Flashback: The Passion of the Christ turns 20
A look back at over two decades of my writing about this controversial film – plus some other Bible films that have major anniversaries coming up this year.
In early 2009—or maybe even late 2008—an editor asked me to write a story. It was going to be about the fifth anniversary of The Passion of the Christ.
The film had been hugely successful, but also hugely controversial, when it first came out in 2004. I had written many articles about the film before, during, and after its release, and I hadn’t just reviewed the film as a critic or analyzed the controversies as an op-ed writer; I had also written some news stories that allowed me to interview some of the people who were promoting the film.
My editor wanted me to go back and talk to some of these people and see what sort of long-lasting impact the film had had on their ministries. So I made a few calls. And I learned very quickly that most of these people had moved on from The Passion and weren’t really thinking about it any more.
I can’t recall if any of them gave a reason for their lack of interest in the subject of my would-be story. By that point, the film’s co-writer and director, Mel Gibson, had become a genuinely scandalous figure thanks to a drunk-driving incident in 2006, so it’s possible they just didn’t want to be associated with him any more.
But it’s also possible that they had genuinely lost interest in The Passion of the Christ once its moment of fame (and infamy) had passed. For ministries that are always looking for ways to turn whatever’s hot and trendy into an evangelism tool, even The Passion may have been another flavour-of-the-month that had come and gone.
Whatever the reason, I had to tell my editor there was no story there.
I found myself thinking about that recently while working on my coverage of The Chosen. The hit life-of-Jesus series is now almost five years old itself, and it’s as popular with the fans and the parachurch ministries as ever. Interest in The Passion may have dissipated after just a few years, but The Chosen has found a way to keep it surging.
And then it occurred to me that The Passion of the Christ was going to have another big anniversary soon: its 20th! That’s right, the film came out two whole decades ago, on February 25, 2004—and its 20th birthday is this Sunday.
So, to mark the occasion, I am posting a round-up of links to some of the articles and blog posts that I’ve written about The Passion over the past 20-odd years.
I posted a similar round-up ten years ago for the film’s tenth anniversary, and a lot of what you see below is taken from that round-up. However, there has been more to write about since then—not least because Mel Gibson and lead actor Jim Caviezel have started talking about a sequel—so I figured an update was needed.
And thus, without further ado, here is that updated round-up:
First, the articles I wrote about the film before it came out:
‘Comment: Mel Gibson’s Jesus movie sparks controversy,’ BC Christian News, July 30 2003
‘Comment: Passion ‘softened’, and John comes to the screen,’ BC Christian News, August 28 2003
‘Mel Gibson still tweaking his death-of-Jesus movie,’ BC Christian News, January 1 2004
‘Mel Gibson’s Jesus film inspires impassioned discussion among pastors, ministry leaders,’ BC Christian News, January 22 2004
Then, my initial comments on the film itself, once I had seen it:
‘Comment: The Passion is more complex than critics, supporters may admit,’ BC Christian News, February 5 2004
‘Review: The Passion of the Christ (dir. Mel Gibson, 2004),’ Christianity Today, February 25 2004
‘Commentary: Evil, violence and The Passion of the Christ,’ CBC Radio, March 1 2004
Then, the immediate post-release coverage:
‘The Passion of the Christ — a box-office report,’ CanadianChristianity.com, March 3 2004
‘The Passion sets records, wins converts,’ BC Christian News, March 31 2004
I also wrote an essay on the film for a book called Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and Its Critics. Most of the other essays in the book approached the film from historical or theological angles, etc., but mine was supposed to look at the film from a cinematic point of view—and it didn’t take me long to figure out that one of the uniquely cinematic things about this film was its use of flashbacks and point-of-view shots, and that the film’s use of these techniques was actually quite significant from a theological point of view, too. (I was pleasantly surprised to discover, once I read the other essays, that a few of my fellow contributors had focused on how the film brings together the “objective” atonement theology of St. Anselm and the “subjective” atonement theology of Peter Abelard, which dovetailed perfectly with my take on the film’s use of “objective” and “subjective” cinematic devices.) By the time I was finished writing the essay, I had come to a whole new appreciation of the film:
‘Come and See: How Movies Encourage Us to Look at (and with) Jesus,’ Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and Its Critics, October 7 2004
And that was it… until a couple years later, when Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving and he let out a stream of offensive comments, mere months before finishing Apocalypto, a violent environmentalist chase movie set in pre-colonial Mexico (which, incidentally, ends on a note that is arguably critical of the Catholic church).
I wrote an op-ed about the arrest, and a review of the new film:
‘Comment: Rethinking The Passion in light of Gibson’s folly,’ BC Christian News, August 31 2006
‘Review: Apocalypto (dir. Mel Gibson, 2006),’ Christianity Today Movies, December 8 2006
And then, I wrote a review of The Passion’s “definitive edition” DVD:
‘Review: The Passion of the Christ: Definitive Edition (dir. Mel Gibson, 2004),’ Christianity Today Movies, January 30 2007
Things stayed pretty quiet for a while after that, though I did interview Jim Caviezel and The Passion of the Christ producer Steve McEveety when they collaborated on another film, The Stoning of Soraya M., in 2009:
‘A Passion for Women’s Rights,’ Christianity Today Movies, June 23 2009
And then, a decade or so after The Passion came out, the Bible-movie genre began to heat up again, thanks in part to the History Channel miniseries The Bible, which mimicked the look and feel of The Passion in its depiction of Jesus’ death.
And so, I made a few comments about The Passion and its legacy in an article on the Bible films of 2014 (Son of God, Noah, Exodus: Gods & Kings):
‘The Battle of the Bible Films,’ Christianity Today, April 21 2014
Shortly after that, Esquire ran a story looking at how things went sour for Mel Gibson’s co-writer Benedict Fitzgerald after The Passion came out; I had been tracking some of that news over the years, and I put it all together in a timeline here:
‘“Drug dealers, money launderers, and kidnappers”: Esquire looks at what happened to Benedict Fitzgerald and his proposed prequel to The Passion of the Christ,’ FilmChat, July 26 2014
Meanwhile, movies like Risen that had no official connection to The Passion continued to lean into the idea that they were at least thematically linked to it:
‘Watch: Four new TV spots, behind-the-scenes footage and a new featurette linking Risen to The Passion of the Christ,’ FilmChat, February 12 2016
Veterans of The Passion—people like actress Maia Morgenstern, producer Enzo Sisti, and consultant Fr William J Fulco—went on to make other Jesus films:
‘A virtual-reality Jesus movie is coming this Christmas from the makers of Left Behind and The Passion of the Christ,’ FilmChat, June 29 2016
‘The New Gospel casts African activist as Jesus’, FilmChat, October 9 2020
And along the way, Mel Gibson—and then Jim Caviezel—started talking about making a direct sequel to The Passion:
‘Is Mel Gibson making a sequel to The Passion of the Christ?,’ FilmChat, June 9 2016
‘Why Mel Gibson’s Sequel to ‘The Passion of the Christ’ Could Be His Shot at Redemption,’ IndieWire, June 10 2016
‘Mel Gibson talks about Passion sequel The Resurrection,’ FilmChat, August 31 2016
‘Mel Gibson’s Passion sequel will jump back and forth in time between the Resurrection and the Old Testament,’ FilmChat, September 6 2016
‘Will there be demons in Mel Gibson’s Resurrection movie?,’ FilmChat, November 2 2016
‘Jim Caviezel says the Passion of the Christ sequel is still happening,’ FilmChat, October 9 2020
‘Rumour: Mel Gibson’s sequel to The Passion might start shooting this spring,’ Thoughts & Spoilers, January 9 2023
In addition to all these Passion-specific articles, I also mentioned the film prominently in a few articles (and blog posts) that looked at the Jesus-movie genre as a whole:
‘Top Ten Jesus Movies,’ Christianity Today Movies, April 11 2006
‘Mary Goes to the Movies,’ Christianity Today Movies, November 30 2006
‘Ethnicity in Jesus films – does it matter?,’ MB Herald, November 24 2006
‘History and tradition in movie depictions of the Cross,’ FilmChat, April 8 2013
‘The naked Christ in film: birth, death and resurrection,’ FilmChat, April 23 2013
‘Simon of Cyrene and his family, on film.,’ FilmChat, May 6 2020
I’ve written about the film in countless other posts as well, such as this one from April 2005 about the Oscar-nominated documentary Sister Rose’s Passion, which concerns a nun who devoted her life to Catholic-Jewish dialogue and had a thing or two to say about Mel Gibson’s film. Or this one from June 2005 about a lengthy panel discussion that included the film’s co-writer Benedict Fitzgerald (who passed away last month) and translator/consultant Fr William J Fulco (who passed away in 2021).
But you’ll just have to use your search engines to find them all!
One extra note: my friend Matt Page has noted that there are quite a few significant Bible-movie anniversaries taking place this year. You can get the full list at his blog, but here are a few that stand out to me, in order of their anniversary dates:
February 28 — 10 years — Son of God (2014)
I rounded up a bunch of my writing about this film here.
March 28 — 10 years — Noah (2014)
May 2 — 25 years — Noah’s Ark (1999)
See all the things I’ve written at the tag here.
May 19 — 35 years — Jesus of Montreal (1989)
August 17 — 45 years — Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
September 4 — 60 years — The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)
This is the film that put Matera on the map, cinematically speaking; the city—one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on the planet—has since appeared in Bible movies as different as The Passion of the Christ and The Book of Clarence, while also appearing in non-biblical movies like the James Bond flick No Time to Die. I’ve mentioned this film often in surveys of the Jesus-movie genre, but the closest I’ve come to devoting an entire essay or article to it is this post here. See all the other things I’ve written via the tag here.
December 5 — 25 years — The Bible Collection: Jesus (1999)
See all the things I’ve written at the tag here.
December 7 — 10 years — The Red Tent (2014)
See all the things I’ve written at the tag here.
December 12 — 10 years — Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
December 21 — 75 years — Samson and Delilah (1949)
This is the film that launched the Bible-movie fad of the 1950s. See all the things I’ve written at the tag here.
December 22 — 50 years — Moses the Lawgiver (1974)
See all the things I’ve written at the tag here.