Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ

Essay by hunter6817College, Undergraduate April 2004

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The Passion of Christ

The release of The Passion of the Christ in theatres across the world has become a significant event in many people's lives. It has become the most powerful and moving Christian film in all of time. Never before has a person of Mel Gibson's caliber created such a film. At least, no one has created a film as well produced as Mel Gibson's. With high quality cinematography, heart pounding orchestration, and highly graphic scenes, this movie has stirred the hearts of believers and non-believers.

The movie, chronologically, is a harmonization of the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You could even say that the movie is sort of like a fifth gospel, the gospel according to Mel. What's crazy is that the movie is pretty much entirely based on the four accounts from the New Testament. One would think that a producer out of Hollywood would throw in a twist here and there to make the story more interesting, but Gibson followed the stories presented in the Bible as best as humanly possible.

Granted, there are a couple scenes that were thrown in the movie without any reference to the New Testament, but without those scenes, the painting of the character of Jesus wouldn't have been as clear.

The story that Mel Gibson tells is most similar to the book of Matthew. Matthew is one of the longer gospels that gives more room for details. Because of this, it is assumed that the movie was based mostly on this gospel. The story starts out in the garden of Gethsemane. Here, Jesus is praying to his father. As He predicted, Judas betrays Him with a kiss, bringing a great multitude to capture Him. From here the servants of the high priest take Jesus to the Sanhedrin...