Via the excellent new group blog The American Street, comes this article on Belief.net by John Dominic Crossan about Mel Gibson's upcoming Jesus movie, The Passion of the Christ. Frank Rich has been after Gibson since last summer for Gibson's dishonest marketing of the film - claiming that Jewish interests were unfairly condemning his film, accusing him of anti-semetism - all this per Rich) before anyone other than Gibson said anything about the film. Well... There have been comments about the film, all positive, from the likes of Paul Harvey, David Limbaugh, Billy Graham, Robert Novak, Peggy Noonan, maybe the Pope, Michael Medved - and some criticism.

The Anti Defamation League has been the most prominent and serious critic of the film. They got to see it, after all:

"The film unambiguously portrays Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob as the ones responsible for the decision to crucify Jesus," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.? "We are deeply concerned that the film, if released in its present form,?could fuel the hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism that many responsible churches have worked hard to repudiate."

Somewhat less usefully, Salon ran an interview with one Rev. Mark Stanger of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral - unfortunately, Stanger comes off as a liberal Michael Medved, whining about the violence - and offering the bizarre notion that "preoccupation with both sin and blood sacrifice" are not central to Christianity - or, on a more movie geek note (demonstrating the same lack of taste and basic ability to follow along that Medved is infamous for, praising Pasolini's (truly spectacularly good) The Gospel According to Matthew, after mumbling about the idea of Jesus coming with the sword...

Ebough! Let me get back to Crossan. The gist of the article cited above is that the reason the people who saw this film are all praising it is not that everyone who saw it loved it - but that those who saw it were obliged to sing a non-disclosure agreement that prohibited them from discussing it - except the praise it. I quote from Crossan's quoting the document:

On one hand, it enjoined me "to hold confidential my exposure, knowledge and opinions of the film." On the other hand it affirmed that, "pastors and church leaders are free to speak out in support of the movie and your opinions resulting from today's experience and exposure to this project and its producer."

I understand that legalese to mean that negative opinions are forbidden but positive ones are solicited. It is one thing to say that nobody can give any information about the movie or even express any opinion about it; but to allow support while denying criticism is something between cover-up and censorship. And its power is that of fear--the fear of ordinary and unprotected persons like myself that they might be sued for giving their opinion, even insofar as that could be done without discussing the movie itself.

Crossan is eloquent in expressing his disdain for this. He does not discuss the film - he signed the non-disclosure act, after all - but what he doesn't say says a lot.

There does not seem to be much room for surprises in this story. Gibson is working the publicity mills for all they are worth. He seems to be willing to make up shit about the Pope to promote the film. He exaggerate the criticism of the film shamelessly. At some point, whether the film is anti-semetic or not doesn't matter - at some point, his action becomes anti-semetic - accusing Jews of suppressing Christianity is what he is doing. It's grim. The only relief is that the film itself gives every indication of being unwatchable - the high-strung piety of the thing almost inevitably creates total crap art. Someone on a message board I read suggested a double feature of this and Last Temptation of Christ - that might be appropriate, but that much pretentious crap on the screen in one sitting might make athiests of anyone...