From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 23 Apr 2004 - 09:54:23 GMT
I had to remind myself that the thread began with a forwarded piece from
Christopher Hitchens hence its title...
<In Time magazine's cover story last week, theologian Susan
Thistethwaite
> calls The Passion a war movie. She said it's the most violent movie she's
> ever screened. It may be one of the most violent movies ever made,
> period.>
>
I haven't seen it yet, so I shouldn't really comment, but I doubt
this very much indeed. Is it bloodier that Kill Bill, or Ichii the Killer,
or Boxcar Bertha, or untold numbers of what became know as video nasties in
the UK in the 1980s (Driller Killer, Cannibal Holocaust etc.)? I think
its'sthe context of the subject matter that makes people say such things.
<Apparently, when the subject is Jesus, it doesn't matter how
violent a movie
> is because it's automatically holy. So you can get away with anything.>
>
Surely the opposite is the case- the violence has been criticised
far more than in other films precisely because the subject is 'holy'?
It reminds me of many other films with religious topics to have
outraged people - Ken Russell's 'The Devils' also notorious for violence,
and sexual explicitness- 'Life of Brian', still the best film ever made
about religion in my book, and a film you might not have heard of called
'Visions of Ecstacy', I had to check my clippings file for the details, a
porno short about St Teresa of Avila's fantasies about Jesus, banned by the
British Censors, a decision backed by the European Court of Human Rights who
said the decision did not breach the convention on human rights- that was in
1996 if anyone's particularly interested.
vincent
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