Jesus is captured by the Romans, tried by King Herod and Pontius Pilate, beaten mercilessly and humiliated, and then crucified...the end. The violent acts committed during these scenes are startling, to say the least, yet they do shed light on how difficult a process this was for Jesus to endure, as (at the time) he was confined to a mortal body and bound by its limitations.

Thus, if you are at all squeamish about bloody violence, steer clear of this film at all costs. However, if you are a veteran of, say, the "Saw" films and would like a more realistic portrayal of the single most important moment in human history, this is your film.

DVD Review: Nothing new here
Summary: 1 Stars

If you like to see a mean beaten mercilessly for 2.5 hours, this is the movie for you.

As far as the story goes.... what story? There is nothing here that we haven't heard a millions times -- it is just re-rendered in ultra-graphic, sadistic technicolor. Yes, there are many violent movies out there, but few that make that violence quite so intimate and relentless. I haven't counted, but I'd wager that there is maybe 10 minutes of footage where Jesus is not being beaten, and blood dripping from those wounds. It is pure cruelty. Why anyone would enjoy watching this is beyond me.

Yes, other movies are violent, but this is typically a device used for contrast; a price for wisdom gained. As I have stated, there is no wisdom gained here. There is almost no footage dedicated to the teachings of this great man. There is nothing imaginative or transcendent about this film, it is just cruelty on celluloid. A spectacle of his supreme sacrifice.

The shooting of this film in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin is just a joke. Again, it adds nothing to the story. It is like putting the Irish Flag on an American beer, and passing it off as a "Premium Lager". Somehow, because this film was shot in cryptic languages, this makes it more "official" than those other Jesus films made in English... The Irish flag may fool those buffoons with a poor palate, but for the real connoisseurs -- they aren't fooling anyone.

This movie imparts nothing, except that we should feel guilty about what ancient people's did to a great man. Guilt is cheap. Violence is cheap. Give me Wisdom, Solomon asked for no less.

DVD Review: The Passion of Christ
Summary: 5 Stars

I Love this movie, but of course i cry everytime i watch it. Anyone who is a believer, must feel the pain as they whip this man. I would whis everyone to watch it.

DVD Review: A Review by Dr. Joseph Suglia
Summary: 2 Stars

Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004) is a personal film. An exceedingly, excessively, earnestly personal film. "Personal" to the point of autobiography. It is not merely a personal reinterpretation of the Jesus myth, but a hand-wringingly serious APPROPRIATION of that myth for the sake of a deeply personal program.

What that "deeply personal program" may be, is worth pondering. The film focuses exclusively on the condemnation, scourging, and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth; the rest of his life is bracketed out. We see snapshots of his past in the form of flashbacks. But these flashbacks seem forced. They appear to be designed to make the torture seem relevant, i.e. "religiously" meaningful.

The film has an INDEPENDENT investment in brutality, in cruelty. One suspects that Gibson has a particular interest in cruelty for cruelty's sake---not for any "transcendent" purpose.

It is not accidental that THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST has horror-film elements: the attack on Judas at the hands of screeching daemon-children, the ubiquitous presence of an androgynous Satan, the demotion of someone-or-other to Hell, etc. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST is, sensu stricto, a horror film.

Throughout, Jesus's VOLUNTARY assumption of his torture and death is emphasized. One of the strongest images in the film has The Christ embrace his own crucifix as if it were a lover. It is repeatedly stressed in this work that Jesus loves his persecutors, loves his persecutions, and welcomes and affirms his own death.

Because of this undeniable accent on self-imposed violence, I question whether or not the film is indeed "religious" at all. "Religion," in this context, is a mere pretext for sexualized violence. There is a kind of bloodlust in this film, a joy in the systematic reduction of a human body to dead meat.

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST is a violently pornographic film. It portrays violence as something that is deeply gratifying. I do not have a problem with this. My problem is that the film is self-deceptive, dishonest, about its sadomasochistic dimensions.

(As a post-script: How is it possibe that THE DREAMERS received an NC-17 rating for a smattering of male nudity and this film did not? A "religious" subtext pacifies the MPAA, it seems...).

Dr. Joseph Suglia

Description of The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen Edition)

The Passion of the Christ focuses on the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth's life. The film begins in the Garden of Olives where Jesus has gone to pray after the Last Supper. Jesus must resist the temptations of Satan. Betrayed by Judas Iscariot, Jesus is then arrested and taken within the city walls of Jerusalem where leaders of the Pharisees confront him with accusations of blasphemy and his trial results in a condemnation to death.

After all the controversy and rigorous debate has subsided, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ will remain a force to be reckoned with. In the final analysis, "Gibson's Folly" is an act of personal bravery and commitment on the part of its director, who self-financed this $25-30 million production to preserve his artistic goal of creating the Passion of Christ ("Passion" in this context meaning "suffering") as a quite literal, in-your-face interpretation of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, scripted almost directly from the gospels (and spoken in Aramaic and Latin with a relative minimum of subtitles) and presented as a relentless, 126-minute ordeal of torture and crucifixion. For Christians and non-Christians alike, this film does not "entertain," and it's not a film that one can "like" or "dislike" in any conventional sense. (It is also emphatically not a film for children or the weak of heart.) Rather, The Passion is a cinematic experience that serves an almost singular purpose: to show the scourging and death of Jesus Christ in such horrifically graphic detail (with Gibson's own hand pounding the nails in the cross) that even non-believers may feel a twinge of sorrow and culpability in witnessing the final moments of the Son of God, played by Jim Caviezel in a performance that's not so much acting as a willful act of submission, so intense that some will weep not only for Christ, but for Caviezel's unparalleled test of endurance.

Leave it to the intelligentsia to debate the film's alleged anti-Semitic slant; if one judges what is on the screen (so gloriously served by John Debney's score and Caleb Deschanel's cinematography), there is fuel for debate but no obvious malice aforethought; the Jews under Caiaphas are just as guilty as the barbaric Romans who carry out the execution, especially after Gibson excised (from the subtitles, if not the soundtrack) the film's most controversial line of dialogue. If one accepts that Gibson's intentions are sincere, The Passion can be accepted for what it is: a grueling, straightforward (some might say unimaginative) and extremely violent depiction of the Passion, guaranteed to render devout Christians speechless while it intensifies their faith. Non-believers are likely to take a more dispassionate view, and some may resort to ridicule. But one thing remains undebatable: with The Passion of the Christ, Gibson put his money where his mouth is. You can praise or damn him all you want, but you've got to admire his chutzpah. --Jeff Shannon

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