Diana Walsh-Pasulka
Assistant Professor Department
of Philosophy and Religion
University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Abstract
Much of the scholarship that examines the connections between
film and religion is based on the assumption that there is
a clear distinction between film reality and the reality of
everyday life. In other words, viewers suspend their
belief structures while enjoying a film about the supernatural,
but they always maintain a conscious separation between the
film and reality. This assumption is complicated when
considering the urban legends and stories surrounding films
like The Exorcist and The Passion of the Christ. The
discourse that surrounds these films, the urban legends, tales
and folklore, reveal a realism with respect to the supernatural
and religion that defies the assumption of the film's status
as fantasy. They literally bring the supernatural to
life. In this way, they blur the assumed boundary
between film reality and ordinary reality. In this sense
they function much like a religious icon as used in popular
devotional practices.
The Power of Popular Religious Movies
[1] The Passion of the Christ quickly rose to the top
of the list of the most financially successful movies of all
time, sharing the honour with other notable films such as The
Sixth Sense and The Exorcist. A cursory review
of this list reveals that if financial success is any indication
of widespread popularity, then the viewing public is fascinated
with movies involving supernatural and religious themes. Although
the popular representation of religion is widely addressed
by scholars, one aspect of this phenomenon has been paid relatively
little attention–the urban legends surrounding these
popular movies. An examination of these legends, stories
and folktales reveals a dimension of these films that is a
potent social force–the belief that the sacred or supernatural
is at work in the lives of those whom produce, star in, and
view the movies. The belief in the realism of the religious
aspects of thematically religious films is well illustrated
by a few popular examples. The Exorcist is widely regarded
as the scariest movie of all time. The film became infamous
due to the trauma and visceral reactions produced in its audience,
and it was associated with a curse that supposedly caused several
deaths. The fact that the movie was based on a "real" life
case of demon possession added to the realism of the movie's
effects. More currently, a similar discourse of realism
is attributed to The Passion of the Christ. Lead
actor James Caviezel (Jesus) was hit by lightning during the
making of the film. Mel Gibson (writer and produce of The
Passion of the Christ), in an interview on national radio,
reflected on the metaphysical implications of the lightening
incident: “you can’t deny it–how many times
does lightening strike people anyway, and on the same movie
set?”1 The dominant
interpretation given to these real events (the “real” story
of The Exorcist and its curse, the fact that Caviezel
was hit by lightening) is that the supernatural is at work
in the production and release of these films. This interpretation
is even supported by the film writers/directors. William
Blatty (writer and producer of The Exorcist) acknowledges
that The Exorcist is a fictional narrative modeled on
non-fictional accounts of exorcisms, and hopes that his movie
will cause people to consider the real existence of
the devil.
[2] This essay examines how thematically religious movies produce
beliefs regarding the supernatural, as illustrated in the popular
legends and tales surrounding them. If, as other scholars
have argued, certain films perform a religious function in
our society, then this aspect of film, its ability to reveal
the supernatural in ordinary existence, is an important phenomenon
that has yet to be explored. These stories and legends reveal
that audiences believe that these films instigate real effects,
from miraculous cures to curses that kill. In this sense,
these movies function like religious icons, representations
that, for believers, literally bring the sacred to life.
[3] Several recent books address how film functions as religion.2 In Film
as Religion: Myths, Morals and Rituals, John C. Lyden
argues that “film viewing, like religion, affords
a link between the alternate world it imagines and the empirical
world of everyday life " (53). Lyden argues that
films function like religion in forming the dominate values
of American society by imparting collective myths and molding
beliefs about what is held to be of ultimate value. Conrad
Ostwalt, in his work on secularization, religion and popular
culture in the United States, furthers this line of argument
by complicating the secular/religious dichotomy and focusing
on the forms religion takes in popular culture. He
argues that popular manifestations of religion, such as
religious entertainment and films, may gradually supplant
the authority of conventional religious traditions and the
normative frameworks of religious institutions. He
states "even if religious institutions lose authority,
the power of religion does not diminish in scope–the
location of that power might, however, shift in focus " (5). Lyden
states that the film viewer is always able to demarcate
the film version of reality from the empirical world– “film
viewers are well aware of the unreality of cinema" (52). This
essay argues the opposite; that the iconic aspects of religious
film blur the boundary between film reality and conventional
reality. Postmodern theorists have suggested that
in contemporary society representation is reality, and Jean
Baudrillard states that Americans have a hard time distinguishing
simulation from the real. No where is this more evident
than in the popular reception of religious films. It
is precisely the tales, legends and lore of religious films
that reveal a significant aspect of their force and appeal,
and in part is what accounts for the shift from the institutional
forms of sacred observance to one dictated by the entertainment
industry. Religious films function like icons; they
are representations that embody the sacred and otherworldly,
and thus blur the boundaries between film reality and the
reality of everyday life.
The Icon and the Religious Film
[4] For Orthodox Christians and many Catholic practitioners,
the religious icon is a representation that possesses numinous
qualities. In the early Christian church, the veneration
of images of Jesus and saints was a controversy that erupted
in war on many occasions, most famously in the seventh century. Strictly
prohibited in Judaism and Islam, icons or representations of
God were highly regulated by the early and medieval Christian
Church. The controversy stemmed from fears of Church
authorities that the popular veneration of images of Jesus
and his mother Mary would lead to idol worship. Theological
debates regarding iconophilia dominated the ecumenical councils
of this era, and early in the eighth century Leo III declared
the veneration of icons a heresy. Two women, Empress
Irene and later, Empress Theodora, restored the veneration
of icons.3 At the Seventh
Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 787, the official dogma of the
veneration of icons was promulgated, “For honour paid
to an image passes on to its prototype; he who worships (ho
proskynon) an image worships the reality of him who is
painted in it."4 This
is still official dogma in the Eastern and Roman Rite churches. The
popular veneration of images, however, many times appeared
to defy official constraints. From the sixth century
onward, images were credited with the performance of miracles
and they were often the objects of direct worship. Images
wept blood, tears, they spoke and generally intervened in the
lives of believers. The icon, in popular devotional practices,
possesses powers not attributed to other material objects. Quite
often an icon is the subject of a long tradition of miraculous
discourse. One example of this is the icon of St. Irene
housed in the Greek Orthodox Church St. Irene in New York.
[5] Painted by a monk from Greece in 1919, the icon of Saint
Irene, property of the Cathedral of Saint Irene in Queens,
New York, has been the object of devotions and miracles for
the past century. Credited with interventions as diverse
as easing the pains of childbirth to curing gangrene, the icon
is the subject of a thriving discourse including hundreds of
thank you cards and letters, many of which are published by
the periodical “The Voice of Orthodoxy.” Once
the icon was loaned out to a church in Chicago, and it reportedly
wept tears. Subsequently its fame and influence spread
further. There is a website devoted to miracles believers
attribute to the icon’s miraculous intervention. Shockingly,
on December 23, 1991, three armed robbers abducted the icon,
forced priests and parishioners to lie on the altar, and escaped. This
prompted an outpouring of public grief. The icon was
worth a lot of money, but to its devotees, its true worth was
priceless. “We don't care for the gold, we don't care
for the diamonds,” said Bishop Vikentios of Avalon, the
head of the St. Irene of Chrysovalantou Greek Orthodox Church. "We
only want the icon back” (A1).5 The
icon was returned, but without the jewels and precious stones
that adorned it previously. Orthodox theology clarifies
that icons are not objects of devotion, but should be considered
to be portals through which the divine can be contemplated. Popular
practices suggest otherwise. The icon of St. Irene seems
more than a gateway or portal to the divine; she seems divine
in and of herself. She is kissed, made the recipient
of mail and cards, adored, grieved for when stolen, and referenced
as an important member of many families. She is an example
of a representation with numinous qualities, and one that has
acquired a unique history and miraculous tradition.
[6] A similar phenomenon surrounds certain religious films,
and it is in a specific sense that they function like the icon
of Saint Irene. Like the icon, these films are numinous
representations that bring the supernatural to the lives of
ordinary people, and as with the icon, a miraculous discourse
emerges from the films. Unlike the religious icon, which brings
the sacred, not the demonic, to life, religious films often
bring maleficent forces to ordinary reality, according to believers. They
are not uniformly benign. Yet, like icons their miraculous
properties sustain communities of believers. The most
current example illustrating this point is the discourse and “buzz” surrounding
Mel Gibson’s ThePassion of the Christ. Just
prior to the movie’s release as a DVD, a television documentary
was aired that featured miracles associated with the movie. A
baby was brought back from death; a murderer confessed and
turned himself into the authorities, etc. Leaving aside
for the moment the question of promotional intentions, the
program attests to a miraculous discourse surrounding the movie
that speaks to a public belief in its numinous and sacred qualities. In
this way the movie functions like an icon for believers, and
a powerful one at that. The devotion to the icon of Saint
Irene and other specific icons is eclipsed by the sheer volume
of devotees inspired by Gibson’s film.
[7] Several recent critical anthologies of The Passion of
the Christ deal with audience reception and its Catholic
elements such as emphasis on imagery, yet none has attended
to the miraculous discourse found in the urban legends and
lore about the film.6 David
Morgan argues in his essay “Catholic Visual Piety
and The Passion of the Christ” that Mel Gibson returns
to a premodern iconography and that the movie is a visual
representation of Christ’s life. From this perspective,
Morgan argues, the film is meant to inspire reflection. This
places the film within the category of a religious icon
from a traditional theological perspective, but ignores
how icons are often used, and in particular how they effect
real world action, in particular–miracles. When
examining how the film is represented by the lore and legends
found in newspapers, blogs, DVDs and other popular discourse,
it becomes apparent that it functions much like the icon
of Saint Irene, that is, as an object of popular devotion
credited with miracles and sacred powers. Another
scholar who has examined the Passion from an iconic
framework is Robert K. Johnston.7 Like
Morgan, Johnston focuses on how the film is intended as
a devotional representation that evokes in the viewer ideas
of transcendence. What each analysis misses, however,
is the aspect of audience reception that accounts for the
belief in the miraculous power associated with the film. It
is this aspect of icons that is part of what makes them
popular, how they bring the supernatural to the natural,
real world. Beyond evoking ideas of transcendence
in believers, they literally bring the otherworldly to the
this-worldly, through miracles and other direct interventions,
sometimes not so beatific. This type of discourse
is specific to other movies as well. The Exorcist,
for example, reveals aspects of the numinous that are not
so sacred or benign.
The Curse of The Exorcist and
other Supernatural Discourse
[8] The film The Exorcist is routinely acknowledged
to be on of the scariest movies of all time. Its public
reception in 1973 is legendary as audiences suffered traumatic
reactions to the spectacle of a fourteen-year old girl possessed
by the devil. The impact of the film, however, exceeded
its two-hour duration. At the time of its release, newspapers
documented that viewers were so disturbed by the movie they
sought professional care due to its damaging psychological
effects. The film instigated a societal reflection upon
the nature of supernatural evil. The Exorcist was
the first horror movie to be taken seriously by the film industry,
and it won two Academy Awards as well as receiving nine nominations.
[9] The members of the Academy were not the only ones who took
the film seriously. The reasons for its success are hotly
debated, but a consensus is unanimous with regard to one thing–the
movie is scary because it tapped into the public’s latent
belief in the supernatural as exemplified by a Catholic version
of Satan. Audiences and the media took the film beyond
its role as entertainment as stories and anecdotes circulated
that attest to the film’s otherworldly power. First
and foremost of these was the “curse of The Exorcist,” which
involved a series of tragedies related to the making of the
movie. Several events contributed to the construction
of the “curse.” The film set burned down
for no apparent reason. Jack MacGowan, who played Burke
Dennings–a character who is killed by the demon in the
movie, died just after he ended filming his scenes. Other
deaths and tragedies were attributed to the movie’s production,
in addition to strange phenomena that writer William Blatty
and director William Friedkin each confirm. Asked whether
or not there was any truth to the “weird happenings on
the set,” Friedkin replied “There were a great
many unusual occurrences that I experienced during the making
of this film that I had never experienced before, and hope
to never experience again.”8 Actress
Ellen Burstyn, who played Regan’s mother, stated that
the film "deals with very heavy forces–I was a little
worried about what that would mean."9
[10] These testimonials and tales reveal a subtext of the movie
that is significant in two respects. First, this otherworldly
discourse undeniably contributes to the film’s impact
and success. With the film’s first release, audiences
were drawn less by the content of the movie than for its reputed
effects on its viewers. These real effects were attributable
to the fear of satanic evil as much as evil’s capacity
to destroy a family. This point is supported by the Catholic
Church’s official statement condoning the movie as “realistic,” as
well as statements by Friedkin and Blatty saying that the movie
is based on a true account of demonic possession. Asked
whether or not he believed in demons, and consequently demonic
possession, Friedkin replied “Along with the Catholic
Church, I'm convinced that this case was authentic.”10 The “authenticity” of
the movie coupled with its horrifying content spelled unparalleled
success for Blatty and Friedkin. On the one hand, the
movie was successful because it told a good story, albeit strange–that
of a single mother trying to raise her daughter and confronting
something unheard of in secular society–the devil. On
the other hand, the film’s striking success is attributable
to the extra-film discourse that helped to blur the boundaries
between fiction and non-fiction. The Exorcist was
more than a film. It was an event that seemed to bring
to life supernatural evil.
[11] The urban legends surrounding the movie contributed greatly
to The Exorcist's success. Though likely unintentional,
the realism associated with a religiously focused movie proved
to be a potent marketing strategy. This is well illustrated
years later by the writer-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo
Sanchez, who created the popular movie The Blair Witch Project (1999). Aware
of the tradition of this type of discourse or not, these directors
consciously set out to create a “buzz” that functioned
in the same way as the intertextual supernatural discourse
of The Exorcist. Whereas for the former movie
the buzz was genuine–in other words not fabricated
by the directors–the discourse created before the release
of The Blair Witch Project was the result of brilliant
premeditation.
[12] Prior to the release of the movie, the directors
generated an urban legend with the help of their extended peer
base, the internet, and other media such as the radio. Their
fabricated urban legend told the story of a group of college
students who decide to document a real legend in the woods
of Maryland. During their filming, they encounter the
actual witch of the legend, and they all disappear, presumably
meeting their deaths at the witch’s hand. The only
thing left of their trip is the recovered footage of their
documentary, which constitutes the movie.
[13] The promotional sound bite is as follows: "On October
21, 1994, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams
hiked into the Black Hills Forest to shoot a documentary film
on a local legend called 'The Blair Witch,' and were never
seen again. One year later, their footage was found."11 In
addition to claiming that the movie was the actual footage
found by the missing college students, the directors establish
verisimilitude by having the actors actually play themselves,
thus creating as much as possible a convergence of reality
and fantasy. The generated urban legend as promo
is unique in movie-making, and Myrick and Sanchez’s concept
was a raging success. The Blair Witch Project is
an independent low budget film that reaped big returns–it
was a box office hit. Significantly, it did not advertise
on television or as trailers to other movies–its success
was purely by word of mouth and the internet. In other
words, the writer-directors were able to market the movie by
manufacturing and exploiting the urban legends regarding the
supernatural prior to the release of the movie. This
discourse was as important to the meaning of the movie as the
movie itself.
[14] The Blair Witch Project marketing ploy proved that
the supernatural discourse around a movie generates publicity
and thus money, yet it also illustrates a significant aspect
about movies dealing with the supernatural. Sanchez and
Myrick intentionally tapped the American audience’s curiosity
and belief, or perhaps desire, to witness the supernatural,
real-world effects associated with a film event. This
is evidenced by the actions Sanchez and Myrick took to preserve
the secret of the legend they created. In these actions
they acknowledged that the draw of the movie was its possible
realism–that it could have actually happened. In
an interview regarding the unique marketing of the movie, Sanchez
speaks directly to their intention to traverse the boundaries
of fantasy and reality: “We didn't want to tell people
that it was real, but we didn't want to tell people it was
fake, either. We wanted to walk that line, you know?”12 Myrick
concurs, “I think it's cool that people may make assumptions
about whether or not it's real, but there's still a question
in their mind whether it is.”13 Regardless
of whether they intended in the end to have people believe
in the actual reality of the Blair witch, they did design “the
film to be, from beginning to end, a completely real experience.”14
[15] The belief in the realism of the supernatural aspects
of religious films is best illustrated by the contemporary
discourse surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of
the Christ. Like The Exorcist, The Passion
of the Christ is based on an historical event. Similar
to The Blair Witch Project, Gibson promoted the movie
in a unique way. Instead of exposing the movie to a mass
audience via television, he staged national showings of the
movie to selected audiences, mostly composed of religious figures
and scholars. After this initial tour, he allowed the
movie to be shown to whole churches prior to its public release
on the Catholic holiday Ash Wednesday. The overall effect
of this type of promotion was that it caused people to view
the movie as a version of history that was being re-enacted. Because
the story of Jesus’ crucifixion is sacred history to
many people, the comments of religious studies scholars contributed
to the audience perception that the movie was the confirmation
of a real event. This occurred regardless of the fact
that most religious scholars who did see the film were disappointed
by Gibson’s lack of historical accuracy.15 Gibson
acknowledged divine intervention both as an inspiration in
making the film and as real occurrences on the production set. Tales
of conversions, weeping and sobbing audiences, lightning strikes
on the set and even the intervention of the devil all converge
to form perhaps the most realistic supernatural movie yet.
[16] The movie’s most direct link to the supernatural
is the script, which Gibson implies is divinely inspired. “There
is an interesting power in the script," he claims, "a
lot of unusual things have been happening–good things,
like people being healed of diseases. A guy who was struck
by lightning while we were filming the crucifixion scene just
got up and walked away."16 Gibson
regrets that he admitted, early on, that he believed that the
holy spirit was guiding him to make the film, “while
it's true, it's also one of those things that can easily be
used to belittle what I was going through and what led me here.”17 The
belief in the spiritual efficacy of the script affected the
whole production crew. The actor who plays the disciple
Peter (Francesco De Vito) also acknowledged that he and others
were affected by the palpable presence of the holy spirit on
the set: "I talk with Judas [Luca Lionello] and with John
[Hristo Jivkov] about this movie and about faith on the set,
and there is something going on with many of us. We've become
very focused–it has changed us."18 Even
actor Jim Caviezel feels that his fate to play Jesus is divinely
ordained: "Do you realize I'm 33 years old, the same age
Jesus was when he went through all of this?", he exclaimed
to Gibson when the two discussed the possibility that he would
play the lead role. "I'm interested in letting God work
through me to play this role. I believe the Holy Spirit has
been leading me in the right direction and to get away from
my own physical flesh and allow the character of Jesus to be
played out the way God wants it–that's all I can do."19
[17] For the production crew, as well as the writers, there
is no clear dividing line between the world of everyday life
and the reality of the film. In the case of Gibson’s
movie, the power of the script supernaturally touches the production
crew. They have not suspended their belief structure
for a time, as film viewers and even actors are often thought
to do, in order to gain an experience while then returning
to the safety of normal life. The discourse surrounding
this film reveals that it has very real world effects, from
curing illnesses to striking people with lightning–even
the devil makes an appearance in an attempt to thwart the movie
from being made. In one of the more bizarre stories associated
with The Passion, composer John Debney admits to battling
Satan in an effort to score the music for the film: “The
first time it happened, it scared me. I had never before subscribed
to the idea that maybe Satan is a real person, but I can attest
that he was in my room a lot and I know that he hit everyone
on this production.”20 This
discourse makes clear that the movie creates the conditions
for the real appearance of the supernatural (according
to those who believe it). It is not the case that the
audience (and production crew) is willing to suspend normal
judgment for a time and then return to an ordinary belief structure. They
believe that the movie has brought the sacred and the supernatural
to their lives.
[18] This belief structure is not limited to the production
crew, who could arguably be manufacturing such stories for
promotional purposes (much like the writer-directors of The
Blair Witch Project). While much of the intense audience
reception is attributed to the violence of the crucifixion,
the proliferation of stories that attest to the power and the
impact of the movie reveals that audiences are responding to
something more than the violence. After viewing the movie,
a Texas man who murdered his girlfriend offered his confession
to police. In Georgia, a movie theatre randomly assigned
the numbers “666” to the tickets for the film,
and moviegoers refused to take them. “666” is
the mark of the beast in the New Testament book of Revelation. Like
the relic that Mel Gibson carries from eighteenth century nun
Ann Catherine Emmerlich, the movie is associated with sacred
power.21 It works
much like a Catholic sacramental or icon–it is thought
to be empirically efficacious. The film functions like
a literal icon of sacred power, one that blurs the boundaries
between the sacred and the ordinary world, and brings the supernatural
to life.
A Shift in Religious Authority
[19] Religiously themed films often form communities
of believers from diverse religious backgrounds. Even
though Mel Gibson is a traditionalist Catholic and the Catholic
elements of his film are obvious to most Catholics, the movie
is popular with Christian denominations worldwide. What
can explain this mass appeal? Conrad Ostwalt argues that
generally, the appeal of religious popular culture is a postmodern
development. He argues that idea that secularization
will replace religious devotion, a thesis popular among many
scholars of religion as well as sociologists, is wrong when
examined in light of popular culture. The thesis states
that processes of secularization will eventually weaken religious
belief, which will then be replaced by principles of rationalism. He
argues that what has demonstrably happened is that traditional
religious institutions have lost authority to secular and civil
institutions. However, religious belief has not declined,
but religious authority has shifted from its traditional frameworks
to those of secular culture, like film, music and television. The
supernatural discourse surrounding religiously thematic films
is an important aspect of this development. Some of the
more convincing explanations for the overwhelming audience
response to The Passion of the Christ include arguments
that it is the medium of film that enables the movie to form
and unify communities of believers.22 They
argue that “media experiences that are religious are
thus transethnic, transdenominational, and transsociocultural
in nature, offering potential ‘oneness’ or unity
otherwise absent from many nonvirtual Christian environs” (165).
This is no doubt part of the explanation for why religious
and supernatural films are so successful in unifying communities
of believers. However, scholars must also attend to the
content of the beliefs regarding these films, instead of how
the films function to inspire zealous public response. What
are audiences saying about these movies? They are saying
that these movies bring the supernatural–sometimes sacred,
sometimes maleficent, into their ordinary, everyday lives. This
essay has illustrated this belief by examining the popular
legends and lore surrounding popular films that deal with religion
and the supernatural.
Notes
1 Sean Hannity interview
with Mel Gibson, March 16, 2004, http://www.hannity.com/story.php?content=/audio_archive#political
2 There are various ways
of understanding the connections between film and religion,
including looking at religious elements in films, how films
critique religion, etc. I am focusing on the literature
that addresses how films function like religion, i.e., how
they inculcate values, provide collective myths, etc. The following
recent analyses deal with this aspect of religion and film:
John Lyden, Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, Rituals (New
York: New York University Press, 2003); Contrad Ostwalt, Secular
Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination,
(Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003); Joel W.
Martin and Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr., eds., Screening the Sacred:
Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film (Boulder:
Westview Press, 1995); Stewart M. Hoover and Shalini S. Venturelli,
'The Category of the Religious: The Blindspot of Contemporary
Media Theory?', in Critical Studies in Mass Communication 13
(September 1996).
3 It was Empress Irene
who convened the council that would be the last shared by the
Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and she is primarily credited
with establishing the veneration of Images. See Judith Herrin’s Women
in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 2004).
4 Mansi, XIII, pp. 378-9;
Harduin, IV.
5 Donatella Lorch, “Queens
Church Robbed of Weeping Icon,” New York Times (December
24, 1991).
6 These include the following:
J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum, eds., After the
Passion is Gone: American Religious Consequences (New York:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); S. Brent Plate, ed., Re-viewing
the Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and Its Critics (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Multiple on-line journal discussions
involve the movie as well, including the a Special Issue of Journal
of Film and Religion dedicated to the film (8,1 [February
2004]).
7 Robert K. Johnston, “The
Passion as Dynamic Icon: A Theological Reflection,” in Re-viewing
the Passion, 55-70.
8 Friedkin interview, USA
Today, October 11, 2003: http://www.usatoday.com/community/chat/1011friedkin.htm
9 BBC News, June 15th,
1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/111367.stm
10 Friedkin interview, USA
Today.
11 Official web
site, The Blair Witch Project, http://www.blairwitch.com/.
12 The A.V. Club interview,
July 1999, http://www.theavclub.com/avclub3525/avfeature3525.html.
13 The A.V. Club interview,
July 1999.
14 The A.V. Club interview,
July 1999.
15 See the special issue
of the Journal of Film and Religion dedicated to "The
Passion of the Christ" (see n. 6 above).
16 Holly McClure, “A
Very Violent Passion,” The Frontpage Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/54288p-50909c.html
17 Lawson, Terry, “Divine
Inspiration: Mel Gibson and other Movie Producers say Film
was Guided by Faith,” February 17, 2004, http://www.freep.com/news/religion/mel17_20040217.htm
18 Lawson, http://www.freep.com/news/religion/mel17_20040217.htm
McClure, http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/54288p-50909c.html
20 Jeanette Walls, “Symphony
for the Devil,” March 3, 2004, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4375708/
21 Mel Gibson attributes
much of his vision for the movie to the texts written by eighteenth
century visionary Ann Catherine Emmerlich, and he carries her
relic.
22 Robert H. Woods, Michael
C. Jindra and Jason D. Baker, “The Audience responds
to The Passion of the Christ,” in Re-viewing
the Passion, 163-79.
