To the editor:

At the risk of being thought of as more of an atheist than a lot of people already think I am, allow me to answer the letter by Jacquelyn Scialfa in which she states she is “amazed and appalled” because the Academy of Motion Pictures did not nominate “The Passion of the Christ” for an Oscar.

I saw the picture and, frankly, it didn’t do too much for me.

Oh sure, if you like to sit for two hours watching a scourging and watching the flesh being ripped from a human body, this is your kind of picture. The story has been told thousands of times, has filled many books and has been told in dozens of other movies, but never with such brutality.

I am sure everything in the movie took place pretty much as depicted, but was it really that good a movie?

Was the acting all that great? How about Mel Gibson? Was he really that good a director? I thought he did much better in “Braveheart.”

So Jacquelyn, that’s really what it’s all about. It’s not the subject matter that gathers in the Oscar, it’s the movie itself.

Harvey Meyer

Green Park