Critics Praise Violent Slave Film, Booed ‘The Passion’
Some speculative fiction fans or aspiring authors are tempted to believe that including violent or Gritty™ content will impress critics and others who are skeptical of Christian art.
Contra that, here’s this from Mollie Hemingway.
Its subtitle: “Why was violence in The Passion of the Christ condemned by critics but affirmed in 12 Years a Slave?”
Unlike “12 Years a Slave,” “The Passion of the Christ” was wildly popular despite being in Aramaic and Latin — the third-most popular in 2004, coming in only behind the sequels in the Shrek and Spider-Man series. Its domestic receipts were more than $370 million. And even for that level of popularity, it had 81 percent positive reviews from viewers. […]
But check out that top critics rating for “The Passion of the Christ”: only 37 percent. “The Passion of the Christ” also received no major Oscar nominations. Whereas critics were much more favorable to the other hit films that year relative to the general audience (see Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2), this was a move in the opposite direction. Dramatically in the opposite direction. And check out that blurb: “The graphic details of Jesus’ torture make the movie tough to sit through and obscure whatever message it is trying to convey.”
Read more at The Passion of 12 Years A Slave.
Hemingway is known for her website‘s refrain “The press … just doesn’t get religion.” Hers is an excellent reminder that no matter how creative or well-crafted or realistic or original we can make it, many in the world will also never get Christian storytelling.
Thank you for this. This is a fantastic point. Christian writers continually argue about whether Christian fiction is “gritty” enough, or “realistic” enough to woo non-Christian viewers.
This affirms, frankly, what I’ve always believed when it comes to Christian fiction: We can — and should — continually improve our craft, but ultimately it’s not the writing keeping non-Christian readers away. It’s the subject.
The same will happen with the Noah and Pompeii movies coming out this year. Both are movies about wide-spread destruction in the ancient world, but Noah (even with an all-star cast) will be largely shunned or ignored by critics while Pompeii will win awards.
That’s assuming the Noah film is even as Biblical as the initial trailer would seem …
I highly doubt Pompeii is destined for any awards.
I think it’s mostly a question of context. We’re supposed to sympathize with the victim, right, but in The Passion it’s kinda weird because you’re supposed to want this to happen so Jesus can be resurrected and be generally awesome. And IIRC, the torture scenes did take up a good chunk of the running time. I haven’t seen 12 Years to get a good idea of the breakdown of torture vs other things happening, but just from what I hear, there’s more plot that has to go in and take up screentime. And Passion had pretty long torture scenes, whereas 12 years could be more effective in shorter, if more frequent torture scenes.
True, I suppose. Just as God said He wanted (Isaiah 53:10).
Similarly I, in a way, want King Theoden to die tragically on the fields of Pelennor.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel terrible and tragic, on the way to that victory.
At the same time, Theoden’s death takes, like, just a couple of nonconsecutive minutes. He gets knocked over and crushed under Snowmane, which is comparatively bloodless (on the outside, anyway), and then the story moves on Eowyn being all female-empowerment and Merry being all…hobbit-empowerment, I guess, then cutting back in time for a tearful farewell. Not quite the wallowing-in-it quality that The Passion had.
Which would indeed seem ridiculous, that is, if:
http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s612/kyndrian/potoobirdwat_zps59839b54.jpg
That’s a bit out of left field. Yeah, it’s important that we feel the feels, but I’m just debating the effectiveness of their technique in using the violence. Does more gruesomely detailed violence automatically equal more sympathy for the victim? I’m not inclined to think so.
As a Christian in favor of what The Passion was trying to do, I gotta agree with you here. I haven’t seen it since my initial viewing in the theater, and I’m not planning to ever see it again. This is because the gore was so egregious, the violence so beyond what I’m even capable of emotionally assimilating, that by the halfway point I was already numb and impatient for it to end, even as chunks of bloody flesh continued to spin past the camera in a seemingly unending spray. I had no reference point, no way to relate to Christ’s physical trauma. I was estranged from the plot.
The Passion of the Christ didn’t “work” for me. I didn’t weep, pray, or have some kind of spiritual “moment.” A great many Christians reacted very positively to the film, but I suspect that, in many cases, it’s simply ’cause they couldn’t have imagined reacting any other way. I wouldn’t expect an unbeliever to have that kind of predisposition.
Yes. It wasn’t that amazing – nor was it in anyway life changing. Honestly the “JESUS” film did a better job way back in 1980, I thought after seeing “The Passion.” I kind of walked out of “The Passion” and went “huh? … But, but what was with the Satan child thing?!?”
And as for violence you feel – the short that JESUS Film Project has done – “My Last Day” really does work. ( http://www.jesusfilmmedia.org/video/1_529-mld-0-0/english/my-last-day )
This only demonstrates that establishment critics have an institutional bias. The fact that The Passion of the Christ was so well-received among the general public shows that Christian storytelling that avoids the easy cliches can speak to the real world, even in this post-Christian culture.
The biased industry critics aren’t the only people capable of writing intelligent film critique. My favorite film critic — the only one I’ve been reading — is Darren Maloney, who delves deeply enough into theme and cultural considerations to go beyond any knee-jerk feelings he may or may not have about religion.