	Bob Hostetler > Writing

What I Learned at the Movies

by Bob Hostetler

I'm no movie critic. Once, on the way out of a movie, my wife, Robin, asked me what I thought about it, and I answered, "It was good." Moments later, we met our friends Anne and Jim, and Robin asked them the same question. Anne proceeded to dissect and analyze the plot, characters, and cinematography to such a degree that I was relieved that no one else had heard my simplistic reply.

But I have learned some things at the movies in recent weeks. For example, I was amazed not only that Charlize Theron was awarded a Best Actress Oscar for her role in the movie, Monster (about a female serial-killer), but also by the uncritical admission of many commentators that Hollywood likes it when beautiful women (and I quote) "ugly up" for a role. Wow, that says about Hollywood, doesn't it? There must be talented actors around who aren't beautiful, but it apparently takes more talent to "ugly up." As someone who's never been accused of beauty, I think that offends me. It bothers me, that's for sure.

I think I learned something else at the movies last week. Since I saw the controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, on its opening night, I was asked by several friends about the advisability of seeing--or allowing their teen children to see--that graphic depiction of the last twelve hours of Jesus' life. Once I processed my own reaction to the film, though, I realized that, in contrast to, say, Schindler's List, the violence in The Passion, while extreme, was not unnecessary. Though Catholic scholar Rosann Catalano mystifyingly said, "In the Gospels....there's very little emphasis on [Jesus'] death. So what [Mel] Gibson has done is turn the story all around, as if the main import of the story is the goriness of it," the movie supplies to twenty-first century readers of the Gospels what first-century readers possessed: an informed, visual context for the words, "They crucified him" (Mark 15:24, Luke 23:33, John 19:18). The key differences between the violence and cruelty in The Passion (when compared to Schindler's List) is that I knew (more than some viewers, perhaps) that:

the violence in The Passion was redemptive. My faith, drawn from the same Gospel accounts that inspired Gibson, tells me that Jesus "was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" (Romans 4:25, NIV).
the victim in The Passion was willing, in contrast to the helpless victims of the Holocaust. Gibson employed several dramatic devices to make it clear that Jesus "gave himself for our sins" (Galatians 1:4, NIV, italics added).
the tension in The Passion was not unremitting. Schindler's List was several hours of unremitting darkness and hopelessness (like the Holocaust experience itself). But Gibson, who chose to begin The Passion with Christ crying out for mercy, showed some mercy to moviegoers by giving occasional breaks from the agony (which Jesus himself did not have, of course) with flashbacks to his life and teaching.

With all that, however, I learned that many of the same critics who routinely and loudly applaud the most gut-wrenching displays of human cruelty and agony (particularly if they're acted by people like Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Charlize Theron) get downright sensitive when Jesus enters the picture ("I felt abused," said David Ansen in Newsweek, and Boston Globe columnist James Carroll called the movie "obscene"). But something amazes me still more: that anyone can watch a depiction of the intense suffering Jesus endured (which virtually no one disputes) and condemn the depiction . . . but not the source of the suffering which Jesus claimed (and Christians believe) drove him there--the sins of us all.

That underscores one more thing I've learned recently at the movies. Jim Caviezel, the actor who portrayed Jesus in The Passion, "uglied up" a lot more than Charlize Theron. But he's unlikely to get any awards for it, which helps me to understand, come to think of it, what bothered me about Theron's award. Maybe Hollywood's values are just a reflection of human nature: we will reward ugliness, if it doesn't threaten our illusions about ourselves. Ugliness is bearable, as long as we can keep it at arm's length, or wash it away at the end of the day. But the passion of Jesus Christ--if we understand it properly--gets way too close for comfort, because it purports to show not only how extreme Jesus' passion was, but also how utterly ugly were the sins he bore that day. . . . And how amazing that he would willingly endure all that to redeem us and purify us from such ugliness (Titus 2:14).

Not everyone believes that, of course. Not everyone will understand it. But as I learned that day when I saw Annie and Jim coming out of the theater. . . . Some people watch a movie, and other people see it.

This article appeared in the March 5, 2004 edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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