The power of Mel Gibson in the world of film is on display in The Passion of the Christ. But what if Mel had chosen the life of Buddha instead?

Recently about 40 students from New College decided to go as a group to see Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ at the local cinema. Not surprisingly, discussion of the film’s artistic merit, violent content and use of biblical and other Catholic texts has been red-hot among Christians and non-Christians alike. Why should this be the case? How is it that, in a secular society such as Australia which often makes a point of excluding religion from public discussion, a film portraying the central historical event on which Christianity is founded can be shown on 150 cinemas and out-gross recent blockbusters such as Master and Commander and The Last Samurai?

Certainly there have been other films based on the life of Christ: King of Kings (1961) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) were relatively successful. Jesus even makes a few cameo appearances in Ben Hur (1959). These films, however, were made in a very different context to that in which we find ourselves in today. In the 1950s and 1960s Hollywood produced a biblical epic almost every year beginning with Quo Vadis? in 1951. In a time when Middle America held the Bible in high regard, biblical epics were often used as vehicles to communicate political themes of the times. Quo Vadis? was originally intended to be an anti-Nazi movie while Cecil B. De Mille outlines at the beginning of the Ten Commandments his intention to portray a people’s desire for democracy and freedom.

Films focusing on some aspect of Jesus’ life today are more likely to be modern retellings of the story of Jesus (for example, Jesus of Montreal [1989] and Hail Mary [1985]—both profoundly secular French films) or radical interpretations of the Jesus portrayed in the gospels (Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.

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