A beautiful visual aesthetic experience

Watching Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is not like watching Indiana Jones where one is taken on a roller coaster ride of adventure. In The Passion..., Mel Gibson has created a cinematic atmosphere that engages the viewer in a very personal way. It can bring the viewer into the picture, make him a part of the experience so that he almost forgets the language spoken in the film is not his. Each scene has been artistically planned without neglecting historical precision of which the viewer of today’s world is not totally unaware. As the viewer witnesses how Jesus is battered blow after blow and the scenes become bloodier and insanely brutal, he or she can hardly think of this as a visual aesthetic experience. It was my artist-professor who pointed out to me that those scenes were actually beautiful! Hearing this, my mind quickly ran through the concepts of beauty and I wondered which concept of beauty explains Mel Gibson’s image of "the beautiful Jesus" in this film.

Throughout history, Jesus was depicted by artists in various ways on Romanesque mosaic walls, Gothic stained glasses, sculpture crucifixes, frescoes, and even mixed media. The image of a grotesque, gory, tortured Jesus is not new in the art world. In 1524, Jesus was shown by Grünewald in The Crucifixion, an altarpiece panel in oil, as a horribly wounded human figure, almost naked and twisted with tensed muscles. The artist excluded the background by making it very dark. Hence, it was a darkness that almost covered the two other figures: the sorrowful Mary Magdalene and St. John the Baptist. What was left visible were only their faces distorted by pain and hands clasped in hopelessness. A strong light bathes the exaggerated and disfigured body of Jesus and it allows us to see his sores and wounds. His face is so dark that it appears to merge with the background. All these make the painting uninviting to look at.

Grünewald, one of the greatest German painters of his age, painted such an image of Jesus at a time when Michelangelo had completed the biblical scenes at the Sistine chapel. It is interesting to note that while Michelangelo’s Christ in Judgment Day was depicted as a young man in his 20s, beardless, strong, healthy and victorious (typical characteristics of the Renaissance man), Grunewald’s Christ reflected a more medieval concept of beauty.

Philippine contemporary painter Ang Kiukok made a series of crucifixion scenes which he regards as "the best expression of suffering." His series of the crucified Jesus shows extreme anatomical distortions; the body heavily outlined in black, the lack of detail on the eyes, no volume and contour, no color that would suggest human flesh. Nevertheless, the series reflects the torture Jesus went through before he was crucified. Ang paints in a world where people are surrounded by post-modern influences and where body art, installation art, and mixed media or the "any-way-you-want-it" type of art flourish.

Indeed, Grünewald’s Crucifixion may be a grotesque representation of Jesus but it still stands as an altarpiece in Karlsruhe, Germany. Ang, on the other hand, is a national artist whose works are found in prestigious places locally. Both artists, although separated by time and space, chose to depict Jesus in a physically unattractive manner, a way that makes the viewer uncomfortable.

Gibson directs this film at a time when media is dominated by high tech effects, magic, glamour, and mystery. He does not mind the discomfort the portrayal of Jesus’ suffering has on the viewers. He has chosen a powerful medium to depict his image of Jesus: film. This image was created through a series of scenes, each treated with great care and artistic detail. The lighting was technically controlled, since only the main figure was bathed in light. This technique is characteristic of Caravaggio’s paintings.

Michelangelo Merisi, more popularly known as Caravaggio, painted between 1593 to 1610. He introduced to the world of art the technique of dramatic, selective illumination of form out of deep shadow which became a hallmark of Baroque painting. This painting technique called tenebrism, when employed in cinema, engages the eye of the viewer and directs it only where the director intends the focus to be. The darkness surrounding the main focal point increases the dramatic effect and heightens the emotive participation of the viewer. Consequently, the focus of the viewer becomes himself, as he unites himself with Jesus, through each scene, each uttered line, in a language unfamiliar to him. Such is the power of Baroque lighting when applied to moving pictures.

What beauty can there be in a tortured, suffering, bloody, helpless Jesus? How can anyone appreciate the beauty of a mutilated, deformed and disfigured body? Gibson’s image of Jesus is a symbol that needs decoding to be appreciated. Scenes are not simple filmstrips running across the screen showing who were there and what happened next. Rather, these are "soul-pictures" implying that "the soul is everything, the body nothing." This is the medieval concept of beauty. A hasty sketch may not have proportion, naturalism nor bright colors that can easily appeal to the viewer’s eye. Yet, it carries a lot of significant meanings enough to make him or her regard it as a beautiful visual aesthetic experience.

In The Passion of the Christ, the viewer’s knowledge of Jesus and his role in salvific history, as well as the circumstances that surround his life are all essential. To see the beauty of the film, it is important to understand Jesus’ relationship with his mother, the human weaknesses of the apostles, the devil’s agenda, the events and incidents superimposed during the torture scenes, and more importantly, the promise of resurrection.

Anyone who knows the significance of Jesus, the symbol of God’s love for man whose presence on earth was a mission, has a better chance of seeing "the beautiful" in this film. He or she can sit there for more than two hours and bravely stare at the bloody scenes because of their significance to the mission. Gibson’s depiction of the gory things Jesus had to go through allows us a better understanding and a deeper appreciation of the promise of resurrection. The symbolism it carries that makes the movie a beautiful visual aesthetic experience.