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Originally posted by joan hue:
To me he emphasized a Pilate who anguished over condemning Jesus. This Pilate seemed almost emotionally torn, not just politically afraid, and he seemed almost sympathetic. The movie’s relentless juxtaposition of Pilate’s, “I don’t want to kill him,” with the Jewish leaders or Pharisees shouting and shouting and shouting and shouting for his death (including the Jewish leaders riding up to the crosses) finally made me uncomfortable,
very uncomfortable. I didn’t really see him trying to say that ALL of US were the villains.

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This is an interesting point Joan - the duality of the presentation of Pilate versus the near unmitigated malignity of the Sanhedrin and in particular Caiaphas. Just some remarks of mine:

Part of the problem comes from that enormously confusing (to me at least) line from John 19:11 - 'You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.' (Emphasis mine) The identity of 'the one who handed me over to you' has been the subject of debate elsewhere, and I can see an argument for that person being Judas, Caiaphas or the Devil. Gibson unambiguously indicated that Caiaphas was 'the one who handed (Jesus) over to (Pilate)', and therefore he is 'guilty of a greater sin' than Pilate. That is, Pilate is guilty (of sin in general and from v10 of choosing to crucify Jesus), but Caiaphas is also guilty, and guilty of a greater sin. Regardless of the degree of the sin, both are in need of a redemption that their sins (effectively murder of an innocent on the part of both) will make possible, and I think Gibson would be very much of that frame of mind...

... However, people could be forgiven for inferring that Caiaphas is guilty of a greater sin in Gibson's script because he is a Jew and not a noble Roman like Pilate. It appears in this film that the Jews are a one-minded lot who have no qualms about the murder of Jesus. As I recall, our first glimpse of Caiaphas has him buying Judas' treachery, and when we see him again he is arranging for the bought testimony of false witnesses in Jesus' drumhead trial. Even before Jesus utters the unconscionable blasphemy, Caiaphas and the priests are out for his blood. Contrast this with Pilate - who makes the wrong choice, but does so after some sense of moral conflict that doesn't even occur to the Pharisees.

Now in part this owes to the fact that the dilemma posed by the existence of Jesus for these two parties was completely different. For Pilate - it is a matter of his career - stabilising the province, keeping the pax romana, no matter the cost. He has no predisposition to either the priests or Jesus, but will yield to the party who has the stronger chance of causing unrest. The moment Jesus describes his kingdom as 'not of this world', that sets up Pilate's decision to go along with the plot to kill Jesus. For the Jews however, Jesus represents something a little more fundamental - the very tenets of their religion are challenged by this man whose claims could not possibly be true. They are predisposed to want Jesus' death, for the severity of His 'crime' in their eyes is unparalleled. So the one-mindedness of the Sanhedrin compared to Pilate owes in part to the nature of Jesus' offense in the eyes of each.

The other reason for the discrepancy is that we have not begun the story at its proper beginning. We have come into the story, in the tradition of the Passion plays and the Stations of the Cross, at the time when Jesus' sufferings begin - just as the film will end after those sufferings have ended.

(Sidenote: In this sense Passion plays do not capture the most extraordinary event of the whole affair - to paraphrase the apostle Paul it is the fact of the Resurrection that makes Christians something more than the most miserable fools that ever lived.)

The movie by itself just contributes to a perception that over-the-top bloodthirstyness in films has become a requirement to be noticed and approved. Push the envelope!

The music didn't sway me one way or the other, though the resurrection cue was so overdone it was like a Simpson's parody. Don't call in the airstrike it's only an opinion. Probably wrong!