Исаның Соңғы Сағаттары

2004 film by Mel Gibson
the film

As per the title, the film primarily covers the final 12 hours before Jesus Christ's death, known as "the Passion". It begins with the Agony in the Garden of Olives (i. e., Gethsemane), continues with the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, the brutal Scourging at the Pillar, the suffering of Mary as prophesied by Simeon, the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and ends with a brief depiction of his resurrection. The narrative is interspersed with moments in Jesus's life, such as The Last Supper and The Sermon on the Mount, and moments of Jesus' early life. The film was mostly shot in Italy. The dialogue is entirely in reconstructed Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin. Although Gibson was initially against it, the film is subtitled. The film was controversial and received polarized reviews from critics; some regarded the film a religious and holy experience, praising the performances of the cast, production values, and John Debney's musical score, while some found it to be antisemitic and the graphic violence to be extreme and emotionally draining. The film grossed over $612 million worldwide and became the fifth highest grossing film of 2004 internationally at the end of its theatrical run. As of 2023, it is the highest grossing R rated film in the USA, with $370.8 million. It received three nominations at the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, for Best Makeup, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score. A sequel centered on the resurrection of Jesus is in development.

On the night of Passover in Gethsemane, Jesus prays with his disciples Peter, James and John beside him. Satan tries to tempt Jesus as his sweat turns into blood and a serpent emerges from Satan's guise. Jesus then rebukes Satan by crushing the serpent's head. Meanwhile, Judas Iscariot, another of Jesus's disciples, is bribed by Caiaphas and the Pharisees with thirty pieces of silver, and leads a group of temple guards to the forest where he betrays Jesus' identity. As the guards arrest Jesus, a fight erupts wherein Peter draws his dagger and slashes the ear of Malchus, the commander of the guards. Jesus heals Malchus' injury while reprimanding Peter. As the disciples flee, the guards secure Jesus and beat him on the way to the Sanhedrin. Awoken from her sleep, Jesus' mother Mary senses something is wrong and speaks with Magdalene. John barges into their room and informs them of the arrest, and they reunite with Peter who has followed Jesus and his captors. Caiaphas holds trial during which false accusations are made against Jesus. Some priests, who object to the trial and secretly support Jesus, are expelled from the court. When Jesus claims he is the Son of God, Caiaphas angrily tears his robes and Jesus is condemned to death for blasphemy. As Jesus is brutally beaten, Peter is confronted by the mob and he denies being a follower of Jesus. After cursing them during the third denial, Peter remembers Jesus' forewarning, then weeps bitterly and flees. Meanwhile, a guilt ridden Judas attempts to return the money to have Jesus freed, but is refused by the priests. Haunted by demons, Judas uses a rope from a donkey's rotting corpse to hang himself. Caiaphas and the crowd bring Jesus before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, to be condemned to death. At the urging of his wife Claudia, who knows Jesus is holy, and after questioning Jesus and finding no fault, Pilate transfers him to the court of Herod Antipas since Jesus is from Antipas's domain of Galilee. Antipas deems him to be a harmless fool and returns him. Pilate then offers the crowd the choice of freeing Jesus or the violent criminal Barabbas. The crowd demands Barabbas be freed and Jesus crucified. Attempting to appease the crowd, Pilate orders that Jesus simply be flogged. The Roman guards brutally scourge him before taking him to a barn where they place a crown of thorns on his head and insult him. He is presented before Pilate and the crowd, but Caiaphas, supported by the crowd, continues demanding that he be crucified. Unwilling to instigate an uprising, Pilate orders his crucifixion, claiming no responsibility. Jesus then carries a heavy wooden cross on the road to Golgotha while Satan observes his suffering with sadistic pleasure. Along the way, Jesus is constantly harassed by the guards and rampant mob, encounters his mother who comforts him for a short while before being pulled away by the guards, is helped by the unwilling Simon of Cyrene, and is replenished by a woman who wipes his bloodied face with her veil before also being dragged away by the guards. At the end of their journey, with his mother Mary, Magdalene, John, and many others witnessing, Jesus is crucified. He prays to God to forgive his tormentors, provides salvation to a criminal crucified beside him for his strong faith and repentance, and comforts his mother. Succumbing to his wounds, Jesus surrenders his spirit and dies. A single droplet of rain then falls from the sky to the ground, triggering an earthquake which damages the Second Temple and rips the veil covering the Holy of Holies in two while Satan screams in defeat from the depths of Hell. Jesus' body is taken down from the cross and entombed. Three days later, he rises from the dead and exits the tomb.

In The Passion: Photography from the Movie "The Passion of the Christ", director Mel Gibson says, "This is a movie about love, hope, faith and forgiveness. Jesus died for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It's time to get back to that basic message. The world has gone nuts. We could all use a little more love, faith, hope and forgiveness."

According to Mel Gibson, the primary source material for The Passion of the Christ is the four canonical Gospel narratives of Christ's passion. The film includes a trial of Jesus at Herod's court, which is only found in the Gospel of Luke. The film also draws from other parts of the New Testament. One line spoken by Jesus in the film, "I make all things new", is found in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 21, verse 5.

The film also refers to the Old Testament. The film begins with an epigraph from the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant from Isaiah. In the opening scene set in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus crushes a serpent's head in direct visual allusion to Genesis 3:15. Throughout the film, Jesus quotes from the Psalms, beyond the instances recorded in the New Testament.

Many of the depictions in the film deliberately mirror traditional representations of the Passion in art. For example, the 14 Stations of the Cross are central to the depiction of the Via Dolorosa in The Passion of the Christ. All the stations are portrayed except for the eighth station (Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, a deleted scene on the DVD) and the fourteenth station (Jesus is laid in the tomb). Gibson was inspired by the representation of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin. At the suggestion of actress Maia Morgenstern, the Passover Seder is quoted early in the film. Mary asks "Why is this night different from other nights? ", and Mary Magdalene replies with the traditional response: "Because once we were slaves, and we are slaves no longer." The conflation of Mary Magdalene with the adulteress saved from stoning by Jesus has some precedent in Catholic tradition, and according to the director was done for dramatic reasons. The names of some characters in the film are traditional and extra Scriptural, such as the thieves crucified alongside the Christ, Dismas and Gesmas (also Gestas). The film was mostly inspired by visions from Catholic visionaries such as Mary of Jesus of Ágreda and Anne Catherine Emmerich. The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a book by Clemens Brentano that details the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, was particularly inspiring to Gibson because it provided vivid descriptions of the crucifixion, as well as additional roles played by Mary, Jesus' mother. The depiction of Veronica wiping the face of Jesus is from a Catholic tradition and relates to a relic known as the Veil of Veronica. The film slightly showed the veil bearing the image of the face of Jesus. Its origin lies in the sixth Station of the Cross, in which Saint Veronica wipes Jesus's face with her veil after he encounters her along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.

Gibson originally announced that he would use two old languages without subtitles and rely on "filmic storytelling". Because the story of the Passion is so well known, Gibson felt the need to avoid vernacular languages in order to surprise audiences: "I think it's almost counterproductive to say some of these things in a modern language. It makes you want to stand up and shout out the next line, like when you hear 'To be or not to be' and you instinctively say to yourself, 'That is the question.'" The script was written in English by Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald, then translated by William Fulco, S. J., a professor at Loyola Marymount University, into Latin and reconstructed Aramaic. Fulco sometimes incorporated deliberate errors in pronunciations and word endings when the characters were speaking a language unfamiliar to them, and some of the crude language used by the Roman soldiers was not translated in the subtitles.

The film was produced independently and shot in Italy at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, and on location in the city of Matera and the ghost town of Craco, both in the Basilicata region. The estimated US$30 million production cost, plus an additional estimated $15 million in marketing costs, were fully borne by Gibson and his company Icon Productions. According to the DVD special feature, Martin Scorsese had recently finished his film Gangs of New York, from which Gibson and his production designers constructed part of their set. This saved Gibson a lot of time and money. Gibson consulted several theological advisers during filming, including Fr. Jonathan Morris, and a local priest, Philip J. Ryan, who visited the set daily to provide counsel, Confession, and Holy Communion to Jim Caviezel. Masses were celebrated for cast and crew in several locations. There were other priests involved with the filming, including Abbé Michel Debourges from the Institute of Christ the King, Stephen Somerville, and Jean Marie Charles Roux, all of whom were asked by Mel Gibson to daily celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass. During filming, key set production assistant Jan Michelini was struck twice by lightning and hence nicknamed "Lighting Boy" as seen in the credits. Minutes later, Caviezel also was struck.

Three albums were released with Mel Gibson's co operation: (1) the soundtrack of John Debney's original orchestral score conducted by Nick Ingman; (2) The Passion of the Christ: Songs, by producers Mark Joseph and Tim Cook, with original compositions by various artists, and (3) Songs Inspired by The Passion of the Christ. The first two albums each received a 2005 Dove award, and the soundtrack received an Academy Award nomination of Best Original Music Score. The music score frequently makes use of the wailing woman technique. A preliminary score was composed and recorded by Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy, but was incomplete at film's release. Jack Lenz was the primary musical researcher and one of the composers; several clips of his compositions have been posted online.

Although Mel Gibson wanted to call his film The Passion, on October 16, 2003, his spokesman announced that the title used in the United States would be The Passion of Christ because Miramax Films had already registered the title The Passion with the MPAA for the 1987 novel by Jeanette Winterson. Later, the title was changed again to The Passion of the Christ for all markets.

Gibson began production on his film without securing outside funding or distribution. In 2002, he explained why he could not get backing from the Hollywood studios: "This is a film about something that nobody wants to touch, shot in two dead languages." Gibson and his company Icon Productions provided the film's sole backing, spending about $30 million on production costs and an estimated $15 million on marketing. After early accusations of antisemitism, it became difficult for Gibson to find an American distribution company. 20th Century Fox initially had a first look deal with Icon but decided to pass on the film in response to public protests. In order to avoid the spectacle of other studios turning down the film and to avoid subjecting the distributor to the same intense public criticism he had received, Gibson decided to distribute the film in the United States himself, with the aid of Newmarket Films. Gibson departed from the usual film marketing formula. He employed a small scale television advertising campaign with no press junkets. Similar to marketing campaigns for earlier biblical films like The King of Kings, The Passion of the Christ was heavily promoted by many church groups, both within their organizations and to the public. Typical licensed merchandise like posters, T shirts, coffee mugs and jewelry was sold through retailers and websites. The United Methodist Church stated that many of its members, like other Christians, felt that the film was a good way to evangelize non believers. As a result, many congregations planned to be at the theaters, and some set up tables to answer questions and share prayers.

The Passion of the Christ received enthusiastic support from the American evangelical community. Before the film's release, Gibson actively reached out to evangelical leaders seeking their support and feedback. With their help, Gibson organized and attended a series of pre release screenings for evangelical audiences and discussed the making of the film and his personal faith. In June 2003 he screened the film for 800 pastors attending a leadership conference at New Life Church, pastored by Ted Haggard, then president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Gibson gave similar showings at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church, Greg Laurie's Harvest Christian Fellowship, and to 3,600 pastors at a conference at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. From the summer of 2003 to the film's release in February 2004, portions or rough cuts of the film were shown to over eighty audiences—many of which were evangelical audiences. The film additionally received public endorsements from evangelical leaders, including Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Darrell Bock, Christianity Today editor David Neff, Pat Robertson, Lee Strobel, Jerry Falwell, Max Lucado, Tim LaHaye and Chuck Colson.

The Passion of the Christ opened in the United States on February 25, 2004 (Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent). It earned $83.8 million from 4,793 screens at 3,043 theaters in its opening weekend and a total of $125.2 million since its Wednesday opening, ranking it fourth overall in domestic opening weekend earnings for 2004 as well as the biggest weekend debut for a February release (until Fifty Shades of Grey was released). The film tied with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kings record for having the highest five day Wednesday opening. Moreover, The Passion of the Christ scored the second biggest opening weekend for any R rated movie, behind The Matrix Reloaded. It went on to earn $370.8 million overall in the United States, The film sold an estimated 59.6 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run. In the Philippines, a majority Catholic country, the film was released on March 31, 2004, rated PG 13 by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) and endorsed by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). In Malaysia, government censors initially banned it completely, but after Christian leaders protested, the restriction was lifted, but only for Christian audiences, allowing them to view the film in specially designated theaters. In Israel, the film was not banned. However, it never received theatrical distribution because no Israeli distributor would market it. Despite the many controversies and refusals by some governments to allow the film to be viewed in wide release, The Passion of the Christ earned $612 million worldwide. such as in Egypt, where it ranked 20th overall in its box office numbers for 2004. The film was the highest grossing non English language film of all time until 2017, when it was surpassed by Wolf Warrior 2.

The Passion Recut, a re edited version, was released in theaters on March 11, 2005, with five minutes of the most explicit violence deleted, in hopes of attracting more viewers and make the film approachable to consumers who found the original cut too disturbing. President of Newmarket Films Bob Berney stated, "I knew a lot of people that wanted to see it but couldn't go They were just too nervous or squeamish". Gibson explained his reasoning for this re edited version: After the initial run in movie theaters, I received numerous letters from people all across the country. Many told me they wanted to share the experience with loved ones but were concerned that the harsher images of the film would be too intense for them to bear. In light of this I decided to re edit The Passion of the Christ. Gibson had anticipated for a PG 13 rating after editing the film to bring it closer to that rating. Though despite the re editing, the Motion Picture Association of America still deemed The Passion Recut too violent for the PG 13 rating. But because Newmarket is not an MPAA signatory and hence does not have to comply with MPAA guidelines, they decided to release the film as unrated. The goal was to try and reach toward a PG 13 level, but the MPAA felt it still was an R due to the overall intensity of the film, so we are going out unrated and perhaps it’s ultimately somewhere in between. The end result is a shift in tone and balance that makes the film more accessible to a wider audience, particularly those that had concerns about some of the extreme moments in the original version. The film's re release was an "experiment" for Newmarket and Icon, since the companies hoped for a four week showing that would extended through Easter Sunday (March 27). Had the experiment succeeded, Newmarket and Icon would have released the film every year around Easter. However, the shortened film showed for three weeks in 960 theaters for a box office total of $567,692, minuscule compared to the $612,054,428 of The Passion. The BBFC classified the recut with a 15 rating, lower than the original cut's 18 rating.

During the scourging scene, the cat o' nine tails striking Jesus's flesh that resulted in blood squirting and his flesh being dislodged was omitted. In the crucifixion scene, the Roman soldiers nailing Jesus with blood spurting is cut, and the soldier strenuously dislocating Jesus's shoulder is trimmed; instead, the reaction shots of Mary and Jesus are shown. Incidentally, the scene in which the cross is flipped over and supernaturally suspended in air was also deleted (this was actually due to viewers not understanding what they saw). with a total of 4.1 million copies on its first day of sale. The film was available on DVD with English and Spanish subtitles and on VHS tape with English subtitles. The film was released on Blu ray in North America as a two disc Definitive Edition set on February 17, 2009. It was also released on Blu ray in Australia a week before Easter. Although the original DVD release sold well, it contained no bonus features other than a trailer, which provoked speculation about how many buyers would wait for a special edition to be released. On February 7, 2017, 20th Century Fox re released the film on Blu ray and DVD featuring the theatrical version and the edited version (The Passion Recut), where the graphic violence is reduced. The theatrical version features English and Spanish dubs; this marks the first time the film has ever been dubbed in another language.

On April 17, 2011 (Palm Sunday), Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) presented the film at 7:30 p. m. ET/PT, with multiple showings scheduled. The network has continued to air the film throughout the year, and particularly around Easter. On March 29, 2013 (Good Friday), as a part of their special Holy Week programming, TV5 presented the Filipino dubbed version of the film at 2:00p. m. (PST, UTC+8) in the Philippines. Its total broadcast ran for two hours, but excluding the advertisements, it would only run up for approximately one hour instead of its full run time of two hours and six minutes. It ended at 4:00 p. m. It has been rated SPG by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) for themes, language and violence with some scenes censored for television. TV5 is the first broadcast network outside of the United States and dubbed the Vernacular Hebrew and Latin language to Filipino (through translating its supplied English subtitles).

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 49% based on 281 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Director Mel Gibson's zeal is unmistakable, but The Passion of the Christ will leave many viewers emotionally drained rather than spiritually uplifted." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average of 47 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade, however. In a positive review for Time, its critic Richard Corliss called The Passion of the Christ "a serious, handsome, excruciating film that radiates total commitment." White also noted that it was odd to see Director Mel Gibson offer audiences "an intellectual challenge" with the film. Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun Times gave the movie four out of four stars, calling it "the most violent film I have ever seen" as well as reflecting on how it struck him, a former altar boy: "What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of. That his film is superficial in terms of the surrounding message—that we get only a few passing references to the teachings of Jesus—is, I suppose, not the point. This is not a sermon or a homily, but a visualization of the central event in the Christian religion. Take it or leave it." In a negative review, Slate magazine's David Edelstein called it "a two hour and six minute snuff movie", and Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News felt it was "the most virulently anti Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II". Writing for the Dallas Observer, Robert Wilonsky stated that he found the movie "too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn't find the devil carrying around a hairy backed midget anywhere in the text I read." In 2010, Time listed it as one of the most "ridiculously violent" films of all time.

Despite criticisms that Gibson deliberately added material to the historical accounts of first century Judea and biblical accounts of Christ's crucifixion, some scholars defend the film as not being primarily concerned with historical accuracy. Biblical scholar Mark Goodacre protested that he could not find one documented example of Gibson explicitly claiming the film to be historically accurate. Gibson has been quoted as saying: "I think that my first duty is to be as faithful as possible in telling the story so that it doesn't contradict the Scriptures. Now, so long as it didn't do that, I felt that I had a pretty wide berth for artistic interpretation, and to fill in some of the spaces with logic, with imagination, with various other readings." One such example is a scene in which Judas Iscariot is shown being tormented by demons in the form of children. Another scene shows Satan carrying a demonic baby during Christ's flogging, construed as a perversion of traditional depictions of the Madonna and Child, and also as a representation of Satan and the Antichrist. Gibson's description:

It's evil distorting what's good. What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child, you have an androgynous figure holding a 40 year old 'baby' with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it's almost too much—just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place. When asked about the film's faithfulness to the account given in the New Testament, Father Augustine Di Noia of the Vatican's Doctrinal Congregation replied: "Mel Gibson's film is not a documentary but remains faithful to the fundamental structure common to all four accounts of the Gospels" and "Mel Gibson's film is entirely faithful to the New Testament".

Film critic Roger Ebert, who awarded The Passion of the Christ four out of four stars in his review for the Chicago Sun Times, denied allegations that the film was anti semitic. Ebert described the film as "a powerful and important film, helmed by a man with a sincere heart and a warrior's sense of justice. It is a story filled with searing images and ultimately a message of redemption and hope." Ebert said, "It also might just be the greatest cinematic version of the greatest story ever told." Conservative columnist Cal Thomas also disagreed with allegations of antisemitism and wrote in Townhall: "To those in the Jewish community who worry that the film might contain anti Semitic elements, or encourage people to persecute Jews, fear not. The film does not indict Jews for the death of Jesus." Bob Smithouser of Focus on the Family's Plugged In also believed that the film was trying to convey the evils and sins of humanity rather than specifically targeting Jews, stating: "The anthropomorphic portrayal of Satan as a player in these events brilliantly pulls the proceedings into the supernatural realm—a fact that should have quelled the much publicized cries of anti Semitism since it shows a diabolical force at work beyond any political and religious agendas of the Jews and Romans. "</blockquote>

Asked by Bill O'Reilly if his movie would "upset Jews", Gibson responded, "It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible." In an interview for The Globe and Mail, he added: "If anyone has distorted Gospel passages to rationalize cruelty towards Jews or anyone, it's in defiance of repeated Papal condemnation. The Papacy has condemned racism in any form Jesus died for the sins of all times, and I'll be the first on the line for culpability."

A. O. Scott in The New York Times wrote "The Passion of the Christ is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it." David Edelstein, Slates film critic, dubbed the film "a two hour and six minute snuff movie—The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre—that thinks it's an act of faith", and further criticized Gibson for focusing on the brutality of Jesus' execution, instead of his religious teachings. Critic Armond White, in his review of the film for Africana. com, offered another perspective on the violence in the film. He wrote, "Surely Gibson knows (better than anyone in Hollywood is willing to admit) that violence sells. It's problematic that this time, Gibson has made a film that asks for a sensitive, serious, personal response to violence rather than his usual glorifying of vengeance." In 2018, Caviezel said that Gibson had sent him the third draft of the screenplay. Caviezel said that it would be titled The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection and predicted, "It's going to be the biggest film in world history." In July 2023, Gibson stated that he has two versions of the script that he is working on; one is more grounded, whereas the other explores various realms and includes fallen angels in hell.