http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/mel-gibson-considers-movie-about-adventist-war-hero

There are some thoughtful comments at the end of this article.

Shireen wrote:

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http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/mel-gibson-considers-movie-about-adventist-war-hero

 

There are some thoughtful comments at the end of this article.

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 I did not know this...sad really.

Without referring to the Bible or the writings of Ellen White, what are some common sense reasons for not seeing the movie "Hacksaw Ridge". The reasons can be informed by Biblical and Spirit of Prophecy principles, but how would you state the objections in a common sense manner.

Thank you.

webmaster wrote:

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Just because it is a motion picture, that does not make it bad.  Ellen White wrote that we are to have the absolute best illustrations in our books in order to make good impressions for God  But will Mel Gibson do it to give glory to God? I do not know, but would like to give him the benefit of the doubt.

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Thank you webmaster for sharing your thoughts. Here is another link. There are some very interesting comments after the article.

 http://www.fulcrum7.com/news/2016/7/29/hacksaw-ridge-trailer-the-story-of-desmond-doss

A review of the movie "Hacksaw Ridge".

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/hacksaw-ridge-review-brutally-effective-war-171135501.html

By Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Mel Gibsons Hacksaw Ridge, which premiered today at the 73rd International Venice Film Festival, is a brutally effective, bristlingly idiosyncratic combat saga the true story of a man of peace caught up in the inferno of World War II. Its the first movie Gibson has directed since Apocalypto, 10 years ago (a film hed already shot before the scandals that engulfed him), and this November, when it opens with a good chance of becoming a player during awards season, it will likely prove to be the first film in a decade that can mark his re-entry into the heart of the industry. Yet to say that Hacksaw Ridge finally leaves the Gibson scandals behind isnt quite right; it has been made in their shadow. On some not-so-hard-to-read level, the film is conceived and presented as an act of atonement.

It should be obvious by now that the question of whether we can separate a popular actor or filmmakers off-screen life from his on-screen art doesnt have a one-size-fits-all answer. Every instance is different. In the case of Mel Gibson, what we saw a number of years ago first in his anti-Semitic comments, then in leaked recordings of his phone conversations wasnt simply objectionable thoughts, but a rage that suggested he had a temperament of emotional violence. It was one that reverberated through his two most prominent films as a director: The Passion of the Christ, a sensational and, in many quarters, unfairly disdained religious psychodrama that was a serious attempt to grapple with the stakes of Christs sacrifice, and Apocalypto, a fanciful but mesmerizing Mayan adventure steeped to the bone in the ambiguous allure of blood and death.

Like those two movies, Hacksaw Ridge is the work of a director possessed by the reality of violence as an unholy yet unavoidable truth. The film takes its title from a patch of battleground in Japan, at the top of a 100-foot cliff, thats all mud and branches and bunkers and foxholes, and where the fight, when it arrives (one hour into the movie), is a gruesome cataclysm of terror. Against the nonstop clatter of machine-gun fire, bombs and grenades explode with a relentless random force, blowing off limbs and blasting bodies in two, and fire is everywhere, erupting from the explosions and the tips of flame-throwers. Bullets rip through helmets and chests, and half-dead soldiers sprawl on the ground, their guts hanging out like hamburger.

Yet at the center of this modern hell of machine-tooled chaos and pain, there is Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a soldier who refuses to carry a gun because it is against his values. Hes a conscientious objector who acts as a medic. But because hes every bit as devoted to serving in the war as he is to never once firing a bullet, he isnt just caring for soldiers. Hes on the front lines, in the thick of the thick of it, without a weapon to protect him, and the film exalts not just his courage but his whole withdrawal from violence.

There really was a Desmond Doss, and the film sticks close to the facts of his story. Yet theres still something very programmatic about Hacksaw Ridge. It immerses you in the violent madness of war and, at the same time, it roots its drama in the impeccable valor of a man who, by his own grace, refuses to have anything to do with war. You could argue that Gibson, as a filmmaker, is having his bloody cake and eating it too, but the less cynical (and more accurate) way to put it might be that Hacksaw Ridge is a ritual of renunciation. The film stands on its own (if youd never heard of Mel Gibson, it would work just fine), yet theres no point in denying that it also works on the level of Gibsonian optics that it speaks, on some political-metaphorical level, to the troubles that have defined him and that hes now making a bid to transcend.

Will audiences, and the powers of Hollywood, finally meet him halfway? One reason the likely answer is yes is that Hacksaw Ridge, unlike such landmarks of combat cinema as Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, or Full Metal Jacket, isnt simply a devastating war film. It is also a carefully carpentered drama of moral struggle that, for its first hour, feels like it could have been made in the 1950s. Its a movie that spells out its themes with a kind of homespun user-friendly clarity. We see Desmond as a boy, growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with a drunken abusive father (Hugo Weaving) and a mother (Rachel Griffiths) hes driven to protect. Early on, Desmond gets into a fight with his brother and hits him in the head with a brick, and that incident, which leaves him reeling in sorrow, is the films version of one of those Freudian events that, in an old Hollywood movie, form the cornerstone of a persons character.

I have no plans to watch it either, yet, I see how God may use this to bring attention to the apple of his eye.

I think we SDAs should be making some kind of pamphlets to send out with a reference to this movie, as it will be big news it seems for a couple of months.

Even better would be for someone to make a game/app that kids would love to play, where a non-combatant works valiantly to save lives on a battle field.

http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story4369-why-hacksaw-ridge-matters-to-adventists

"Its hard to imagine that God has not allowed the production of Hacksaw Ridge specifically for such a time as this. Its positive portrayal of the faith of a Seventh-day Adventist Christian believer provides an unprecedented opportunity to enter into what is likely to be a national conversation tilted toward a church that seldom commands the positive attention of the world."

The discussion re "Hacksaw Ridge" is ongoing at the "Adventist Review".

This is a reader's comment that I found on the "Adventist Peace Fellowship" blog.

"What really concerns me is that Mel Gibson, a Jesuit trained Catholic, is making a movie about Desmond Doss an Adventist. He crucified Christ in a most horrible manner and uplifted Mary in his Passion movie.what will he do to Desmond. Mr. Doss was a most humble man.we went to church with him for yearsI dont think anything good can come from this. Satan has to be using it to further his goals.not Gods."

https://adventistpeace.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/mel-gibson-to-direct-film-about-desmond-doss/

"From 1946 to present, Doss story has been depicted in numerous media, including the April 1946 edition of True Comics, his biography The Unlikeliest Hero (1967), the documentary film Conscientious Objector (2004), and others."

http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/desmond-doss-the-hero-of-hacksaw-ridge/