Tonight was the last instalment of four of BBC’s The Passion, showing on television over holy week. It was an unusual departure for the normally resolutely secular BBC, and much talked up by faith communities. I had decided to give it a miss, having been disappointed by previous efforts to represent Jesus on screen or in drama. But I got drawn in – mainly because I wanted to know what people would be talking about.
The opening episode was promising – with attention given to making the film have as much first century middle-eastern atmosphere as possible – including a rather haunting female voice singing with an evocative middle eastern cadence. Jerusalem was convincingly packed with people for the Passover, and the story somewhat confusing, as a robber took the earnings of a tax-collector and other less deserving victims for the use of a group intent on insurrection against the Romans. His name was Barabbas. So far, so good.
The disciples were a rather nondescript crew – difficult to distinguish who was who, as they all dressed and looked alike, with none outstanding. Judas was given little character credibility, and was looked on rather sympathetically by Jesus. Jesus (Joseph Mawle) was considerably outshone by other more striking characters with greater acting presence. James Nesbitt stole the show as Pilate, complete with Irish brogue, compellingly impressive. Not the violent psychopath who was the historic Pilate. Ben Daniels also presented a highly sympathetic Caiaphas, who determinedly acted according to his best lights in an effort to preserve what heritage remained of Israel in Jerusalem and Judaea from the ravages of the Roman oppressors. The birth of his baby son in the final episode sealed his place in our affections. And there was some witty screenplay, such as his wife saying, after his despatch of Jesus: “You have done the will of God.” His reply, sardonically, “Let’s hope the people think so.”
But where was the history of the Jews who “murdered the prophets and those whom God has sent you” in Caiaphas? Certainly not in this production. And then – the liberties that were taken with the biblical text. One wonders if the producer had even read it. The debate about Jesus was always whether he was “The son of God” as second member of the trinity, as if we had been fast-forwarded three centuries within the blink of an eyelid. Mary Magdalen featured prominently, with rather more than hints of an emotional relationship with Jesus (a nod to Dan Brown, no doubt).
The last supper contained no hints of its Passover significance, and Jesus gave thanks for the wine as his blood “poured out so that many might be healed”. So the covenant significance was abolished at a stroke. On the cross, Jesus’s last words were to the disciples to “love one another” – which came across as the film’s interpretation of Jesus’s message to the world. Later on, the last words were recalled by one disciple as “God’s will be done”. A striking Joseph of Arimathea had the body buried – but in a tomb that seemed to be in the middle of the Judean wilderness. His later defence of his actions to Caiaphas, in the light of the empty tomb, was: “If Jesus has risen from the dead, then all the world will believe.” So that explains the spread of the gospel. The disciples who had taken the body to the tomb picked up the stone and threw it over the entrance as if it was papier maché.
Finally, Mary (mother of Jesus) and Mary Magdalen began a vigil at the tomb (unguarded), until two rather less than intimidating temple guards arrived and shooed them away. Jesus then made his resurrection appearances. Or did he? He appeared to Mary Magdalen back at the tomb – the temple guards having gone to get some sandwiches – but it wasn’t Joseph Mawle. He appeared to the two on the road to Emmaus, likewise not Joseph Mawle, nor the ‘Jesus’ who had appeared to Mary Magdalen. Hallucinations? Finally he appeared to the disciples in the room in Jerusalem – reassuringly, now, as Joseph Mawle.
Somewhere in all of this, Isaiah 53 was invoked, as a scripture purported to have said that the “son of God” (second person of the trinity) would come from heaven and have to suffer for his people. The last scene showed Jesus with his disciples in a busy Jerusalem street (by the pool of Bethesda?), where none of the crowd seemed to recognise him apart from the disciples. Then he wandered off, took a last backward look at the disciples, a little knowing sideways smile and nodding of the head, turned a corner, and was gone – the disciples being left with the commission to tell all the world about him and his message – which was “forgiveness of sins” for all people.
Millions of people in the UK have been watching this film, and it could be said that thereby the BBC has been doing a better job than the church of getting the story of Jesus into homes up and down the nation. I am left ambivalent about what might have been achieved, from the believing church’s point of view, and the kind of message we might like to leave people with.
And that raises an interesting issue. What message would we have wanted people to be left with? Even more important, how would we have wanted Jesus to be presented? More faithfulness to the biblical texts would have helped – but in the end, is it possible to present Jesus convincingly on screen? There was just a little too much of the spiritual X-ray eyes about Joseph Mawle, and the knowing, slight nod of the head, as he fixed that holy gaze on his disciples. But this was better than, for instance, the ethereal, otherworldly Christ of the Wintershall passion play cycle, which takes place annually not far from here; or other Christs of previous screen productions, and certainly preferable to the grisly Christ of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”. In getting a convincingly middle-eastern feel to the drama, this production did better than most. But Jesus was not quite so far removed from a dressed up version of the European liberal humanist.
I’m left feeling that any visual representation of the story of Jesus, and especially the final week, will be a compromise. “The Passion” would have been less of a compromise with a little more attention given to the study of the historical context, and the place of the biblical text within the historic context. But in the end, I’m glad for the BBC to have taken on this project, uncharacteristically, where it may have introduced a new interest in the figure of Jesus in people who have previously never really thought or even known about him.
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