“If Mel Gibson’s film meets the fate of 99 percent of religious films produced out of Hollywood, it will be archival fodder in eighteen months,” says Gomes. “The medium of film is just not subtle enough in a way to deal with the substance of theological and biblical issues that they try to debate. They make the Bible into a movie and in doing that you take all of the risks of filmdom and none of the benefits of the Bible.”
Students echo similar sentiments about the film’s financial prospects.
“I doubt I’ll see it in theatres,” says Sam Gale Rosen ’06, “but I’ll probably download it online sometime.”
—Staff writer Ben B. Chung can be reached at bchung@fas.harvard.edu.
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