“Hacksaw Ridge”
I’m given to understand that
Mel Gibson is a rather devout Roman Catholic, and, if I were to judge that
before this month from the only movie he has directed that I’d seen, I’d quite
believe it. Besides anything else a viewer may say about it – and millions of
viewers have had their say and much more – The
Passion of the Christ looks to me like a sincere article of the ardent
faith of a genuine believer. The finer details of that doctrine can’t really be
discerned from the film, and probably shouldn’t be surmised from Gibson’s regrettable personal statements and actions, but there is one thing we were all
made absolutely sure of by The Passion of
the Christ, in ways that would never let us forget it: In Gibson’s
worldview, human faith (of the kind he practices) and brutal violence are
indissolubly linked in the immense suffering that each causes mankind. For Gibson,
as necessary and rewarding as it is, faith brings tribulation and its force is
met with a proportional ferocity in the violence (physical or psychological) one inevitably encounters.
As repellently violent as The Passion of the Christ is, Gibson
managed to illustrate quite effectively the broader points of that worldview.
His narrative, rather than demonstrating anti-Semitic biases, paints all humans
(except his main character, of course) as inherently sinful, guilty, unworthy
of God’s favour, and deserving of harsh punishment for their sins, which brings
about a blazing contrast with the grace and mercy of Jesus, who undergoes just
the kind of horrific scenes of torment and agony that grip Gibson’s imagination
– and reinforce his ideas of man’s sinful nature – to deliver a remorseless
human race from an even more remorseless judgement. With this kind of narrative
underpinning the central doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, it isn’t
surprising that such tight bonds are drawn by so many Catholic artists between
the notions of faith, guilt, and suffering, nor that the personal expression of
Gibson’s religious convictions turned out as so off-putting to such large
numbers of viewers. His obvious sincerity, allegiance to doctrine, and
determination to cinematically represent those ideas explain its enormous
success among equally large numbers of viewers.