Faith, hope, and love in Easter

The Swedish actor Max von Sydow played Jesus in the 1965 film The Greatest Story Ever Told. He was unknown in US movies at that time — though he was the famous director Ingmar Bergman’s golden boy in many controversial films that were the fare of the avant garde Europeans then, like Virgin Spring (1960), a rape story, and Through a Glass Darkly (1961), a story of incest. The latter Bergman movie, and many of his others, takes off from 1 Corinthians 13, 12 in the Bible:
“12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Risqué themes abounded in film, theater and art in the mid-1960s, perhaps reflecting the dark overload of controversies and events that threatened mores and ethics: “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads civil rights march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery; The Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote becomes law; Operation Rolling Thunder Launched In Vietnam; St. Louis, Gateway Arch is completed; Race riots break out in California; and — the mini skirt was launched (http://www.thepeoplehistory.com).” And as the apostle Paul admonished the sinful and depraved Corinthians in his epistles — the exuberance of change must be tempered by love — as in the love and peace of the “flower children” contra the Vietnam War.
Came then the Hollywood salvo of a star-studded Greatest Story Ever Told, with its meaning and message in the hard-sell endorsement-by-presence of many famous actors of the time: Charlton Heston as John the Baptist; José Ferrer as Herod Antipas; Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate; Martin Landau as Caiaphas; David McCallum as Judas Iscariot; Donald Pleasence as “The Dark Hermit” (a personification of Satan); and Sidney Poitier as Simon the Cyrene who helped carry Jesus’ cross. Smaller roles (some only a few seconds) were played by Carroll Baker, Pat Boone, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury, Sal Mineo, and Shelley Winters, among others. And of course John Wayne, the great American movie cowboy idol of all times had to be decked in the brass breastplate and helmet of the Roman centurion who comments on the Crucifixion, in his well-known Texan accent, saying only one line: “Truly this man was the Son of God (The Greatest Story Ever Told, Turner Classic Movies).”
The Greatest Story Ever Told was searched for in the Internet in lieu of the yearly revisiting of what has been the classic fare for the Holy Thursday/Good Friday Catholic/Christian meditation on the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ — Mel Gibson’s more controversial 2004 movie, The Passion of the Christ. No distracting game of “Spot the Star” and the road to Calvary a Hollywood Boulevard “Walk of Fame” here, as some Rotten Tomato critics might say. It graphically told the story of the last 12 hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life before he was crucified in Jerusalem, with dialogue in Aramaic, with English sub-titles. The actors were relatively not famous, except for then rising star James Caviezel, a devout Roman Catholic, who played Jesus. The Passion of the Christ is a deeply controversial film, attracting criticism for anti-Semitic themes, inaccurate history and extreme violence, a recent Newsweek review said (Jan. 31, 2018). Yet it was a smashing box-office success, raking in about $611.9 million worldwide, including about $370.8 million in the US, (on a $30-million budget) (Ibid.).
But the violence and anti-Semitism in The Passion of the Christ might have only reflected the violence and racism, and the divisiveness in 2004, when the film was released. Bomb attacks on four Madrid commuter trains killed 191 and injure hundreds more in March; Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin was killed in an Israeli air strike, triggering tens of thousands of protests; Four US civilian contractors were killed and mutilated by a mob in Falluja Iraq; Photos of US soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison were discovered and investigated. The US commission investigating the 11 September attacks published its report of 3000 killed. Militants loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr staged an uprising in the Iraqi city Najaf; over 300 people more than half of them children died as the Beslan school siege ended in violence. After three weeks of captivity British hostage Ken Bigley was beheaded by Islamic militants in Iraq. A full-scale US-led assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja began (http://news.bbc.co.uk).
Two films on the Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection versus the escalating violence in the world — art imitating life, or life imitating art? But the story of Christ is not art, but the ultimate Reality — meaning, Redemption and Resurrection. In the Christian faith, Easter is the triumph over the death of mind, body and soul (a lack of faith and hope). And it cannot be very different for other religions and beliefs that there should be respect for one another (a vital ingredient of the universal concept of “love”), where there is no physical, emotional or moral violation of the other.
Jim Caviezel, who was 33 years old when he played the dying Jesus at 33, said he has been shunned by Hollywood since taking the role (The Guardian, May 3, 2011). He said Gibson warned him that it would happen, but as both very devout, traditional Catholics, they were willing to make the sacrifice of prejudicing their careers for the sake of the message of God’s love for all. True enough, Caviezel has not had any significant roles since The Passion. But more than for the alleged anti-Semitic bias of Gibson (against the Jews) that supposedly stigmatized the film, perhaps it was difficult for producers/directors to disengage the stereotype of being the all-good, all-holy God-Man that enveloped Caviezel’s image that barred him from playing any inferior character.
Mel Gibson announced in 2016 that he will be completing a sequel to The Passion of the Christ in two years (2018), which will be titled, The Resurrection (USA Today, Jan. 30, 2018). Jim Caviezel will again be Jesus, and Maia Morgensten (a Jew by religion) will be Mary, mother of Jesus. Gibson is tight-lipped about the treatment and the technicalities, but foreseeably, there will be no violence, as the subject matter of the Resurrection is serene, mystical and cannot be physically violent.
But will the world soon repent all the continuously building violence and hate, and will nations reach out in peace to each other?
At his Easter vigil homily, Pope Francis exhorted: “Darkness and silence disorient and paralyze us. They plunge us into a crushing routine that robs memory, silences hope, and leads to thinking that ‘this is the way things have always been.’ Amid this overpowering silence it is the stones that cry out and proclaim a new way for all (vaticannews.com March 31, 2018).
“Do not be afraid… for He is risen.” Pope Francis said this should “affect our deepest convictions and certainties” and should challenge us and encourage us “to trust and believe that God ‘happens’ in every situation and in every person.” Christ is risen: “This is the message that sustains our hope and turns it into concrete gestures of love,” the Pope said (Ibid.).
 
Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.
ahcylagan@yahoo.com