ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the film was seen to offer a more authentic representation of Jesus' suffering than traditional visual representations, such as paintings, frescoes and devotional images. It shows how the cinematic text establishes an exchange with our collective reservoir of imagery of the Passion: a strategy that promotes a respectful borrowing from the paintings of grand masters to aggrandise the movie, but which relies on cinematic sleight of hand to juxtapose a different set of representational strategies. The historically legitimate Jesus that Gibson seeks to portray is not only moulded via Gospel accounts, non-biblical sources, classical paintings, previous films and so forth, but is understood through them. The chapter highlights a more integral relationship, whereby the spectator is positioned to make sense of The Passion of the Christ through an overarching dialogue between the film and art.
