I see people are still making fun of The Passion of the Christ composer John Debney. According to an interview paraphrased at MSNBC, “Debney claims that Satan’s image kept appearing on his computer screen while he was trying to compose music.” This has led people to dismiss the composer as just another loopy Christian addled by the making of Mel Gibson’s strange little film. The article goes on to describe how Debney challenged Satan to “manifest” himself. And the writer even feels compelled to assure us “Debney’s spokesman confirms to The Scoop that the composer did, indeed, say those things.”I found it interesting how the article never directly quotes Debney when referring to “Satan’s image”, and I wondered if the writer might be deliberately misconstruing the composer’s words for effect. This led me to seek out the source interview, from the Assist News Service. Here, the composer is allowed to say in his own words: “I had all these computers and synthesizers in my studio and the hard drives would go down and the digital picture that lives on the computer with the music would just freeze on his [Satan’s] face. Then the volume would go to ten and it would happen all the time.”
So it would seem MSNBC is correct. But those who have seen The Passion of the Christ know that Satan is indeed depicted in the movie. The fact Debney’s computer could freeze with Satan’s face on the monitor seems therefore less bizarre. Quite a coincidence, but certainly not inexplicable. The image was probably this rather than this*. It is not my intention to defend Mel Gibson’s movie, which I found to be disturbingly masochistic; I just want to be fair to its composer. He’s certainly not the only person to yell at his computer for having gremlins or believe that it was possessed. (Matter of fact, my browser crashed during my first draft of this.)
* I would assume he composes on a Mac anyway, probably using Pro Tools.
