Violence

On one of the many occasions over the years where I've set out to learn Japanese I got a copy of "My Book Of Bible Stories" from Japan. Being written for children the text was a little easier and seemed a good enough place to learn elementary kanji. One of the key differences between the Japanese and English versions is that Japanese edition was in full-color. Maybe that was why I discovered something interesting that I had never noticed before growing up. In one of the illustrations covering the story of the prophetess Deborah, Sisera lays dead with a tent-peg driven into his head as blood trails down his lifeless face. It's hard to notice in B&W but in color the illustration was apparent enough. It was a striking image and I imagined it as a movie.

It got me wondering then as I still ponder today. If you took many of the accounts of the Bible and adapted them to film what rating would they receive? A tent-peg in the head is just a start. What about fat kings gutted with a sword that defecated upon themselves? Fornicators that are pierced together through their genitals by spear?

Today, as is my routine, I checked Roger Ebert's weekly movie reviews and read his review on The Passion. (For the rest of this entry I'm going to ignore the obvious doctrinal problems with this movie and focus on another element of it.) Ebert calls it the most violent movie he's ever seen and goes on to chide the MPAA for not giving it an NC-17 rating that he felt the violence warranted. From what I've heard of the movie the violence depicted should not be unfamiliar to a student of the Bible. The brutality of the Roman flogging has been discussed several times, often in depth, and it still makes me cringe. We've seen countless drawings and paintings of Jesus hung from the torture stake and it's been elaborated upon what that is like, the pain, the suffocation.

But it's weird to think about something of a Biblical nature that you've pictured in your mind or seen in drawings of carrying an R rating, let alone an NC-17. On a basic level I guess the rating fits. It's nothing a child should see because they aren't in a position to comprehend it. However, it still seems "off"; because from a strict Christian standpoint R-rated movies are questionable, and NC-17 movies aren't even in the equation. As Christians we've been warned time and time again against movie violence. For good reason, Hollywood presents violence without morality and it is glorified. But then comes the most violent movie ever produced and the basis of it is the Bible narrative. It's really odd.

Are some things just meant to be read and not seen, like in our Bible dramas when the violence is implied but not shown? Jezebel gets thrown out the window, just before the dogs reach her the curtain is drawn and we break for lunch?