BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: After months of controversy and advance publicity, Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST opened in movie theaters this past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. Kim Lawton has our report on the film, and reaction to it.

(From THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST): Hear me Father. Rise up. Defend me.

KIM LAWTON: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST opens in a fog-shrouded Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prays an anguished prayer about the ordeal that lies ahead of him, while a Satan figure questions his mission.

(From THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST): Do you really believe that one man can bear the full burden of sin?

LAWTON: For the next two hours, director Mel Gibson relentlessly homes in on Jesus' pain and suffering. It's a dramatic and disturbing focus that culminates with the Crucifixion.

The film is in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles. It follows the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. There's his arrest, a series of trials before Jewish and Roman authorities, an excruciating flogging, and ultimately, his death on the cross. This is not a literal gospel depiction. Gibson says the script was adapted from a composite of the four gospel accounts, as well as from writings by a 19th-century Catholic mystic. And it includes his own artistic flourishes.

THE PASSION is provoking hugely divergent reactions.

MICHAEL NOVAK (American Enterprise Institute): It's the most powerful religious film ever made, I believe. Certainly, it's the most powerful I've ever seen, and the most authentic, the most true to the Gospels.

ROSANN CATALANO (Catholic Scholar): What it did was it took a story that is very important to me, that animates my life. And I think what this film did is it trivialized that story to something that was consumed with the violence that was done, and there's nothing redemptive in violence.

LAWTON: The thrust of the film is indeed its staggering brutality. Jesus' flogging at the hands of Roman soldiers is dealt with only briefly in the gospel stories, but Gibson draws it out in long, bloody scenes. The Crucifixion, likewise, is shown in gruesome detail. Gibson says he was trying to show the horrifying reality of Jesus' sacrifice.

Prominent Catholic author and scholar Michael Novak says he was deeply affected by that portrayal.

Mr. NOVAK: It's just exceedingly moving, especially when you realize that it's your own sin, your own fault, your own deficiencies, your own failure that is causing all this.

Rabbi CHARLES ARIAN (Jewish Scholar): Either you had to enter into the violence -- which would have been hard, I think -- or just become anesthetized. And I found myself actually getting bored.

Mr. NOVAK: Look, it's pretty awful. I would not advise it for children. But it's what it was. We cannot turn our backs away from what it was.

LAWTON: THE PASSION offers little context to explain who Jesus was or why he must endure such grueling suffering. The story unfolds with a series of flashbacks of his life and his teachings -- some biblical, some taking artistic license. But they are brief fragments, likely to confuse even those familiar with the gospel accounts.

Ms. CATALANO: All the ink spilled in the Gospels is about his life, his teaching, and about the experience of his followers after his death trying to understand this new reality. There's very little emphasis on his death. So what Gibson has done is turn the story all around, as if the main import of the story is the goriness of it.

LAWTON: How audiences assess responsibility for Jesus' suffering and death will also be a matter of controversy. Soldiers from the occupying Roman army take vicious, almost caricatured delight in beating Jesus. But the Roman governor Pontius Pilate is portrayed as reluctant to authorize crucifixion. He is persuaded by Jewish leaders and a screaming Jewish crowd.

The story of a reluctant Pilate does follow the gospel accounts. But Gibson expands the role of the Jewish high priests -- and his interpretation concerns many viewers.