Alexey Muravyov. Passionate action

The painting " The Passion of the Christ " - "The Passion of Christ" - was published at the beginning of Lent, when Christians traditionally try to think more about spiritual life, about the Gospel and about Christ. also offered his possible assistance in such reflections The titan of Hollywood filmmaking, Mel Gibson, . The superstar of American cinema is a Catholic traditionalist (something like a Catholic “Old Believer”), so one cannot expect a humanistically beautiful interpretation of the Gospel events. This picture became a sensation. Commercial - certainly, but not only.

The film has to be assessed on several levels. A viewer familiar with Gibson's work immediately notices the director's characteristic drive and somewhat naturalistic attention to violence. This predetermined one of the lines of harsh criticism - “there is a lot of violence in the film.” And even so: “too much violence”, “except for violence there is nothing at all, just blood...” One has to compare with analogues: with the Protestant film “Jesus” (1979), with “The Gospel” by P. Pasolini, with the film by F. .Zeffirelli and even with the controversial work of M. Scorsese “The Last Temptation of Christ”... Even, if you want, with the chapters about Yeshua Ha-Nozri in Bulgakov’s novel .

The history of cinematization of the gospel narrative is a series of continuous failures. Either it turns out to be too sweet and tasteless, or in pursuit of “historicity and authenticity” the director undertakes dubious experiments and encroaches on the religious feelings of the audience, then everything is depicted so literally that it is better to read the original source... In, perhaps, the most famous Protestant film " Jesus ," which has been pitted against Gibson's film as a "no-violence movie," is a cheesy, cartoonish version of the "Children's Bible." Other authors, as well as Bulgakov, came up with something strange - an attempt to “explain” and even, in a sense, debunk the Gospel image... And behind all this there was one problem - the fundamental inability to convey the Gospel story in the language of cinema.

The key word for Gibson turned out to be suffering (Latin passio, English, German, French passion). All Western directors before Gibson worked within the framework of cinematic adaptation, and the result was some kind of parody. Gibson took a different path - he chose the so-called genre structure as the basis. “passion play”, characteristic of the Western Christian (primarily Catholic) worldview. Bulgakov departed from Renan’s “debunking” tradition, which predetermined the image of Yeshua in “The Master and Margarita” as an openly psychologized portrait of a restless and uncertain psychic who had almost nothing in common with the Gospel Christ.

Gibson worked on his mistakes and made a choice in favor of three principles: documentary, static and individual, but uncompromising message. Documentaryism is primarily manifested in the approach to the language in which the film is shot. The main success, the main strong point of the film, is that everything happens in Aramaic and Latin. Scripture (mainly psalms) is in Hebrew. It gives an amazing sense of reality. In "Jesus" Christ speaks English - and it's somehow puppet-like. Everything is serious here. For an Aramaist, about 60% of Aramaic is understandable, although the dialect was unknown to me, while for all other viewers (after some directorial doubts) English subtitles were introduced. The Latin language was very lively, although with Italian pronunciation. Generally speaking, documentary quality also comes from the absence of discounts for understanding/misunderstanding - as in life, and the notorious “blood and violence” also work in this direction. The viewer of feature films is very accustomed to the fact that everything is for fun, not serious. There is just enough blood so as not to shock the housewives, and the inscription at the end: “No animals were killed or maimed during filming.” And then they give him a shock dose: incomprehensible language, cruelty “as in life”... There is something to cry out about. And they cried out.

Now artistic principles. The subject of the image is the same 12 hours from Gethsemane to the Resurrection, but there is neither the joy of the resurrection, nor the myrrh-bearers, nor, especially, the apostles. Even the resurrection is shown only at the insistence of the editors and at the end, almost as a hint. The action is static without losing the drama - and this is the director’s find. Christ in the picture is also such a static image, endowed with neither poor psychology nor an attempt to explain how He thought and why. What is surprising is the absence of the usual “Arianism” for a Western person (in the East they would rather say “Nestorianism”): “Here we have before us a man (ecce homo), and nothing more... That is, He is in some sense unknown to us God, but You can’t show it, the unknown is the unknown.” Gibson refused this too. The feeling of real horror of what is happening before the viewer arises precisely from the fact that Christ is the God-man. This principle is also connected with the third - uncompromisingness.

But let's return to staticity. The image of the Mother of God is interpreted very carefully - and, I would even say, reverently. Maya Morgenstern , a Romanian Jew, creates an almost iconographic image by practically abandoning acting. Gibson made her play an illustration for the famous “Stabat mater,” in other words, the tragedy of a mother losing her son, but realizing that this loss and His death itself are phenomena of a special order, which is why the colors are so sparse: the Mother of God seems to be waiting... and submits. About Jim Caviezel , the leading actor, we can only say that he did what the director wanted from him. This means, as we have already said, the absence of a psychologizing explanation that reduces Christ to the level of a downtrodden person. Caviezel shows suffering alive, but the impression remains that suffering is a prologue to what is revealed by this suffering and even what is accomplished by it.

The most difficult point to analyze is the message. Catholic Gibson tries to convey to the viewer his personal experience of the Calvary tragedy. Such a personal attitude is more typical of a Protestant, but the director takes it almost to the point of radical appeal to personal feelings “on the verge of a foul.” You can call it "shock therapy." And this really shocks many, so that others even begin to experience an irrational disgust for the torment and torture that they carry throughout the film. This means that the method does not always work and misfires, however, the number of those who were disgusted by the “shock method” is statistically insignificant.

The other side of the message is Christian uncompromisingness. Gibson makes no secret of the fact that he makes no concessions to “objectivism” and political correctness, but offers the view of a firmly believing Catholic Christian. Not a God-seeking intellectual, not torn between “philosophical reading” and the rationalizing conventions of an intellectual, but a believing Christian, and, moreover, a “real man.” To begin with, Jesus is called in the title by the clear “politically incorrect” name Christ, and not as is customary among Protestants - simply Jesus. There is, of course, a certain challenge in this. Demons and the devil are full and real participants in the action. Gibson makes his beliefs clear in many ways.

In Orthodox responses, both in the United States and in RuNet and the Russian media, doubt dominates: the Catholic point of view, an appeal to feelings, and besides, “Christ cannot be portrayed.” Theoretically, Orthodox Christians can ask themselves a control question: what inappropriate (condemned by the Church) feelings does Gibson’s film awaken? As we said, in some cases it can awaken irrational antipathy with the creative principles (naturalism, cruelty) that the author applied. But beyond this “error,” the feelings that the picture as a whole evokes are not so bad from an ecclesiastical point of view. Sentimentality? Only insofar as there is balance in the picture and the transition to a spiritual conclusion is indicated. Lack of faith? If you don’t fall among those who experienced “irrational antipathy,” then the film is more likely to awaken faith - it’s not for nothing that Protestant pastors bring their entire congregations to see it, buying seats in cinemas in bulk. There is no need to talk about entertainment, again due to the harshness and loading of spiritual content. The head and heart are too busy to have fun. We can say that the film shows a person a personal path to Christ - this is what He did for you, now it’s your turn.

Now about what will inevitably have to be said. For all its merits, “The Passion of the Christ” is still a film “made in the USA”. It bears both general signs of cinema - flashback, rapid-fire, camera zooms are used, and specific features of Hollywood cinema - a special drive, spurred on by very successful music, elements of the action genre (for example, the Apostle Peter in Gethsemane), and European cinematic symbolism is manifested in introducing a symbolic image of the devil - in the form of a terrible bald, thin androgyne with a terrible look (Rosalind Celentano). Satan is present in almost all scenes and even tempts Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, during the scourging he carries the baby Antichrist in his arms, and after the death of Christ he howls terribly from impotent anger, defeated. This is perhaps the only controversial point, but it is framed within the framework of a symbolic language, somewhat reminiscent of capriccio figures or symbolic figures in Ingmar Bergman, for example Death in The Seventh Seal, dwarfs, the devil, etc. In general, there is much more in common between Gibson's cinematic language and Bergman's language than might seem at first glance - in particular, the use of a genre frame (Bergman has this in "Maiden Key").

A separate conversation - apostates. The most famous apostate, Peter, is shown with artistic conviction as a believer who fell into pride and promised what he could not fulfill. His despair at the crow of the rooster is sincere, so that the scale of the event makes a special “justification” unnecessary. Judas is done very interestingly - the betrayal that leads him through psychosis to suicide is a special case of apostasy from Christ. If you wish, you can see in the way Judas commits suicide over the rotten corpse of a camel covered with worms, Mel Gibson’s attitude towards suicide, the temptation of which he experienced several years ago precisely as an apostasy and from which, in his own words, Christ saved him.

In the image of Pontius Pilate there is both psychology and a place for dramatic conflict. For psychologizing Pilate, Gibson has already received a lot of punishment in the press - they say, he had no doubts, but Gibson turned out to be some kind of intellectual. The Procurator of Judea in the film is a character facing a choice, almost like Sartre’s heroes. He is a Roman (although he is played by the Bulgarian actor Hristo Naumov Shopov), and his tragic choice in favor of “consent,” in favor of “this world,” in favor of political compromise is the choice of the modern world. The hope of this world is expressed in the image of Pilate’s mournful wife, Claudia Procles (Claudia Gerini), who is developed into a real full-fledged, although almost silent (in the film, almost exclusively the words of the Gospel are heard) image of the Last Hope of the Western World. The name of this hope is Repentance. That is why the “load” of these characters with psychology, in principle, does not raise any particular objections.

The main guiding question turns out to be this: what, ultimately, is Gibson's film about? It is clear that the main subject is the torment and death of Christ on the cross. Christ crucified for me (you, him, you...), that is, about what is called in Slavic “co-crucifixion,” everyone’s personal participation in the suffering of Christ, about cleansing through suffering. But the film is also about apostasy, about the fact that the modern world crucifies Christ and renounces him - that’s why almost all plot development rests on the figures of “apostates.” Renounces Hope, Path, Truth and Life. "Quid est veritas?" - before these words of Pilate, who is about to put to death the Truth he seeks, everything else fades. And here, it seems to me, lies the reason for the strong polarity of opinions about the picture. It seems that Gibson's film is in some sense a film of revelation. The denunciation of the humanistic understanding of Christianity in the distortion of the very teachings of Christ, who said that he brought “not peace, but a sword,” brought division and overcoming of “humanity” in deification. Convicting modern man of unbelief, of replacing Christ with a politically correct and beautiful ghost. That is why there is such an insistence on the reality of suffering. It's like an antidote. Yes, the film shocks the viewer with the naturalism of the flagellation scene, the naturalism of the crucifixion - but this seems justified both spiritually and artistically. When a patient is about to die, one has to resort to bitter medicine, Gibson seems to think. And the purpose of a methodical display of suffering is to create a shock that can bring modern man out of his stupor.

It remains to say about the main and main point of complaints about the film in the USA. It is designated by the code word "anti-Semitism". It is clear, of course, that there is no anti-Semitism in our usual sense. There is no caricature of “evil Jews,” no shifting of blame, or even exaggeration of ethnic characteristics. All the members of the Sanhedrin and almost all the Jews are played by Italians. Blue-eyed Caviezel put on brown lenses to look more Jewish. Maria Morgenstern is completely Jewish. The point here is not visible anti-Semitism - in this sense the claims are absurd. The fact is that in America there is a certain code of social behavior in which many manifestations of Christian (especially Catholic, but in principle generally religious) feelings and beliefs are taboo. The Gospel is an “anti-Semitic” book because (so it is believed) that in the European Middle Ages and in Russia anti-Semitic conclusions were drawn from it and justifications for Jewish pogroms were derived. And therefore, only such a reading and presentation of the Gospel history is allowed, in which “objectivism” and “Arianism” completely supplant all religious vitality. There remains one story that is very difficult (and unnecessary) to understand. And Gibson broke this taboo, because he tried to show the Gospel as the real story of the murder of the Son of God by apostate people who forgot that they were His creations.

In some sense, you can even say that “The Passion of the Christ” is not quite cinematography. If you look at the film simply “like a movie,” it turns out that the movie is like a movie, not striking the artistic imagination spoiled by modern technology. One might even consider this movie to be ordinary and even bad in some ways. Like a movie . But the trick is that Gibson was not making a movie, but a social gesture. A gesture of attracting attention, a prophetic gesture - “look what we have done and are still doing!” One of my correspondents aptly said: “This is not the kind of cruelty that leaves you frightened and helpless, on the contrary: it shows how helpless cruelty itself is, and shows that victory over it lies in Love.”