Christ at 24fps (Or: Everything I Know About the Gospels I Learned From Andrew Lloyd Webber)

In a recent game of cinephilic confessions, I admitted to an odd obsession with Jesus movies. I say odd because I'm not a Christian, nor do I buy into the whole son of what's-his-name thing. I realized, after a time, that the obsession began after seeing my first two JC films in 1973 — two musicals that took great liberties with the source material. I grew up in an unrelentingly secular household — with a Jewish mother and a Protestant father who figured it would be best to avoid the subject of religion altogether. Neither baptized nor bar mitzvahed, it was only for weddings and funerals that I entered a house of worship, and my knowledge of Christian morals was limited to what I learned on Davey and Goliath (which, as a child, seemed nothing more than a show about a boy and his talking dog). Needless to say, my soul is no doubt doomed to remain trapped wherever it is godless heathens wind up — assuming of course that the Judeo-Christian endgame goes as planned. It was repeated viewings of The Incredible Shrinking Man (on a 16mm print we had at home) that got me started on the big-ticket existential questions, and there's no doubt that Jack Arnold's film had an influence on my decision to become a card-carrying Buddhist in my late teens. But that another story. Arriving in 1973 at the tail end of the hippie and flower power movement, both Norman Jewison's Jesus Christ Superstar and David Greene's Godspell seem determined to reclaim Christ as the OG of the counterculture set, and both take a rather unconventional approach to the story of his final days. Set entirely to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock opera (which does indeed rock), Jesus Christ Superstar is premised on artificiality — as the film opens, a group of hippies are stepping off a bus somewhere in the middle of an Israeli desert. Anachronistic costumes and props are unloaded as this group of (perhaps) actors steps into their designated roles. Roman guards wear lilac wife-beaters and carry machine guns, rabbis wear tall black hats and bejeweled chest plates fastened with leather straps, while Pilate and Herod dress like glam rockers. (Only Jesus wears the traditional white robe.) The group soon disperses, and in gorgeous Todd-AO (the last film shot in this format), heads off to perform their rockin' passion play. Yet after the crucifixion (oops...spoilers!), all of the actors re-board the bus, with the exception of Jesus (Ted Neely) who remains hanging on the cross. Was it a case of thespian megalomania, or did life just simply imitate art? Either way, the film had quite an impact on the eight year-old Filmbrain, who had no idea Mary Magdalene wasn't in fact a Hawaiian beauty, or that King Herod didn't throw bagels at Jesus. (The casting of Carl Anderson as Judas was enough to outrage both Jewish and Black organizations, albeit for very different reasons.) But regardless of any inaccuracies or creative casting choices, Jesus Christ Superstar seemed incredibly cool, and the 2-LP soundtrack was at the top of my playlist for months. My impression of the film hasn't changed all that much over the years, and I've come to appreciate it's take on Christ as populist rebel who worries the powers that be. He's a media superstar at the "top of the poll" that has "no army, no fighting, no slogans", and who would have been even bigger if it wasn't for the fact that "Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication." There are moments of self-reflexivity throughout, but none better than the crowd member who tells Jesus that he'll "escape in the final reel." Ted Neely (who has a great set of pipes) makes for the perfect rebel-Christ, and though he's pissed off throughout most of the film (as if realizing the futility of his struggle), he's still incredibly cool. At the opposite end of cool lies Godspell, Stephen Schwartz's sunshine-pop take on the gospel of St. Matthew. In David Greene's filmed version of the Off-Broadway musical, a goofier, less intense group of hippies convene at Central Park's Bethesda Fountain and begin following a guy in a mock-Superman T-shirt (Victor Garber, looking like a proto-Mork). His disciples come across as a group of third-year clown and mime school dropouts, and the entire film finds them performing little skits, while singing and dancing all over a seemingly vacant New York City (including the roof of the then-unfinished World Trade Center.) Yet even though Godspell obfuscates the gospel and focuses more on the peace, love, and harmony aspects of Jesus' teachings, it still has a vague "Up With People!" feel to it. Still, the songs are infectious (try getting Day By Day out of your head) and Greene succeeds in filming New York City without once ever seeing another living soul (an impressive task).

These images of Christ as temperamental rock star, or foppish song and dance man lasted for years, but were eventually shattered when I came across the larger-than-life epics that set out to truly bring the gospels to the big screen. Films like DeMille's The King of Kings, and George Stevens' The Greatest Story Ever Told. Suddenly the issues got more complex, and the story a bit nastier, but my fascination never waned. Both DeMille and Stevens are guilty of grandiosity, but both films can be tremendously entertaining if you don't get caught up in their zeal. The endless roster of cameo performances in The Greatest Story Ever Told makes it all worthwhile — from Charlton Heston's John the Baptist, to Shelley Winters as a blind woman healed, to John Wayne as the Roman centurion who, with just a single line, gives one of the worst deliveries in all of cinema's history — "Truly, this man was the son of ghaaad." As the years went by, the number of new and interesting Jesus movies declined tremendously. Of course there was the near-masterpiece that is The Last Temptation of Christ, but recent films do little more than play into the hands of a fundamentalist Christian right that is hell-bent on controlling not only this country, but a good chunk of the rest of the planet as well. Mel Gibson's atrocious Jesus-Snuff-Porno was the final straw for me. Fortunately there is DVD and the Internet, where one can track down such long forgotten gems as The Gospel Road (Johnny and June Carter Cash sing us the gospels), and I Saw Jesus Die, a Danish film that is perhaps the only entry in the Jesus-porno genre. Don't ask. Rather than compile a list of the best and worst, I'd love to hear from all of you — what are some of your favorite Jeezy Creezy movies?

Comments

[Duncan]

Noel Vera,

I couldn't get through Hail Mary; it may be the only movie I've ever left before it ended. Jesus of Montreal was better -- the moviemakers had done their homework at least -- but still kinda tedious.

I think my big problem with these movies is that they're all about "Christ" (the pre-existent supernatural being who comes to earth and walks around in a human body, driving it to its death), not "Jesus" (the human body, a first-century Jew about whom we know very little except his death). Since I'm an atheist, I have little interest in pre-existent supernatural beings; I'd rather see a story about the human being. How about a horror film of "The Exorcist" kind -- the human being's terror as the spirit that has possessed him rides him to his death?

In your interesting overview of the Christ movies you wrote, "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." Well, one line asking why he's been forsaken is all he's given in the gospels, after all, and it's dubious -- both Luke and John replaced it with more upbeat versions: in Luke, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit"; in John, he entrusts his mother to the Beloved Disciple's care, says "I'm thirsty" (but solely in order to "fulfil Scripture"; John's Jesus hungers and thirsts only after righteousness); and murmurs, "It is finished." But Mark's and Matthew's Psalm quotation ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the opening line of the 22nd Psalm) may not be authentic either, especially since they both put Jesus' followers a safe distance from the cross.

The gospels' Jesus doesn't suffer very much -- on the contrary, he's a party guy, unlike the ascetic John the Baptist: wine, food, loose wimmin washing his feet with their tears and
drying his feet with their hair, and even on the night of his arrest he was in a rather compromising position with a scantily clad young man (Mark 14.53). He died on the cross rather quickly, compared to most crucifixees, and the cross was (not just according to the gospels but to all these movies) his goal all along, unlike the thousands of other Jews who died on crosses in those days. Unless you're taking the position that for a pre-existent supernatural being, just wearing flesh for thirty years was an ongoing torment, I don't quite see what suffering, physical or emotional, you had in mind.

One of my favorite South Korean movies, "A Single Spark," is about a sweatshop worker, Jeon Tae-Il, who burned himself to death in 1970 as a protest against the awful conditions in which he and his co-workers labored. Check it out if you ever have the chance. Self-immolation is a Buddhist, not a Christian gesture, but what moves me about this movie is that it's about the suffering of real human beings. The suffering of gods, even if they existed, just doesn't bother me much.

[Noel Vera]

Ah, but I suggest in that line you quote what Scorsese, Ferrara, and Woo provide--the psychological state of abandonment and loss the man must have felt. I never suggested the Gospels provided it, or should. That's something a work of fiction, something like The Last Temptation, is better suited to dramatize, don't you think?

I'm not a fan of The Exorcist, incidentally--well made 'boo!' film, I think, is about it. Actually, we don't get much of the girl's point of view, a serious failing I think; she's pretty much a victim, someone forced to do what she does; the demon himself is very sketchily characterized. Give me Rosemary's Baby anytime, where you can see the protagonist/victim's psychological state very clearly, at every point in the film. Even the people around Rosemary (Cassavetes included) are carefully delineated, an excellent and varied shopping list of human evil, I would say.

Gods, demons, humans, I'll empathize with any of em, if the telling is good enough; a 'strictly humans' policy would leave out much of cinema's fantasies, of which Last Temptation could very well be considered a member (if you like).

And yes, Single Spark's very good. Check out Lino Brocka's films, if you can--I believe the director admires his works.

[Duncan]

On gods, I agree with Terry Pratchett's character Granny Weatherwax: even if they exist, believing in them only encourages them.

It seems that you're confusing again the question of who, or what, the Christ story is about. Christ (the supernatural being who descended to earth on a Mission from God) was not abandoned by Yahweh. His goal was the cross all along.

If Jesus (the human being possessed by Christ) knew, as the gospels, Christian theology, and these movies agree he did, that he was supposed to be crucified to die for the sins of humanity, then again there is no reason why he should have felt abandoned -- certainly not by Yahweh, to whom he had a hotline, and not even by his followers, who he knew would fall away at first but later would rally back to the cause. Having the nails driven in would hurt, of course, but look at the rewards: resurrection, sitting at the right hand of Absolute Power (which, we know, corrupts absolutely), and sending the bulk of humanity to Hell to be tortured forever. So where's the abandonment, the loss?

In order to make these stories work, you'd have to find a way to reconcile the Christian claims both that Jesus' crucifixion was Yahweh's plan and act, and that Jesus' crucifixion was a tragic or evil act by human beings, a rejection of his mission and divine status. I don't see any of them doing so. What would have happened if Jesus hadn't been crucified? If Jesus didn't expect to die, then the gospels (and these movies) are serious distortions, even falsifications, of his career, but what *was* he expecting? That Yahweh would send in the troops to prevent his arrest? That all of Israel and the Romans would fall at his feet to adore and follow him? (And if so, where to?)

Again, I don't get any sense of what Jesus' mission otherwise was supposed to be. It doesn't seem that most Jesus fans even understand the question. Certainly these movies don't.

[Buzz]

Unless I overlooked 'em above, I'm surprised no one has mentioned JESUS OF MONTREAL or THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

[Thom]

I don't have a favorite JC movie, Filmbrain. They tend be preachy and usually end the same way. Based on what I've read in this thread I'll give "Last Temptation" a chance though. Have you've seen Zombie Christ ? I'd love to read your thoughts on that.

[Filmbrain]

I've not seen Zombie Christ Thom, but it looks deliciously trashy.

[Noel Vera]

"believing in them only encourages them.
"

That tosses out a lot of great films--Cocteau's Beauty and the Best, Powell's Thief of Bagdad, etc., etc. I can appreciate an aesthetic as stringetn as that, but it's definitely not my style.

"In order to make these stories work, you'd have to find a way to reconcile the Christian claims both that Jesus' crucifixion was Yahweh's plan and act, and that Jesus' crucifixion was a tragic or evil act by human beings, a rejection of his mission and divine status."

But that begs the question--do you need this reconciliation for the story to work? I agree no film has quite done it yet (except Last Temptation puts up the interesting thesis that Christ didn't know, he just got dribbles--like an undercover agent who gets his mission brief in sections, and even when he did get the whole thing, it scared him shitless), but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate their other qualities.

[Noel Vera]

Zombie Christ looks like a lot of fun too, incidentally.

[MINTONmedia]

This thread is SOOOOOO dead...but like JC himself, perhaps an overnight in the cave is all that's needed for resurrection, even if in this case, the "overnight" is almost two years.

I just HAD to, however, tell whoever's out there (Hello? Hello? Hmmm...just echoes) that my favorite JC cinefest wasn't a single film but a double bill that played at a multiplex in Pasadena CA, home of that OTHER religious event, the Rose Parade. This theatre had the wonderful audacity to pair up THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST with a revival of THE LIFE OF BRIAN.

Beat that, he shouted to noboby.