It was "Moral Courage" itself. The violence was not just explicit and shocking. It was unceccessary for One to get the point.

Now to influence others by jerking them into "THE WORLD" instead "NOT OF IT". The lessons of Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, Gandhi is SELF CHANGE not MASS CHANGE.

Group participation or MASS change ambition, with or without Kumbyha, is not the answer or solution. It is self right action which is totaly without VIOLENCE

Also, perhaps it's slightly obstinate, or just me not fully absorbing your point, but I still disagree, and think you're perhaps overlooking certain scenes in favor of the torture. For me, in fact, it's when Jesus is not on film that I find the movie really shines. The tenderness between Jesus and his mother are hugely important for me in the movie, partly because as a Muslim-raised person it's always been impressed on me that Jesus was a human prophet, and therefore the normal activity between mother and son goes a long way to emphasizing that. The guilt that Judas feels at betraying his rabbi is also something important to me, since I always felt it was unfair the way Judas was portrayed generally as an unfeeling, money-seeking traitor. I was one of the few that were somewhat excited about the Gospel of Judas, although not authenticated, and which said that Judas was a necessary part of Jesus' plan to die for the sins of the world, and therefore a hero.

The amount of politicking that went into Jesus' final moments were interesting to see. One has to wonder how much of it was personal bias, favoring the Romans over the Hebrews and the other tribes under King Herod, but the fact that it wasn't a quick pack off to the crucifixion was well represented I think, as were the possible political fallout of executing a religious leader in old Judea. The interactions of the apostles, the family and the onlookers is worth a look, too, with Claudia's premonition and wordless support to Mary and Mary Magdalene, as was Peter's guilt at denouncing his master (three times, yada yada yada).

In any case, Jesus' suffering was the main act, but I feel there was enough there peripherally to keep it from becoming solely a Passion pity party.

Thanks for posting! Though we're getting a bit off topic, I know this will be a fun "reply" to "reply" to. Here I go.

This is why I found The Passion horribly trite and an insult to artists everywhere:

There was only one motive for every single aspect of the film. The angles/flashbacks/cutaways/ and main action sequences you speak of were solely meant to portray christ suffering as much as humanly possible. In an effort to bring this to the level of shock realism, they HAD to compromise the artistic process. In other words, everything, all shots and edits, were transparent and obvious. And therefore, the movie was actually incredibly easy for everyone, because no one had to be creative, they just had to get one point across in the most direct way possible. Not once did an editor or a DoP have to ask themselves, "what am I trying to get across here?" because they were told right from the start that the sordidness of Christ's suffering through blatancy and concreteness was their only objective. And since the make-up artists and costume and lighting designers all had this same job, the film wound up being laughably explicit. Seeing the decision making process shine through its result always trivializes a film. Yes the production value was good in the sense that the budget was huge, so all the "best" people worked on the film. But because everything was "detailed and very well planned out" as you mention, does that really make it "magnificent"?

Nutshell? Every aspect of the film was straight-forward, glaring, recognizable, self-evident, unconcealed, and visible. This is the definition of sensationalism- when there is an agenda to impress upon the viewer one singular feeling or point of view. Some other terms that apply that I'm sure you're familiar with are "shock value" and "exploitation film." It was juicy though, I'll give you that, and the emotions you felt are real and legitimate, so I hope you don't think I am trivializing them. I am saying, however, that those emotions were instilled in you not through depth or subtly, which to me, are the two most precious elements of art. When the message and agenda are so obvious, it leaves nothing to the imagination and nothing up for interpretation. And how can there be an artistic process with no blanks for the viewer to fill in?

To me this is really not as much an issue of the various understandings of the word pornography as it is an issue of why people have insisted on putting that label on this particular movie. It appears to me that the public is generally uncomfortable accepting that such horrendous things happen to women on a daily basis, much less actually viewing the abuses themselves. So instead of critics exploring this dynamic, they paint negative pictures of the film to discourage people from seeing it. Regardless of your own understanding of what "pornography" implies, the term is being used to discourage people from seeing the movie with a sexual implication of some sort.

I feel that this is precisely due to the abuse happening to a woman rather than a man, which is why I use the example of The Passion, which was shockingly well received.

As I point out in my post, Soraya's gender led to her violent death and her gender now leads to the true story of her death being kept hidden.

Neil my writing about our conversation was very much more about my experience than it was about you. I have often written about personal conversations on this blog and other places to demonstrate the reality of the issues and dilemmas we explore online. I appreciate you joining the conversation so much

It is torture however, and is supposed to show how barbaric the practice of stoning is and if some actually ENJOY that and are so ignorant to interpret it as meant to gratify their twisted fetish, its their problem and not the film's.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think to say "some see it as torture porn" (as a reference to a review that states as much) in the context of a debate on the films merits, is to say that you at least do not disagree with the statement and its implications.

See the film for yourself, define "torture porn" for yourself, then smash the two together and see if they stick.

Also, anyone, when is the movie coming to the Middle East? I'm in a cultural desert here, it seems :p You'd think the Lebanese would've shown it by now. Guess not.

The writing is something I disagree with a lot of people on: Basically, it's the New Testament synthesized in terms of premise, so if that is your complaint, then you're talking to the wrong people. If you mean the pacing of the movie, the chosen scenes, or the dialogue, I disagree again, and strongly so, since I felt it moved very well, was varied enough between flashbacks, cutaways, and main action sequences to maintain interest, and minimalist enough on the dialogue to make it very real rather than theatrical.

I wonder if the complaint against the directing has to do with the director of the piece, who is a bit of an ass. Disregarding that, however, and honestly it was very well filmed, in terms of angles or chosen edits and scenes.

As always, we're entitled to our opinions, but mine is strongly opposed to yours in this regard.

I was a bit surprised to find our conversation at a cocktail party related on a public blog; however, leaving that aside, as I think I made clear in our conversation, I was quoting what I recalled from the NYT review. I have not seen the film and never suggested that I had. Looking back, as the link above shows, my memory was correct. If you have a problem with this characterization of the movie take it up with A.O. Scott…
I thought our discussion, as it developed, was more about the depiction of violence as a way of building public opposition to particular practices. I have mixed feelings about this. Violence is certainly shocking, but it also provokes prurient fascination.
Our discussion was short so we did not have time to explore these issues but I hope you would agree that they are not as easily disposed of as you seem to suggest.