Differences From Traditional Passion Story
Certain elements of The Passion of the Christ do not have precedent in earlier depictions of the Passion. In the Garden of Gethsemane scene at the beginning of the movie, Satan appears and attempts to distract Jesus while he is praying. Jesus then crushes a serpent beneath his heel (this is a reference to the protoevangelium, Genesis 3:15 – a prophecy of Messiah); this does not occur in any of the gospels. In another example, Judas Iscariot is tormented by demons who appear as children to him. The film gives focus to the fragile relationship of Tiberius Caesar with Pontius Pilate through Pilate's discussion with his wife about imperial orders to avert further Judean revolts. The movie clearly identifies Simon of Cyrene as Jewish, although the Synoptic Gospels provide only his name and place of origin. In the film, a Roman soldier derides Simon (who helps Jesus bear the cross) by derisively calling him Jew. In contrast, Simon is described as a pagan in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Other scenes unique to The Passion of the Christ include the one in which the crucified thief who taunted Jesus has his eye pecked out by a crow, and the flashback of the carpenter Jesus building an elevated, four-legged table for a Roman. The scene of Satan carrying a demonic baby during Christ’s flogging has been construed as a perversion of traditional depictions of the Madonna and Child. Mel Gibson described this scene as follows:
"...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."
Read more about this topic: The Passion Of The Christ
Famous quotes containing the words differences, traditional, passion and/or story:
“Generally there is no consistent evidence of significant differences in school achievement between children of working and nonworking mothers, but differences that do appear are often related to maternal satisfaction with her chosen role, and the quality of substitute care.”
—Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)
“Americans want action for their money. They are fascinated by its self-reproducing qualities if it’s put to work.... Gold-hoarding goes against the American grain; it fits in better with European pessimism than with America’s traditional optimism.”
—Paula Nelson (b. 1945)
“No legislation can suppress nature; all life rushes to reproduction; our procreative faculties are matured early, while passion is strong, and judgment and self-restraint weak. We cannot alter this, but we can alter what is conventional. We can refuse to brand an act of nature as a crime, and to impute to vice what is due to ignorance.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)