In Reply To:
But in all of the debate in print and on the radio or TeeVee, I have yet to hear anyone who felt that the portrayel of Jews in TPOTC was negative, give any constructive guidance on how the Jews could be portrayed in a more positive light, and still tell the same story. I have not yet heard any critic who condemns the percieved anti-semitic tone of the movie suggest that the movie is factually/historically incorrect.
From William Safire, the conservative columnist for the NYTimes:
"What villain deserves to be punished?
Not Pontius Pilate, the Roman in charge; he and his kindly wife are sympathetic characters. Nor is King Herod shown to be at fault.
The villains at whom the audience's outrage is directed are the actors playing bloodthirsty rabbis and their rabid Jewish followers. This is the essence of the medieval "passion play," preserved in pre-Hitler Germany at Oberammergau, a source of the hatred of all Jews as "Christ killers." "
And Frank Rich, also of the NYTimes:
"There is no question that it rewrites history by making Caiaphas and the other high priests the prime instigators of Jesus' death while softening Pontius Pilate, an infamous Roman thug, into a reluctant and somewhat conscience-stricken executioner. "The more benign Pilate appears in the movie, the more malignant the Jews are," is how Elaine Pagels describes Mr. Gibson's modus operandi in The New Yorker this week. As if that weren't enough, the Jewish high priests are also depicted as grim sadists with bad noses and teeth — Shylocks and Fagins from 19th-century stock. (The only Jew with a pretty nose in this Judea is Jesus.)"
And from a panel of religious leaders who discussed the movie (again, the NYTimes):
"Mr. Gibson has depicted his film as a true recounting of the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. But the Christian and Jewish clergy at the table were troubled by embellishments that they said had no basis in Scripture.
Among them: Jesus is taken to the temple to be condemned by the priests. A raven plucks out the eye of the thief being crucified on the cross next to Jesus. And the wife of Pontius Pilate brings a pile of fresh linens to Mary to wipe Jesus' blood from the ground after he is whipped by sadistic Roman soldiers. The group agreed that the gesture underscored the film's sympathetic treatment of a Roman governor so brutal he was eventually recalled from his post.
The Very Rev. Demetri C. Kantzavelos, chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago, was disturbed that the actors speak Latin, and not Greek, the lingua franca. Inaccuracies like these, he said, undermine Mr. Gibson's claims to authenticity.
"I came predisposed to like it," Father Kantzavelos said. "I really wanted to like the movie, and I don't." "
Full text of this panel discussion is at
http://www.nytimes.com/...cca0dcb7&ei=5070 Now you have.
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"Go yell at an M&M"