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I suppose I just have to jump on the band-waggon before it leaves the stati... um... before it leaves whatever band-wagons leave from, and add my few comments to the many on that new movie thing from that Mel Gibson person.
Now I'd better admit right up front that I haven't seen it and almost certainly won't, so I have absolutely no right to say anything about it at all, but you try writing to a deadline and see what you sometimes end up doing, and anyway my mother's family are Gibsons so I feel indirectly sucked into the shame and opprobrium that this laughably, supposedly historical film has brought to my mother's family: and I hope that this essay will be the start of a movement to have him change his name --or at least to follow the easier task (considering what little I know of his character) of changing the names of everyone else in the family (possibly to something in first century Greek, for reasons that may possibly become clear as we proceed).
Now before we get to the actual topic let's dispose of one thing, as usual I see things (even--or especially--things I haven't actually seen) from a slightly different perspective from normal people, so of course I'll pretty-well ignore all those gibletty bits, you know all the gore and the torture and the wallowing and the so-forth. I mean that is just following late renaissance and pre-Vatican II habits, you know the whole "Stations of the Cross", Anne Catherine Emmerich's1 Visions Thing, replete with lots of later accretions to any possible historical event. And here we are in danger of actually getting near to my topic, because I understand that the film is claimed to be something like historically accurate and researched and all that, but before we get to that there is one more thing. I am not exactly sure precisely when in the narrative the thing ends, but (from the reports of Debbie-at-work's son who HAS actually seen the film) I get the impression that it merely hints at the empty tomb before the final fade to black. Now if it's true that the film ended before dealing with the resurrection then there is a certain irony in the fact, since one of the origins of drama in the Western world (and hence one of the origins of the industry that spawned---and I think that may well be the right word---Gibson) is found in the Mass for Easter where a trope (that's sort of like a twiddley bit that's added to liturgy to emphasize or extend it, or something) was done in the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland in the 10thC as a little dialogue--the beginnings of what became a continuous tradition down to our own day. This was the famous "Quem quaeritis?"2 trope wherein an angel asks the grieving Marys "Whom do you seek?" and of course, it being done by mediaeval monks, asks it in Latin. And now at only a little after the two-thirds-way mark we come to the point of this essay. You see Gibson (or let's call him Mel so I don't have to keep bringing my Mum into this), you see Mel, presumably to hype the historicity of his view of the Passion, did the whole thing in a mixture of Aramaic (demonstrably an appropriate language for the time and place) ...and Latin (and to make things worse, apparently rather ecclesiastical sounding Latin at that).
I mean, like, you know, like, they were Romans, like, and everyone knows Romans went, like, in Latin.
Ahh! Mel, Mel! and I thought that you couldn't sink any lower into the cess of a-historicity than that ghastly 'Braveheart' rubbish, but at least there you restricted yourself to not knowing who fought whom, where, when and in what order. You see the thing is, the thing actually is that the Eastern parts of the Empire (and in fact probably the military as a whole) spoke Greek!"
Cheerio for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton
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Notes:
1 Anne Catherine Emmerich
"... Anne Catherine Emmerich's Visions Thing" Rather strange stuff , at least to me,Anne Catherine Emmerich seems to have had a lot of influence on Gibson. 2 Quem quaeritis
"... the famous 'Quem quaeritis?' trope" This trope was part of the Introit of the Easter Mass; the questions and answers would be sung by two halves of the choir. The tropes were eventually shifted from the Mass to the services of the hours, particularly Matins, the service before daybreak. From a tenth-century manuscript found in the monastery of St. Gall. Reproduced in Medieval and Tudor Drama, ed. John Gassner (1963: New York: Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1987), 35. quod vide
Interrogation: Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae?
Responsio: Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae.
Angeli: Non est hic; surrexit, sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit de sepulchro
Question (by the Angels): Whom do ye seek in the sepulcher, O followers of Christ?
Answer (by the Marys): Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, O Heavenly Ones.
The Angels: He is not here: he is risen, just as he foretold. Go, announce that he is risen from the sepulcher
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