'Passion' Is Already Generating a Faithful Following

By Caryle Murphy and William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 17, 2004; Page A01

A week before its release, before a single member of the general public has seen it, Mel Gibson's graphically violent film about the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ has become the most talked-about movie event in America, in large part because of a marketing strategy that is targeting Christian audiences while trying to manage the controversy about anti-Semitism that swirls around the picture.

Paul Dergarabedian, the president of Exhibitor Relations, a company that tracks box office sales, told Variety that the pre-release buzz of "The Passion of the Christ" rivals that of the first "Star Wars" prequel, one of the top-grossing movies of all time. The film will be released next week on Ash Wednesday, on 2,000 screens. Hundreds of theaters, including a number in the Washington area, have already sold out showings for the opening week.

Gibson has said he wanted to make the "most realistic" Jesus movie ever made. The R-rated subtitled film, which contains scenes of blood-drenched violence and physical suffering, has generated intense interest among religious audiences, especially evangelical Christians, who have been identified by Gibson as his core audience -- and by some Jewish leaders who fear that the portrayal of Jesus's scourging and crucifixion in such excruciatingly realistic detail will spark anti-Jewish feelings. The film is being marketed by specialty firms directing their messages to evangelical churches and to religious leaders, who see the film as an opportunity to affirm the beliefs of the faithful and to bring the message of Christ to nonbelievers. Dozens of Internet sites directed at Christians have been touting the film; the marketing companies are offering a look at the movie's trailer, ways to purchase tickets online and supplemental study guides. An ad plugging the movie appeared on the hood of a race car at NASCAR's Daytona 500 on Sunday.

Outreach Inc., a purveyor of Christian products, is working with Gibson's company to market the film and has distributed thousands of sets of promotional materials, including DVDs of film highlights, to churches nationwide, encouraging them to attend the film as a congregation.

"People who see the film will become more curious about who Jesus is and what he accomplished. We have a lot of books and videos that focus on the person and work of Christ," said Rob Phillips of LifeWay Christian Resources, one of the companies with tie-ins to the film.

Denny Harris, director of ministry operations at McLean Bible Church, one of the largest Christian evangelical congregations in the Washington area, said he thinks that viewers "will be deeply moved and left with questions about" Christ's crucifixion. "What we desire to do is to help people understand what the implications of the death of Christ are . . . and to understand what they can do in response to that."

Harris's church purchased 10,250 tickets in advance -- and more than half have already been resold to the congregation.

Joseph P. Vitale, a young District lawyer who is Catholic, bought out the largest screen at the AMC movie complex at Mazza Gallerie in Northwest Washington for the first night's screening because he and his friends thought seeing the movie "would be a great way to start off Lent." Vitale then sent invitations to friends, acquaintances and Catholic youth groups at local universities, offering them the opportunity to buy tickets in advance at his cost. Within hours of sending the e-mailed invitations, Vitale said he received more than 350 affirmative responses, and within days his e-mail in-basket held requests for a total of 800 tickets.

"For many people," Vitale said, "it can be more than just a moviegoing experience. It will also be a personal experience."

According to people who have seen the movie, Gibson (who funded and directed it and co-wrote its screenplay) has chosen to focus on the role of the high priests at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in indicting Christ and calling for his execution. The Jewish leader Caiaphas is insistent that Jesus die, while the Roman governor Pontius Pilate is portrayed as a sympathetic character who only reluctantly gives in to the mob's bloodlust.

"I'm not sure there has been a film that has ignited such an exchange of inflammatory condemnations before people even see it," said the Rev. Christopher Leighton, a Presbyterian minister and executive director of the Baltimore-based Institute for Christian Jewish Studies.

Leighton criticized the media for pitting Christian evangelicals' fervor for the film against Jewish fears. "In that situation," said Leighton, "there is a lot of heat and not much illumination."

There are many Christians, he added, who also are "enormously anxious about the Gospel story being presented in a way that foments or incites anti-Jewish attitudes."

In an interview with ABC News's "Primetime" that aired last night, Gibson said of the film's violence: "I wanted it to be shocking. And I also wanted it to be extreme. I wanted it to push the viewer over the edge. And it does that. I think it pushes one over the edge . . . so that they see the enormity, the enormity of that sacrifice; to see that someone could endure that and still come back with love and forgiveness, even through extreme pain and suffering and ridicule."

In comments before clergy and test audiences, Gibson has said that his movie is based closely upon the four New Testament Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion, as well as the visions and mystical testimonies of two nuns, Mary Agreda of Spain (1602-1665) and Anne Catherine Emmerich of France (1774-1824).

But Hollywood executives and religious leaders with knowledge of the project also say that Mel Gibson himself cannot be separated from the film. He is an Oscar-winning director whose characters often endure bloody trials of faith, such as his own portrayal of the Scottish rebel in "Braveheart" who is publicly disemboweled while lying upon a crosslike rack.

Gibson, 48, is a traditionalist Catholic, an ultraconservative in terms of his faith. Traditionalists reject the reforms of the Roman Catholic Vatican II council of the 1960s, which lifted prohibitions on eating meat on Fridays and, in an effort to make Mass more accessible, ordered that it be said in the lay languages of congregations rather than in Latin.

Gibson has defended "Passion" as an accurate portrayal of Christ's final hours and has rejected accusations of anti-Semitism, telling the Global Catholic Network, a radio and television broadcasting service, that his film "collectively blames humanity for the death of Jesus. . . . Now, there are no exemptions here. All right? I'm the first on the line for culpability. I did it. Christ died for all men for all times."

But he has also conceded that the controversy surrounding the film has generated the kind of free publicity that can make a blockbuster. He has called it "inadvertent," but one Hollywood executive at a major studio, who asked for anonymity, described it as "a brilliant marketing campaign."

"The publicity, the controversy and the interest -- it's a movie phenomenon that hasn't been seen before," said Robert Fyvolent of Newmarket Films, which is handling the distribution.

Surveys by the market research firm Nielsen NRG suggest that the film could open in the $15 million to $30 million range -- which, as Gibson and others have said, is remarkable for a picture with no-name actors speaking two dead languages (Aramaic and Latin) with minimal subtitles.

Gibson has mostly shown the film to restricted, often handpicked audiences, who must sign releases pledging not to divulge details of the movie -- an astute marketing move, perhaps, but one that has aroused considerable suspicion and anxiety among some Jewish groups.

David Friedman, Washington regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said, "The producers are not showing it to people who they think are not going to give laudatory comments."

An official at the New York-based Office for Film and Broadcasting, which reviews and classifies movies for U.S. Catholic bishops, said that it had not yet been allowed to see the film but was told it would be invited to a screening during the film's opening week.

Gibson, though, has shown the film to some Jewish leaders, to a gathering of Jesuit priests and to an unsuspecting audience of 250 self-professed film geeks attending movie-review maven Harry Knowles's film festival in Austin several months ago. Knowles, who runs a popular cinephile Web site called Ain't It Cool News, said his audience was anything but evangelical.

"It was a mainly agnostic, film-loving prime movie demographic. We had a phone repairman, an FBI agent and a paper shuffler from the IRS," Knowles said.

Gibson's film, Knowles said, "blew the audience away."

It is possible, Knowles said, "that if you are looking for anti-Semitism in the film, you might find it." But he also said he felt the film's message was "about a guy who takes more punishment than you've ever seen in your life, and how he doesn't cry out for revenge but prays for their forgiveness. We're not a Bible-thumping community. I'm as liberal as can be. And I think I understand the message better than they do -- the conservatives."

Sophie Hoffman, president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, who like Friedman has not seen the movie, said she is most worried about the film's influence in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, "where anti-Semitism has been rising at frightening and dramatic rates."

One of the most sensational moments in the version of the film that has been screened in previews is a line from the Gospel of Matthew, in which the mob calling for Jesus to be put upon the cross shouts out, "His blood be on us and on our children!" Often called the "blood libel" quote, it has been interpreted in the past to call down rage and blame upon the Jews in the centuries-long tradition of Passion plays.

One of the movie's other publicists, Larry Ross, who has often represented the Rev. Billy Graham, said that Gibson was still fiddling with the final edit of the film. "You will have to wait until Mel releases his film to know what decisions he has made as a director," Ross said.

William Booth reported from Los Angeles.