Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Essay Example

Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ is dedicated to portraying the final hours of the life of Jesus Christ. In order to construct this narrative, Gibson relies on the so-called synoptic gospels, such as Mark, Matthew and John. It has been acknowledged by the director in various media that he also relied upon the mystical writings of the German nun and mystic Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, who lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in order to aid in the reconstruction of these last moments of Christ’s life on earth. Gibson’s work, while following traditional accounts of the Passion story that are also based on the synoptic gospels, therefore includes elements that do not exist in the New Testament above all influenced by Emmerich.

In terms of capturing what the Bible actually says, Gibson’s work at first glance differs from the New Testament in its reliance upon Emmerich, for example, when Christ crushes the serpent at the beginning of the film, a serpent that symbolizes Satan attempting to distract Christ from his prayers. However, the problem of whether Gibson accurately recaptures the Bible presupposes that someone can definitively state what is in the Bible or not: this position ignores the entire phenomenon of biblical hermeneutics, where interpretation of the bible is not so straightforward as it is made out, for example, in the Protestant-based traditions. For example, by following the mystical visions of a renowned holy figure in the Church, such as Emmerich, Gibson is putting aside his own first-person interpretation of the Bible, and relying on an acknowledged figure with mystical significance. This is the shortcoming of Protestantism: it thinks anyone’s interpretation of the Bible is valid, but of course this is the reason why Protestantism disintegrated into thousands of sects. Gibson tries to follow not only the Bible in his work, but a tradition of Christian holy men and women, whose interpretations contain a greater depth than our own egotistical first person perspectives, which are so emphasized in contemporary Protestant American Christianity.