Mel Gibson's The Passion: Antisemitic?

There are quite a few articles out about Mel Gibson's "The Passion," which hasn't been released yet. The film will depict the final stage of Jesus' life, and promises to be in Aramaic and Latin, with no subtitles. Should be a laugh riot! Bring the kids!

The Anti-Defamation League's comments can be found here. A Beliefnet article on the subject is here. A statement by the Catholic contingent of the ADL is here.

I plan to see the movie and make my own decision, but the ADL and Catholic articles, if they're to be trusted, already have me feeling that Gibson may have made a huge mistake. I don't doubt he felt moved by "the Holy Ghost" (Gibson's phrase) to make this film, but Gibson's Hollywood-saturated sensibilities appear to have snuck in. There's going to be a lot of blood and gore, which we'll be paying to see.

Not sure the Holy Ghost would approve, Mel. But who knows: "Go and plunder the Promised Land!" is scriptural, makes for pretty good cinema, and certain people would argue that that was Holy Ghost-approved slaughter.

The clincher, the thing that would turn me off to this film, would be to discover that Gibson includes a shot of himself somewhere in the proceedings-- a directorial conceit perfected by people like Alfred Hitchcock and Oliver Stone.

Anyway... from where I sit, it's not looking good for Mel, who I understand to be a staunch pre-Vatican II Catholic (see the January 27, 2003 TIME Magazine article about him, by Richard Corliss & Jeff Israely). But I'll still pay to watch the film.

Damn... I'm trying to imagine what the DVD commentary track is going to sound like. Will there be audible weeping?
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