Between God and Gibson: German Mystical and Romantic Sources in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2005
Abstract
The unsuspecting public of millions that saw Mel Gibson's controversial The Passion of the Christ upon its release in the spring of 2004 had no way of knowing that what purported to be a faithful rendering of events recounted in the Gospels in fact reproduced revelations attributed to the German nun Anna Katharina Emmerich whose visions had in turn been guided, recorded, and to a considerable extent authored by the Romantic poet Clemens Brentano. This article pursues the source from its origins in the poeticized obscurantism of German Romanticism to its recent rejuvenation by means of the visionary violence and horror of the Hollywood cinema.
Recommended Citation
Weeks, Andrew, "Between God and Gibson: German Mystical and Romantic Sources in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ" (2005). Faculty Publications-Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. 79.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/fpllc/79
Comments
This article was originally published as “Between God and Gibson: German Mystical and Romantic Sources in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ,” German Quarterly 78.4 (Winter 2005): pp. 421-40. (19 pp.)