THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MEL.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Staff Writer

By now, you know the story: A Catholic filmmaker, sincere in his faith, makes a movie about Jesus, looking to communicate serious truth about the man he believes to be the Son of God and wanting to show his death on the cross in the most realistic manner possible. The film roughly follows the accounts contained in the New Testament Gospels, but it also contains extra-biblical passages that add new elements to the story.

Before its release, the movie ignites protests from people, most of whom haven't seen it, believing it is both dangerous and untrue to the Bible.

The movie, of course, is Martin Scorsese's ``The Last Temptation of Christ,'' which premiered 15 years ago surrounded by much of the same hoopla and controversy that has followed Mel Gibson's ``The Passion of the Christ.'' The difference today is that the people who were calling for boycotts of Scorsese's movie are the ones now buying millions of dollars of advance tickets for Gibson's film. And many of Scorsese's most prominent defenders are sounding the warning siren over what they see as anti-Semitic elements in Gibson's ``Passion.''

It may well be the Greatest Story Ever Told, but throughout the past century, no filmmaker has been able tell the story of Christ to the complete satisfaction of religious groups. ``From the Manger to the Cross'' in 1912 was called blasphemous. Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 epic ``The King of Kings'' faced charges of anti-Semitism. The Catholics hated Nicholas Ray's ``King of Kings'' in 1961, and conservative evangelicals blasted Franco Zeffirelli's 1977 television miniseries, ``Jesus of Nazareth'' for portraying Christ as too nice a guy. (Pope Paul VI, of course, loved it.)

Gibson's faith

For Gibson then, it was a no-win situation. Except, financially at least, he's already a winner. The only thing left to be determined is the extent.

Gibson, a Traditionalist Catholic who rejects the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (which took pains to declare that the Jews were not collectively responsible for Christ's death and were not ``rejected or cursed by God''), spent $30 million of his own money to make ``The Passion.'' (Gibson has acknowledged that the film's initial $25 million budget increased because of reshoots.)

It's looking to be a good investment. Box-office tracking estimates have ``The Passion,'' which opens in theaters Wednesday, grossing between $35 million and $40 million (some analysts go as high as $50 million) on its opening weekend. Since Gibson began screening his film for prominent Christian pastors and religious leaders last fall, churches across America have jumped on the ``Passion'' bandwagon, showing the film's trailer during Sunday services and buying out entire theaters for showings this week.

The unabashedly enthusiastic response is somewhat remarkable considering that ``The Passion'' is a relentlessly, graphically violent R-rated movie about the last 12 hours of Christ's life in which the characters speak Aramaic and Latin. Gibson added English subtitles after initially saying he wanted the images to speak for themselves.

``When you're touching on something that the Christian community is passionate about - and there's no subject they're more passionate about than Jesus - then Christians see an opportunity to tell Hollywood that they want more films like this to be made,'' says Melisa Richter, who ran marketing campaigns for the two movies based on the popular ``Left Behind'' apocalyptic series. ``And the Hollywood community usually pays attention to box-office numbers.''

Adds Craig Detweiler, co-director of Pasadena's Fuller Theological Seminary's Reel Spirituality program: ``The evangelical church sees themselves as an under-served market. When one of Hollywood's own brings the best of filmmaking to a story that's central to their faith, the feeling is, 'Finally, someone is paying attention to us.' It's no surprise it has been embraced.''

Powerful message

Indeed, Rabbi James Rudin, senior adviser for the American Jewish Committee, says he has never seen such interest in a Bible-based film in his 30 years of working with Christian and Jewish groups. And that's what worries him. Rudin, like Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman, believes that Gibson's movie gets its facts wrong while perpetuating dangerous stereotypes.

``You can make a production out of Christ's passion that has an authentic Christian message without having the Jews be Christ-killers,'' says Rudin, who has seen the film twice. ``This is Mel Gibson's version of the truth, and people need to go into it with some critical faculty.''

In interviews, Gibson has repeatedly said that he's not anti-Semitic, telling Diane Sawyer on an ABC News special Monday that ``critics who have a problem with me don't really have a problem with me in this film. They have a problem with the four Gospels. That's where their problem is.''

``He is more or less telling the story - and the story is always going to be painful to Jewish ears,'' says Donald Hagner, a professor of New Testament at Fuller. ''However, it is a natural thing in our day to be nervous about anti-Semitism when Jews are portrayed as the enemies of God.''

Too much Passion?

In its emphasis on Christ's suffering, Gibson's movie belongs to the tradition of Passion plays, which, from their beginning around the 11th century, dramatized Jesus' arrest, trial, scourging and crucifixion, culminating with his resurrection. The plays evolved into huge, multiweek productions by the Renaissance era, using music and casts that sometimes numbered into the hundreds.

Catholic immigrants brought the Passion play tradition to the United States in the early 19th century, and today there are thousands of such productions taking place around Easter at churches across America.

Historically, Passion plays, with their emphasis on Jewish culpability in Jesus' death, have often incited violence against Jews, particularly in Europe. After seeing the famous Oberammergau Passion drama in Germany, Adolf Hitler endorsed it, saying it showed the ``muck and mire of Jewry.'' The Oberammergau production, which is held every 10 years, has since undergone significant revisions, addressing concerns of anti-Semitism.

``The Passion tradition has a very checkered past,'' says Columbia University professor James Shapiro, author of ``Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play.''

``Associating yourself with it carries a burden. But Mel Gibson seems oblivious that he's making choices that align himself to something that can be troubling to a great many people.''

The ultimate blame

At the heart of the issue is a debate over who was responsible for Jesus' death - Jewish religious leadership or Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor presiding over Judea. In the film, the Jews, led by the high priest Caiphas, arrest Jesus, bring him before a waffling, soul-searching Pilate and bully the Roman governor by inciting an angry mob to call for Jesus' crucifixion. The Second Vatican Council condemned this literal reading of the four Gospels.

``In real life, Pilate had the final word and Caiphas was a collaborator,'' says Rudin, stating a commonly held position among many scholars and academics. ``Pontius Pilate was the direct opposite of what you see on the screen. He ultimately had to be recalled to Rome to answer for his cruelty.''

The ADL's Foxman urged Gibson to add a postscript to the film, stating: ``I believe Jesus suffered for all of mankind and therefore all of mankind bears responsibility for his suffering. However in history, there are people who blame the Jews. Please don't, because that would convert the passion of love into a passion of hate.''

Even though such a statement is in line with Gibson's public statements - ``We all (killed Jesus),'' Gibson told Sawyer. ``I'll be the first in the culpability stakes here'' - he refused to add the postscript. A source close to the production said such an addition ``would have been the right thing to do, but for Mel, it would have been an admission that the critics were right and that there was something wrong with his movie.''

A telling trim

Gibson did excise one controversial scene - after cutting it and then restoring it to a print he was showing religious groups just a few weeks ago - in which Caiphas, after the death of Jesus, calls out, ``His blood be on us and our children.''

``It didn't work in focus screenings,'' a Gibson associate told The New York Times. ``Maybe it was thought to be too hurtful or not taken the way it was intended. It has been used terribly over the years.''

That's why even some of the film's fans - Fuller's Detweiler among them - are glad that the scene, taken from the Gospel of Matthew, was cut from the film's final version.

``That's an inflammatory-type statement that can be taken in the wrong way,'' Hagner says. ``It's there in Matthew, and, in a way, it's kind of an embarrassment because it has been used by the church in connection with anti-Semitism and evil. I regularly tell my classes that we as Christians need to go out of our way to tell people what these texts don't mean, because they have a history of negative use.''

Whether ``The Passion of the Christ'' will incite similar incidents remains to be seen. Gibson says he can't be blamed for the actions of bigots who misinterpret his movie. Even the film's critics doubt the film will provoke anti-Semitism in the United States. (``People are not going to run out and beat up Jews after watching this movie,'' Shapiro says. ``And I say that as a Jew who was beat up as a kid.'')

But concerns remain about how the movie will be received elsewhere in the world.

`` 'The Jews killed Christ' are the four words more responsible for legitimizing anti-Semitism than anything else we know in Western civilization,'' Foxman says. ``I understand there is ambiguity in the story, and that is fine. Unfortunately, the film views it unambiguously. And that's our concern. Mel Gibson is a true believer, but true believers can cause pain.''

For people lining up to see ``The Passion'' this week, however, the issue is less about culpability than gratitude that an A-list Hollywood star like Gibson would make a movie about a story that is central to their faith.

``The film resonates with evangelicals, people who feel America has turned its back on their values,'' Shapiro says. ``This has as much to do with the cultural battleground in our country as it does the interpretation of the Gospels. And for one weekend at least, the Christians are going to be No. 1 at the Hollywood box-office.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) The `Passion and the Fury''

(2) Director Mel Gibson on the set of ``The Passion of the Christ'' with Jim Caviezel as Jesus, center, and Caviezel's unidentified double, left. The controversial film opens in theaters Wednesday.

(3) no caption (Mel Gibson)