Tedium and Crumple-Its
Today is one of those days when, miraculously, I don’t have anything scheduled. Taxes are done. I’m Jewish, so no Easter services to attend. I may drop in at the Christkillers’ Ball that’s held at the Las Vegas Gate to Hell under the Convention Center every year…
Yes, that’s a joke, but speaking of Jesus…
I saw “The Passion of the Christ” for the first time last night. It’s…interesting. It presents very little context for the events it depicts. Consequently, if you come to the film, as I do, without the requisite religious predisposition, it basically plays as a rather dispassionate treatise on how to reduce an unusually sturdy carpenter to bloody shreds for no reason. “Marat/Sade” in Latin and Aramaic.
In case anyone’s wondering: no, I didn’t find the film to be anti-Semitic. It does go inexplicably easy on Pilate, however.
Anyway…
Now it’s time to clear the living room floor of tax-related papers, think a little about the new DC project, consider what I want to say on this blog about the topic of superheroes and about my health situation, and maybe watch the DVD of “Capote” that Mary loaned me.
April 16th, 2006 at 4:10 PM
I recall a nice sixties childhood of colourful movies – with intervals, even! Great hulking monoliths of movie musicals I fell asleep during..all music and colours.
Double features that played all day that you turned up halfway through a feature and went through the intricate mental puzzle of wondering what the heck was happening storywise.. to be solved 3 or so hours later..
Thanks for reminding me of Marat/Sade.. I’ll add that to my to see/revisit list.. under Holy Mountain, Little Drummer Girl, and Mandingo..
April 18th, 2006 at 5:58 AM
I’m a lapsed Roman Catholic and I also thought it was very detached from who and what Jesus represented. It was mindless violence, really. I felt nothing for Jesus.
Not only that, but it was BORING. Maybe Jesus freaks who think Teletubbies are a threat to our society thought this was compelling, but I had a hard time staying awake through it.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:05 PM
I speak enough Hebrew to understand much of the Aramaic spoken (and even some of the Latin). It helps in understanding the movie.
One interesting item: The myth of the “dirty Jew” was perpetuated in the film, even when the Jewish obsession with cleanliness was specifically mentioned in the movie. The Romans were all clean, while the Jews, who by religious law were required to wash and bathe regularly, were almost all covered with dirt.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:55 PM
Bart: “One interesting item: The myth of the “dirty Jew†was perpetuated in the film, even when the Jewish obsession with cleanliness was specifically mentioned in the movie. The Romans were all clean, while the Jews, who by religious law were required to wash and bathe regularly, were almost all covered with dirt.”
I…dunno. That seems like a stretch. Don’t you think the scruffy appearance of the Jews was more likely meant to convey a class or political distinction — patricians versus the hoi polloi, conquerors versus the oppressed? It’s pretty standard cinematic shorthand.
Had it been intended as a racial slur, the giveaway would surely have been in the visualization of the apostles. Offhand, I don’t recall their looking any better-scrubbed than the other locals…but I could be mistaken.
April 20th, 2006 at 9:06 PM
I have seen the slur of the “dirty Jew” in late 19th and early 20th century literature, even sometimes giving “theories” of why Jews were so dirty.
April 23rd, 2006 at 5:57 PM
Bart: “I have seen the slur of the “dirty Jew†in late 19th and early 20th century literature, even sometimes giving “theories†of why Jews were so dirty.”
I have absolutely no doubt of that. I just don’t think it’s the intent in this film. (The cleanest, best-dressed Jews in “Passion” are the Pharisees, for, uh…chrissakes.)
There’s more than enough *real* anti-Semitism out there to get upset about. Why go looking for it where it probably doesn’t exist?