Cinematically Thinking
   Mel's Passion, Ashley's Twist, and Ben's Girl
   by Tom Meek

Mel’s Travails

And the hype shall set you free. At least that’s what happened for Mel Gibson once The Passion of the Christ hit the theaters and its cinematic actuality proved to be far less explosive than the controversial firestorm that nearly derailed it months earlier. If you think back almost two decades, the same thing happened to Jean-Luc Godard’s Hail Mary and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1985 and 1987 respectively): crowds stood outside theater doors protesting the films, but once the reviews were printed and tickets sold, the hubbub disappeared like water on a hot griddle. And now Gibson’s getting the last laugh. Agree or disagree with his politics of the film’s content, you have to hand it to him, he set out to sculpt a vision without intrusion or adulteration, and to do so assumed all the financial risk; a risqué maneuver that has paid off, big time. While the figures are still piling up, it looks like Gibson will pocket somewhere between two and three hundred million dollars in a worst-case scenario. It’s independent filmmaking at its ultimate. There’s no studio or overlord involved and all the profits go directly to the artist. With such unprecedented success, you can be sure that Gibson’s barnstorming odyssey will come to serve as the alternative blueprint for the way in which films get made in the future. Only the degree to which that statement becomes true remains to be seen.

What caught audiences off guard (the sucker punch if you will) when The Passion opened was the boundlessness of its violence. Everyone was so focused on the forecasted complicity of Jews (in the death of Jesus) and the film’s purported anti-Semitic sentiment that no one was prepared for the graphic brutality that would consume the screen for nearly two hours. In the end however, no one was sparred -- Gibson spread the blame around liberally. But that was his point: all are complicit. And, as indicated by the savior's clairvoyant ramblings, the pinnacle event was preordained and required the actors to play their parts (turn that over in your mind a few times and you can almost see God sitting in his director chair, high above). Curious though, is the portrayal of Pontius Pilate. He gets an image upgrade of sorts, appearing contemplative, even compassionate at times, which is a stark contrast to his historically held legacy as a bloody tyrant. Judas also gets a human face put on a name that has become eponymous for an avaricious backstabber. Those less fortunate -- the Temple elders, who are bloodthirsty witch hunters, Peter, as he forsakes Jesus (three times, the savior prognosticates at the first occurrence) and King Harrod, the Roman tetrarch who beheaded John the Baptist (because of his lust for his stepdaughter, Salome, as Oscar Wilde had it) -- all come off as one dimensional caricatures. Harrod’s the most interesting of the lot. Here he's a fop, whose request of Jesus to perform a miracle unfurls like a bathhouse pandering for a hand job. It’s not the first time Gibson, who’s long been accused of being hyper homophobic, has bent history to promote anti gay sentiment: in Braveheart, when King Edward discovers the Prince in bed with another man, he has the lover unceremoniously thrown out the window. It’s a peculiar diversion too because it has nothing to do with the film’s otherwise single-cylinder theme -- one that Gibson pursues with ardor.

While the reviews of The Passion have ranged from zealous adulation to vehement lambasting (most of the middle grounders like myself, found the film cinematically stunning, but the S&M styled torture scenes far too over-the-top), the box office totals appear destined to break the one billion mark (Europe, DVD and pay-per-view have yet to be tapped). Whether it achieves that or not is inconsequential, for the Gold Rush frenzy to get more Bible stories onto the big screen is already underway and Gibson, Hollywood’s ugly stepchild, will be anointed to filmmaking’s top echelon of powerbrokers.

Career Killer

With Ashley Judd's latest film, Twisted, this activist actress has again bombed out in yet another hair brained psycho thriller. This was the same actress (daughter/sister to the country duo, The Judds) who showed so much poise and talent in such indie films as Ruby in Paradise and Smoke. She did well to make Heat; and while Kiss the Girls may have looked good on paper (starring opposite Morgan Freeman is usually a sound bet), it was nothing more than a cheap Silence of the Lambs knock off. She was wise though not to sign on for the follow up, Along came a Spider; she then went on to make several, equally tepid thrillers including Eye of the Beholder, Double Jeopardy and High Crimes. Each followed the same tired formula and had the same ersatz texture to it (they’re almost indistinguishable from one and other). And if Ms. Judd keeps it up, she’ll be in danger of getting her own unflattering genre named after her. For her next project, Judd places her poutty lips opposite Kevin Kline in De-lovely, the bio-pic about American composer, Cole Porter. It can’t possibly be another Judd-dud thriller, unless Porter has some dark secrets in his closet that the world has yet to learn. Speaking of fleshy lips and once promising careers, Angelina Jolie just added the critically panned serial killer flick, Taking Lives, to her portfolio to go with two plotless Tomb Raider flubs.


A Little Help From Your Friends

After Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back received a tepid response and Ben Affleck nearly suffered career decapitation for Gigli (his vanity love project with then fiancée Jennifer Lopez), you’d think the only way for the two to get back in the ballgame would be to do anything except work together. But that's exactly what they did. The director-actor duo found notoriety together with the bi-girl comedy romp, Chasing Amy. Later, Affleck, along with Cambridge High sidekick, Matt Damon, signed on for Smith's theologically irreverent Dogma (I wonder if Mel’s ever seen it?), and now, after some career turbulence, the two are rediscovering success together with Jersey Girl. The film, about a widower reduced to a working-class existence as he struggles to raise his daughter, may appear too steeped in a manipulative mainstream formula for Smith’s fan base (those who have hung tight with the self styled slacker since he splashed onto the indie film scene with the crass cult hit, Clerks), but Smith, peppers the script with enough quirky bites to appeal to the usual suspects while freshening up the tried and-true arc. Smith’s next project is the big screen blow up of The Green Lantern comic book. At the moment the lead is uncast. Alleck’s played a super hero before (Daredevil), so I wonder…

-- Tom Meek

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