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Movie
strikes chord with student viewers
By
Elizabeth Bassett
Megan
Doiron walked into the theater around 9 p.m., still in
her purple TCU scrubs and with ashes on her forehead.
She had come to see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion
of The Christ,” and there were still a few red-eyed
people from a previous showing leaving the lobby.
“The Passion” opened Ash Wednesday, and crowds
of people flocked to theaters that were showing the film.
Several students and faculty members were among those
who made an effort to see the movie on its opening day.
When asked what her expectations were, Doiron, a 7senior
nursing major, said she hoped it would be true to the
text. “That’s the big thing — that it’s
accurate.”
“Two hours definitely isn’t going to capture
everything,” Doiron said. “It can’t. But
as long as they did as well as they can as accurately
as possible, it makes it viewable so people will understand.”
Some TCU students saw the film earlier. “I think
I’m truly shaken to the core,” said Cheryl Bellows,
a freshman theater major. “It was truly amazing.”
“I think it would have an impact on everyone unless
you go in with the mentality, this is just another movie,”
said Sara Rosborough, a freshman ballet major.
Many critics have said the depiction of the beating and
crucifying of Jesus are extremely violent, but Brittney
Smith, a freshman religion major, said, “I think
it had to be to really show what he went through.”
“That was the most powerful, glorious movie I’ve
ever seen. I don’t think I realized he went through
so much,” Smith said.
Said Rosborough: “Through the entire thing I was
thinking, I’m so sorry.”
Bellows said she felt the message of the movie was one
of love.
“It was trying to show that we, as God’s creation,
are so valuable that he would do anything to bring us
back,” she said.
Rosborough said, “I think you almost have to know
that it was done for you personally to really understand
the movie.”
Brent Plate, a professor for TCU’s religion department,
has a special interest in religion and the visual arts
and teaches a class about myth and ritual in film during
fall semesters. He saw the film Thursday afternoon.
While the movie’s power comes from the story telling,
it will be curious to see the overall impact of the film,
he said.
“If all it does is raise the attendance of evangelical
churches for two months, it wouldn’t be effective,”
he said.
“The message is not about church attendance. That’s
not what Jesus was about. He was about a social and political
message,” Plate said.
Plate said the movie will be successful if it prompts
people to reconsider current social and political issues,
like capital punishment. |
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Special
to the Skiff
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| Mel
Gibson directed and financed the movie that has
everyone talking. |
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