The straightest stories ever told

Noel Vera

It's Easter season and just fresh from the controversies of Mel
Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," so a quick rundown of different
Christ pictures through film history might be appropriate, starting
with movies that tell the story in a (more or less) straightforward
and direct manner.

Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings" (1927) is not perhaps the earliest
screen depiction of Jesus, but it's one of the biggest and most
popular. DeMille gives us his signature mix of hedonism and
sanctimoniousness: an extravagant Mary Magdalene (Dorothy Cumming)
wrapping elaborately designed capes round her near-naked body while
riding a chariot pulled by zebras; a recognizably Caucasian Christ
(H.B. Warner) striking endless poses with a gently concerned
expression on his face. Judas (Joseph Schildkraut) is a former lover
of Mary and a recognizably upper-class dandy; Caiaphas (Rudolph
Schildkraut, Joseph's father) is an old-fashioned silent-screen
villain.

Interestingly enough, the portrayal of Caiaphas plus certain scenes
(including one where the Jews are paid to yell for Jesus' blood) gave
rise to cries of anti-Semitism, which prompted DeMille to insert
various titles, the most crucial of which has Caiaphas blaming
himself, and not his people, for the death of Christ.

George Steven's "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) is perhaps the
representative Christ epic--long, slow, with improbably huge sets and
an intelligent if glossy visual style (rumor has it that David Lean
directed a few scenes).

What makes the movie such fun despite the ponderous, holier-than-thou
filmmaking is its hilariously Hollywood casting: Donald Pleasance as
Satan, Robert Blake as Simon the Zealot, Telly Savalas as Pontius
Pilate (shaved his head for the role and kept it shaven ever since),
Charlton Heston bellowing about apes--sorry, repentance--as John the
Baptist. In the background are the unique landscapes of Death Valley,
California, and Utah, where John Ford makes westerns. "All that's
needed," you might say, "is John Wayne"--and look! There in a quick
insert shot is the Duke himself, drawling "Truly, this is the Son o'
Gawd…"

What works, though, is Von Sydow as Christ. He flashes his laser-beam
stare and bellows in his stentorian voice, and you can't help but
think: "I can follow this guy." He's eerily effective when delivering
dark prophecies like "Behold, the days are coming in which they shall
say 'Blessed are the barren'…say to the mountains 'fall on us'"--this
is, after all, the medieval knight that played chess against Death in
Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal."

Nicholas Ray's "King of Kings" (1961) features a more bloodless
Christ in Jeffrey Hunter, whose chest was shaved because preview
audiences objected to the body hair. More interesting (thanks to
writer Philip Yordan) is a parallel subplot, where Harry Guardino as
Jesus Barabbas struggles to free the Jews from Roman tyranny.
Barabbas acts as a sort of political doppelganger to Christ (it's
noted that they have the same first name), and the two struggle for
the soul of an indecisive Judas (Rip Torn!). Ray keeps the drama more
human-sized than Stevens, yet manages several striking setpieces: a
Sermon on the Mount staged and shot (as filmmaker Martin Scorsese
points out) like an impromptu press conference; a camera strapped to
the top of the cross looking down, so we can follow it as it ascends
to the sky (Scorsese borrows this shot for his own "Last Temptation
of Christ").

Franco Zefferelli's "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977) cast a rather benign
Robert Powell as Christ, and follows Steven's style of Hollywood
casting: an improbably young Olivia Hussey as the Virgin Mary, a
hammy Rod Steiger as Pontius Pilate, an unconvincingly bestial
Michael York as Barabbas. More interesting than Zefferelli's rather
flat directing is Anthony Burgess' literate script, which supposes
interesting relationships among characters (Pilate talks of mercy to
Jesus just to needle the Jewish priests; Judas, as in "King of
Kings," is a political innocent out to save Jesus from himself) and
attempts to show the political and social tensions of the time.
Burgess would later use the script as basis for his novel "Man of
Nazareth" which interpolates, among other things, a Jesus who married
during his hidden thirty years.

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Gospel According to Matthew" (1964) does
the story of Christ, or at least Matthew's account of him, in a way
no one seems to have thought of before, or since: as simply as
possible.

Oh, Pasolini adds touches--a soundtrack with Mozart, Bach, and blues
music--but by and large Pasolini took his cue from the way Enrique
Irazoqui, the Catalan Economics student who plays Christ, walks
across the screen: straightforward, direct, with no hesitation
whatsoever. Easily the most beautiful, most cinematic, most faithful
and "straight" of Christ movies--which is ironic, since the director
is an outspoken homosexual and Communist.

The strangest stories ever told

Noel Vera

There are the straight Christ movies like "Jesus of Nazareth"
or "Gospel According to Matthew;" then there are the strange
versions of Christ's stories: the New Testament plus a little
something else. Here's a sample few:

Norman Jewison's "Jesus Christ, Superstar" (1973) was pretty
controversial when it came out in Broadway--what, Christ singing
rock?! Nowadays, though, you hear "I Don't Know How to Love Him"
in '70s compilation discs. It used to be sung at masses.

Basically it turns out to be a pretty reverential take, with less-
than-brilliant lyrics and only hints and rumblings of a modern
consciousness in Ted Neely's rock-star Christ (at one point he
worries people will forget him ten minutes after he's dead); it's
also an extremely dated movie, with Norman Jewison doing all kinds of
zooming in and out, presumably to "open up" the opera. What stays
with you is Carl Anderson's passionate performance as Judas, and the
rock beat clearing away all the musty familiarity in your head. The
picture was also charged with anti-Semitism, and I suppose you see
traces of a negative Jewish stereotype in the movie's Caiaphas (Bob
Bingham), but, as it turns out, it isn't as virulently anti-Jewish as
certain other movies…

So sue me, I think "Monty Python's The Life of Brian" (1979) is
easily the most sensible of all Christ films--mainly because it puts
everything in perspective. With all the hoopla about religious faith,
and the violence and chaos such faith inspires, what really matters
is that you have a bit of fun with a good Jewish girl, be kind to one
another, and whistle cheerfully when you're hanging on a cross.

For those unfamiliar with the film, it's Monty Python's way of
sending up--not Christ per se, the Pythoners think he's a decent chap-
-but the religious fanaticism and hypocrisy surrounding him and his
teachings…something I suspect Christ would appreciate, if he were
alive today. Small sidenote: the film was banned in Norway for eight
years, after which it was marketed in Sweden as the "film so funny it
was banned in Norway."

I cannot tell a lie; despite all the controversy about sex and New
York accents, Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ,"
based on the equally controversial book by Nikos Kazantzakis, is my
personal favorite of Christ films (Pasolini's might come in second;
with Monty Python's third). If anything, I love that everyone speaks
like they come from Brooklyn and the Bronx; it feels like Scorsese's
way of personalizing Christ, of taking a familiar story and telling
it in his voice and language, showing us that the whole thing still
works, nevertheless.

It does--at least, I think it does, thanks to Scorsese's inimitable
visual style (he takes his cue from desert apparitions and mirages,
and turns Morocco into one of the most beautifully desolate settings
anyone can ever imagine--all on a mere seven million dollars); Willem
Dafoe's ferocious performance as Christ (Dafoe is rumored to be one
of the "best-endowed" men in Hollywood; somehow I like the idea that
Christ spoke softly and carried a very big stick); Paul Schrader's
plainspoken screenplay (he pares away much of Kazantzakis' rather
purplish prose); and Peter Gabriel's brilliant rock score.

It's easily the most accurate, with Scorsese drawing details of
Jewish life and Roman crucifixion from such sources as Michael
Grant's "The History of Ancient Israel" and The Biblical
Archaeological Review. It's also the most moving, I think, the one
that speculates most thoroughly (and courageously) on the
psychological and spiritual aspects--the inner suffering that Christ
must have undergone.

At 300 million dollars in boxoffice at the time of this writing and
counting, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" (2004) is easily
the most commercially successful Christ movie ever made. It's also,
despite Gibson's claims of biblical fidelity, as much a piece of
fantasy literature as Scorsese's "Last Temptation," closely based as
it is on the visions of one Anne Catherine Emmerich, a 19th century
Augustinian nun and anti-Semite, and Clemens Berntano, the German
Romantic poet who compiled her writings (and, it is suspected,
supplemented them considerably).

Gibson's film is violent, it's true (in a crudely dull and repetitive
way), and the problem with this is that it upends what Christ is all
about--not that he died and was resurrected but, according to Gibson,
that he endured superhuman torture for his sins (as if God was a
bloodthirsty deity). Besides being questionable theology, it's also
bad art--Gibson dwells so much on physical suffering that the (I
would say far greater) psychological and spiritual suffering--the
despair and sense of abandonment Christ must have felt (one line
asking why he's been forsaken is scarcely enough) is left
unexpressed. It's also perhaps the Christ film that majority of the
Jewish community looks upon with the most fear, thanks to its
boxoffice success and free-floating anti-Semitism (the Jews seem to
be malevolent for almost no reason at all).

My recommendation? If you want something faithful and
straightforward, you can't do better than Pasolini's "The Gospel
According to Matthew;" if you want something refreshingly sane, go
for Monty Python's "The Life of Brian;" if you want something thought
provoking, archeologically accurate, and cinematic, choose
Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ." If you want a textbook
example of how a Christ movie shouldn't be made, by all means watch
Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."

(First published in Menzone Magazine, April, 2004)

(Comments? Please email me at noelbotevera@...)