by Michael Vuolo
NARRATION: Brad Hirschfield is an Orthodox rabbi and vice-president of CLAL, the Center for Learning and Leadership, a Jewish think-tank based in New York. Hirschfield saw "The Passion of Christ" on Ash Wednesday, just a few blocks from his office in the Kip's Bay section of Manhattan.
TAPE: HIRSCHFIELD: I walk in and I see the movie and I really walked away with two feelings ... I felt like it was an incredibly powerful movie that has a lot to teach us about suffering and endurance and love ... and I think it was told with incredible rage and anger.
NARRATION: Hirschfield doesn't believe the anger in the film is anti-Semitic, but he is troubled by one very brief line of dialogue, without a subtitle and in ancient Aramaic, which he happens to speak. A Roman guard yells the phrase "Jew bastard." Also, Hirschfield doesn't agree with another common indictment of the movie.
TAPE: HIRSCHFIELD: Violence? ... the first century was a nasty, violent brutish place.
NARRATION: The graphic images, he said, are true to the time and in proportion to what ... most likely ... actually happened.
TAPE: HIRSCHFIELD: A human being was nailed to wood, and so I think that to complain about the violence would be like going to "Schindler's List" and saying, you know ... did they really have to show concentration camps ... it's so disgusting ... yes! ... yes!
NARRATION: The fault of the movie, said Hirschfield, is Gibson's more overriding message -- that the only path to redemption is through Christ and through suffering. This, he believes, is dangerous. On Friday morning, a small line was formed outside the midtown theater in Kip's Bay. Joan came early to wait for tickets ... she said there is a mistaken emphasis, in discussions about Gibson's movie, on some notion of historical accuracy.
TAPE: JOAN: You know he's not a historian and so he's telling a story from the Gospels and nobody was there ... you know ... so I don't know how they can say whether it's accurate or inaccurate.
NARRATION: Others on the ticket line, also Catholics, were hoping to be inspired ... but most wanted simply to be entertained and to see a well made film. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published a review of "The Passion" on its Web site. It offered an even-handed analysis and expressed two major complaints: Gibson appears to have a revisionist sense of who Pontius Pilate was and his role in the crucifixion of Christ. More importantly perhaps, the CCB said that "the 'how' of Christ's death is lingered on at the expense of the 'why.'" That the final 12 hours of his life are out of context. And so if viewer's want the rest of the story, they'll have to read the Bible. For Columbia Radio News, I'm Michael Vuolo.