Mel Gibson's epic based on the last hours of the life of Jesus Christ, filmed in Aramaic, courted controversy from its inception. Way before the film was submitted to the BBFC there was talk in both the trade and national press speculating on whether the film would be racist or anti-Semitic. And all the examiners who viewed the film were mindful of the potential for a strong public reaction to the decision.

Of course, depictions of Christ had proven controversial in the past. When the BBFC first formulated a list of guidelines for film works in 1913 representations of Christ were not permissible. And many years later Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation Of Christ proved extremely controversial with many people contacting the BBFC claiming it was blasphemous.

However, The Passion Of The Christ did not prompt debate at BBFC HQ for its religious politics - rather for its extremely strong violence.

When it arrived at the Board in early 2004 the distributors Icon were keen to get a '15' rating for it. The initial advice viewing, by two senior examiners suggested the likely category, would be '15' for the violence given the known context.

The '15' Guidelines allow for violence with a certain amount of strength and detail. However, there are conditions, as the guidelines state: "Violence may be strong but must not dwell on the infliction of pain and injury".

When the film was formally submitted it was viewed by several teams of examiners, the BBFC Director (Robin Duval) and the BBFC Presidents. There were arguments mounted for both '15' and '18', but after extensive discussion the majority view, and the view of the Presidents and Director was that the strong bloody violence, particularly the extended and brutal whipping scene in which the character Jesus is repeatedly lashed for over 10 minutes, were just too strong for the '15' category. It was also felt that, given the realism of the make up and special effects, and the strong sustained sadism of the soliders carrying out the whipping, along with the close-up detail of injury and blood during this and the crucifixion scene, audience expectations of violence at '15' would be challenged by the work.

Although the story was well known, it was felt that the degree of realistic gory detail and the extended focus on the torture of a sympathetic character was sufficiently strong to push the work into the adult category. The Consumer Advice for the film reflected this, stating "Contains extended scenes of strong violence".

The film, which had been hugely popular over the entire world (making over $611 million) went onto public released in here in March 2004 and had taken over £11 million gross in the UK and Eire within two years of its release. But launch of this talked about film the end of the story?

Contrary to some people's beliefs The Passion Of The Christ was not a controversial decision in terms of complaints or public responses. Before the film was released the Board received two letters from people who had not seen the film, both arguing strongly that the faith based work was sufficiently contextualised by its subject matter for the violence to be acceptable at '15'. They cited action films such as Gladiator which had been given '15's and implored the BBFC to renegotiate the rating.

After it's release only two more letters followed, one arguing the decision was too lenient, as the level of blood and gore far exceeded the viewer's experience of gore even at '18', the second complaining that by not making the work available to 15 - 18 year olds the BBFC was "censoring the Bible".

BBFC examiners answered every letter, citing the guidelines and explaining the decision.

As a coda, in February 2005 a re-edited version of The Passion Of The Christ, called The Passion RECUT was submitted to the BBFC. The work was almost 5 minutes shorter than its predecessor, clocking in at 121 minutes 42 seconds. As the extended scenes of torture and personalised violence had been reduced with extensive cutting by the film maker the work was passed '15' for cinematic release, as it was felt to be containable under the '15' Guidelines. However, the violence remained strong enough for the consumer advice to remain unchanged for the edited version of the film.

Links

Case Study - The Last Temptation Of Christ