Did you cry at THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST?

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Like a good number of aspies, crying is an emotion I rarely exhibit.

I don't cry when people die.
I don't cry when bad stuff happens to me.
I don't cry when I'm hurt.
I don't cry when I break up with girls.

I sometimes sniffle listening to Beethoven.

I watched Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST when it first came out on DVD about a year ago, and I bawled. I cried most of the way through. It was beautiful to me, and touching almost beyond expression.

I just watched it again with my father, who'd never seen it, and I cried again. I'm almost certain it was the first time since my first viewing a year ago.

Did anybody else have a similar experience with this film or some other one?

Mel Gibson's movie was the most disgusting, poorest directed movie that I have ever seen.
I didn't cry, I was utterly disgusted.
My best friend and his wife were spit on by an Orthodox Nun.

If it didn't have Jesus in it, or maybe even if it did, I would consider it a snuff film.

He didn't even bother to use Israeli actors in order to get authentic Aramaic accents or dialog.

I have a self imposed permanent lifetime ban on Mel Gibson's films because of that movie.

Also, I resent the implication that if I did not cry at the Passion of the Christ, I'm supposed to either choose I'm an Aspie male who does not cry at movies, when I cry at movies, just not really awful antisemitic ones.

I usually don't cry at movies and except for "Shindler's List" and "Harry Potter, the Goblet of Fire" (You'll know why when you see it ), it's hard for me to shed tears over a movie.

I tried to cry at the "Passion of the Christ". Alot of people in the theater were crying and this lady behind me was boo-hooing and going on. But for the life of me, and this was before my deconversion, I couldn't shed a tear. The thought that kept going through my head, however, was "Why....just...why?" I couldn't understand how people could be so cruel to skin someone alive who hasn't done anything but good. I came from the whole experience just shaking my head...which was hurting from watching all that violence.

I also had issue with Mel Gibson casting a non-Jewish actor for the part of Jesus. He had the chance, for once, to cast that part to someone who actually looks like a first-century Jew from Palestine and he didn't take it! (and no, James Caviezel wearing brown contact lenses will not do.)

Yeah, Morgenstern, the actress who played Mary, Jesus's mother, was a Jew from Romania but the rest were Italian or American actors. I mean, come on. Gibson had all this attention to every little detail including using the original languages (all three of them!), the scourging and adhearing to Biblical text yet he couldn't cast a Jew as Jesus?

I cry at the wedding scene in Fiddler on the Roof (don't ask me why) and the end of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Other than that, including Passion, I can't recall ever crying at a movie. I TiVo'ed a PPV with good surround sound of Passion and got around to watching it months later.

I don't generally cry at the death of adults (not even my mother's) but I did have one good cry when my second child was in neo-natal intensive care and I didn't think he was going to make it. Then I got myself together.

He did fine.

Both my kids (both auties) are my heroes.

Jesus is my Lord.

Mel Gibson, I'm afraid, may be an anti-Semite.

I didn't cry when I saw the Passion of the Christ. I hardly ever cry when I'm watching movies. For me to be able to cry, it has to be a good movie. The Passion of the Christ was just not a very good movie.

The only movie I ever cried in was X Men when I thought Wolverine had died. But he could heal up!

Hmm... interesting. I always thought that Jesus' skin tone should have been a bit... darker? I mean, he was in the middle east, and most middle east people dont have blond hair/blue-eyes.

The only two movies that make me cry are, Forest Gump and Imagine.

What does that have to do with anything?

Nope, though it if didn't have Jesus, and was about, say, the guy crucified on his left, it probably would have recieved an NC-17 for violence. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But when have you ever expected any movie to have historically accurate dialogue? Martin Scorcese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" has Jesus and his disciples speaking in New York accents. Since Scorcese wanted to make a movie that would show that Jesus was a man and did in fact exist, the effect of doing this is to make the viewer feel as if they are on "the streets" of Jerusalem and listening to other guys casually talking on the streets. "The Passion of the Christ" uses the opposite technique of a foreign language with subtitles, but the effect is the same, because both movies have avoided using the distancing and portentious language of the King James translation of the Bible.

You suck.

Last edited by Thagomizer on 20 Nov 2005, 3:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, I did cry when I watched Passion of the Christ. I don't cry very often at the movies, especially the ones that are supposed to move people to tears.

I'd heard all kinds of ridiculous claims about this movie. I had heard that it was an ultra-violent "snuff film", that it was exploitation, that it was anti-semitic, that it was just gory and hollow, that Mel is a psycho and an anti-semite. And well, when I went in to see it, I found ALL of those claims to be complete nonsense.

Yes, it WAS the most violent movie ever made. Yes, it should have been NC-17 for violence. They weren't wrong about that. But that alone is an observation and not a criticism. The people who say this is a "snuff film" are idiots and have obviously never seen one. Pornography is meant to arouse desire. Exploitation films are moronically shallow when we care to notice. Nor do they really understand the history and theology that makes the violence relevant. Reactions agains the violence in this film, though they would justify not wanting to see it, do not solely justify the unreasonably negative reviews.

Why is the passion of Christ important to meditate on? Without being preachy, I will say that Buddha and other religious leaders were speaking of similar things before Jesus, but they didn't sacrifice themselves for the sake of humanity that didn't deserve it. To discount the passion and only focus on Christ's teachings is to strip Christianity of it's reason for being and reduce it to a recepticle for moral platitudes that no good atheist could disagree with.

Of course the violence in "Passion of the Christ" is horrific, disgusting, repulsive, and unbelievably brutal. And, for the most part, it's accurate (I am not a historian or biblical scholar, and I can point out things about the movie that are inaccurate, but none of them bother me). This degree of violence shouldn't come as any surprise to someone who's a) read the gospels b) studied Roman history. Just about every Jesus movie made before this one either toned down the violence or romanticized it (the exception, perhaps, is "The Last Temptation of Christ", but it isn't nearly as bloody).

The remake of Dawn of the Dead de-throned Pasison of the Christ when it was released, and it was also an extreemely violent movie. Dawn of the Dead is clearly a more egregious display of violence (and there are countless movies ten times as guilty) that does not have meaning or context beyond escapist horror entertainment. Therefore, no one bothers to condemn it for having complete contempt for human life. Mindless, meaningless destruction seems to be acceptable for the people who bash this movie, but not when violence is actually portrayed in a manner that demonstrates either that it really hurts people, man's inhumanity to man (from a non-religious veiwpoint) or the single most important event in human history (from a religious viewpoint).

The claims about anti-semitism are also utter crap. We could, of course, go into the probable traces of anti-semitism in the gospels themselves, but that's irrelevant here. The people complaining that this movie is anti-semitic are overlooking the obvious facts that a) Jesus and his followers are jews b) Simon is a sympathetically portrayed jewish character (ever notice that no one who accuses this movie of being anti-semitic ever mentions this?) c) the Roman soldiers are portrayed as despicable, sadistic cretins and d) Pilate, despite having doubts as he did in the gospels, is STILL a ruthless prefect who would rather crucify and innocent man than take the risk of doing the right thing. That does not make him a good person. Roger Ebert was correct in his assessment that each of the characters in this movie represent themselves, and not their groups.

The anti-christian bigots who hate this movie are mostly just pissed off that Mel Gibson has made the most critic-proof movie ever made, out of his own pocket money, and there's not a goddamn thing they can do about it. And well, I'm glad that he did. In fact, I admire him even more for it. It's a rare thing indeed to see a film maker defy all the laws for box-office success, create a piece of art of intense personal importance to them, and succeed.

I like James Caviezel as Jesus. But I also liked Wilhelm Dafoe as Jesus, but maybe that's just me. Sometimes I think the actor's internal qualities for the role are more important than his ethnic background.

As for the rest of the movie, I thought it was masterfully made. The soundtrack, cinematography, acting, etc.

I don't cry very often at movies, like I said before. Sometimes, movies will make me cry at one point, but not the second time I watch them, and I will just feel manipulated. That's no so with the Passion. I've seen it thrice and every time it had the same effect on me. And no, it's not just because it's Jesus. It's because no one alive deserves his treatment. Were I not a believer, I would still have been moved and shaken by it. But being a believer, it is perhaps ten times more meaningful. I attended this film with a friend of mine who is not a believer, and he told me (as I wasn't watching the audience) that he'd never seen so many people cry at a movie.

There are only a handfull of other movies that have made me cry in my adult life:

Grave of the Fireflies
Dead Man Walking
Monster

(at the moment I can't really think of anything else)

Cry? ME, cry? No, I laughed at that movie as a matter of fact.
I've seen made-for-TV versions of Jesus' life story that were far better than Mel Gibson's third-rate gorefest in the guise of Christianity.

I dont think Im ever going to a movie again. The last time I went it was so loud I had to put my fingers in my ears the whole time.

Wow. This post went places I did not expect.

It's actually kind of entertaining. I guess THE PASSION was controversial, still is. My main interest was about whether other aspies cry at intense films. I chose to describe my experience with THE PASSION because it was my most severe reaction to a film ever.

And there was no implication, so get that out of your head. I wasn't out to offend anybody. If I had been, I'd have done the job properly. You should know that!

That was my experience here in Hollywood. Some people in the Jewish community exclaimed at the "Anti-Semitism", but once people saw the movie, these exclamations were ignored or laughed at as posturing and attempts at publicity--by my Jewish friends as well. The only really evil people in the movie were the Romans.

Ha! Good for you expressing your opinion!

I laugh because, of all the movies about which to make such a glib, assertive, unsupported statement, you picked the one that has the 9th highest US gross ever, $625+ million worldwide gross, and was seen by at least one out of every three adults in the US!

Priceless!

Ive been known to shed a discreet tear or two at the movies. Like in SW3 Revenge of the Sith or War of the Worlds but not Passion of the Christ. It was sooooo over the top imo-sorta like beating a dead horse-pardon the pun. That said-I think Jesus Christ Superstar is better done and I do cry when watching that-maybe because Im given a chance to actually like the character and get to know him and feel for him and it helps he has a good singing voice. Maybe my soul needs help because I didnt feel a connection with Jesus in Passion of the Christ? If anything it desensitized me so early on-Me thinks,I missed the message it was trying to convey. From a movie critic standpoint-I think Spartacus made a better Jesus.

Oh and I dont want to get into a theology debate but I dont know if the term sacrifice is fitting. In fact I may go so far as to say what Jesus did is a form of passive suicide-which is clearly forbidden according to Gods Laws

Last edited by stellacotton on 21 Nov 2005, 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.