From: Sam Swank Re: Gibson's Passion, the gift that keeps on giving

Tom,

Interesting article in today's New York Times about Gibson's Jesus flick. My email doesn't transmit links, so I'll just cut to the fun parts, but you'll want to look at the whole thing.

"Mel Gibson, responding to focus groups as much as to protests by Jewish critics, has decided to delete a controversial scene about Jews from his film, "The Passion of the Christ," a close associate said today.

"A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children," will not be in the movie's final version, said the Gibson associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The passage had been included in some versions of the film that were shown before select groups, mostly of priests and ministers."

So, not only are they picking and choosing who they show the whole film to, they're deciding whether or not to show the "we know we're Christ killers" version. But then there's the punchline of the whole article:

"It didn't work in the focus screenings," the associate said.

I don't need to comment on the sheer absurdity of that remark, do I?

You've got to love the right wing supporters of this movie. They rail against the evils of "Hollywood" and it's evil denizens like Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen, but then they swoon over Arnold Swarzenegger , elect him governor, and now let B movie king Mel Gibson become the chief theologian.

You can't make this stuff up!

Much Love from your irascible (or is it "imbecile"?) son -in -law,

Sam

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Dear Sam,

Neither irascible nor imbecile, but, as in the duet between Tevye and Golda in Fiddler on the Roof, "such a son-in-law, like no one ever saw"... All right, you don't really remind me of the nebbish taylor Motel Konzoil, but of the tall Russian lad, Fyedka, who marries Chava, Tevye's third daughter. "Little bird, little Chavale," sings the anguished Tevye, for his precious child, a good Jewish girl, is determined to marry a Christian, and that is more than he can bear... We'll return to Fiddler in a moment - The movie came out about 30 years ago, I saw it with my daughters.

After reading your e-mail I called Fr. Ed, who's very savvy about the film industry, and asked him, "Is it unusual for a movie-maker to show a film to preview audiences, use them as focus groups, etc.?" He said, "Not at all. The kicker in this case is that it's a movie about Jesus." He also assured me he's reworking his Jesus at the Movies essay, a history of the genre to appear in Coffee, one hopes in the near future. Now, back to...

Fiddler is based on "Tevye and his Daughters," Sholom Aleichem's story of one family living in a Russian Ghetto on the eve of the Communist revolution. And in the midst of another revolution: Tevye's daughters' notions of marriage have been modernized - they they believe romantic love is a more reliable matchmaker than their parents aided by the professional matchmaker, Yenta.

Relations between the Jews of Anatevka and the local Christian community are good at the play's outset. When Tevye and Lazar Wolf celebrate the match made between Lazar and Tevye's oldest daughter, Tseidel, at the local bar, the Russian villagers join in: "Heaven bless you," they sing. "And may we always live together in peace." But Tseidel's marriage to Motel the tailor (the match love has made) is ruined when the same villagers disrupt and destroy the marriage feast - not as a matter of personal desire, it is made clear, but because, like the Nazis at the Nurmburg trials, they are following orders from a distant Czar. Thus the pogrom begins.

Love makes another match. Tevye's second daughter Hodel follows the Communist Perchik to distant Siberia, after his arrest.  A major promise of the movement, for Perchik, is that it includes both Gentiles and Jews.

When love makes the match between Tevye's third daughter Chava and the Christian lad Fyedka, Tevya's heart is broken. "Our daughter is dead to us," he says and refuses to speak to her or acknowledge her existence henceforth.

The pogrom culminates when the Jews are driven from Anatevka.  Nothing personal, again, just following orders - an excuse that's beginning to wear a little thin. With heroic acceptance, the Jews gather up their belongings and set about leaving.  But the drama ends on a note of reconciliation: Tevye's beloved Chava joins them, with her husband. They too are leaving. Fyedka says: "We cannot stay among people who do such things to others." And Tevya finally speaks to Chava again: "May God go with you..."

The term Anti-Semitism made its first appearance in print at about the time in history Fiddler deals with. Not long before. The Oxford English Dictionary offers the earliest citation from the journal Aethenium, September 3, 1881: "The author, apparently an anti-Semite.... Anti-Semitic literature is very prosperous in Germany." The unwitting prophecy chills the blood. I'm guessing that institutionalized prejudice against Jews was still very much a fact of life in 1881 England, but that that the British ruling class had developed a distaste for overtly expressed hatred of them. This was not always so. Let us look back about 300 years.

"Hath not a Jew eyes," cries Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, "hath not a Jews hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?... If you prick us, do we not bleed?" However an actor might handle that famous monologue on today's stage, however a modern director might present the play - not an easy task - and however much depth and resonance Shakespeare has given to his Jewish villian, Shylock is yet the villian. "If you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" Shylock wants his pound of "fair Christian flesh" from Antonio, the Merchant of the play's title, as is his right by contract. When the play was first performed, Shylock probably appeared on stage in a red wig, to remind the audience of Herod. And Shylock's appeal to common humanity was probably played as the manipulative self-justification of a greedy, vicious man who valued his ducats more than his daughter.

"My deeds upon my head!" cries Shylock. "I crave the law." Shakespeare's audience would have had no difficulty recognizing the echo of Matthew 27: 24-25. Pilate appears before the people and washes his hands, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves." And the mob cries back, "His blood be upon us and upon our children." Shylock embodies the people who, in the mind of Shakespeare's audience, as in the eyes of the early Christian community, murdered Christ: the Jewish authorities and their paid rabble-rousers who turned the crowd into a bloodthirsty mob.

Shylock can have his pound of flesh, says the judge - the disguised female lead Portia - only if he spills no drop of Antonio's blood. Shylock craves the law, he shall have it. He is stripped of every cent; but, although he sought to murder a fellow citizen, his own life is spared, as Christian charity requires. Farewell dark villian, driven back into the darkness!

The Episcopalian Palm Sunday service calls the congregation to re-enact the passion. Someone will read the part of Jesus, another the part of Pilate, another the part of Peter, and so on. The bulk of us shall play the bloodthirsty mob. "His blood be upon us and upon our children" we shall cry with cheerful zest and no real sense of the murder and destruction we have wrought upon the children of those who, supposedly, first uttered those words, century after century, age upon age.

Quite some time ago, the chair of Congressional Democratic Whip came open, and I called a fellow political animal to speculate on who might fill it. I said I was rooting for Martin Frost, a good man, good Democrat, conscientious congessman. "Won't happen," said my friend. "Martin's a Jew." When I expressed shock and disbelief that that could possibly matter in the late 20th. Century, he responded, "It shouldn't matter, but it does."

There's only one possible response to that sort of thing: "We cannot stay among people who do such things to others."

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