Gibson is without a doubt influenced by medieval Catholic tradition, the tradition which keeps Christ on his cross perpetually in every crucifix publically displayed around the globe and every wafer consecrated by an ordained priest.

This is the tradition in which the stations of the cross demand annual attention to every aspect of Jesus’ sufferings (including some extra-biblical elements). Protestants may find the slow-motion excruciating and perhaps oddly masochistic, but the purpose of the film perhaps is to flesh out (excuse the metaphor) the meditations of Roman Catholics. It may be historically enlightening to see a Roman scourging from a distance in real time. But it is a spiritual exercise to meditate on the intense suffering.

If one comes to the film without this quasi-sacramental spiritual exercise in mind, then you may conclude that the brutatlity is mere violence and the slow-motion a gratuitous exploitation of it. If this is a passion play writ large (or scribbled with big letters, depending on your aesthetic conclusions), then you would not conclude that such “violence is harmful to all of us.”

Is the experience of sitting on a comfy theatre seat, watching a crisp new print of the Passion very different from the personal experiences of the original readers of the New Testament? I should think so. But that may be applying a pragmatic Protestant purpose on top of Gibson’s sacramental one. Is The Passion firmly within centuries of Catholic tradition and practice? I think so.