Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ is only the latest in a very long line of celluloid portrayals of Jesus that have, in their turn, aroused controversy, delight, outrage and ridicule.
For more than a century, film makers have attempted to put their particular stamp on the life of Christ, from Cecil B De Mille’s 1927 silent epic King of Kings to Monty Python’s 1979 satire Life of Brian and Martin Scorcese’s sexually charged The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988.
The Jesus filmography, which movie historians date back to 1897, covers every imaginable genre including the 1973 musical Jesus Christ Superstar and even a little known Danish porn film titled The Many Loves of Jesus.
According to Roy Kinnard and Tim Davis, authors of Divine Images: A History of Jesus on the Screen, about 47 actors — among them Max Von Sydow and Willem Dafoe — have taken a crack at the title role, with wildy varying degrees of success.
Jeffrey Hunter, who starred in Nicholas Ray’s 1961 remake of King of Kings, looked so young that the film quickly became known in critics’ circles as I Was a Teenage Jesus.
Some people who saw the original King of Kings later reported seeing the face of the actor who played Jesus, HB Warner, when they prayed.
De Mille’s movie was the first full-scale Hollywood treatment of Jesus and included the memorable image of Mary Magdalene riding a zebra-drawn chariot through the Holy Land — a scene set up by the equally memorable title card: Harness my Zebras!
Just like Gibson nearly 80 years later, De Mille had to confront the issue of Jewish culpability in Christ’s death, and at a time when American society was openly anti-Semitic.
Again like Gibson, De Mille was approached by concerned Jewish groups before the film was even released.
His response was to portray the Roman-appointed Jewish High Priest Caiaphas as a corrupt middleman who acted independently of the Jewish people in conspiring to kill Jesus.
The point is hammered home after the crucifixion scene, when a title card has a terrified Caiaphas praying ”Visit not Thy wrath on Thy people Israel, I alone am guilty.”
”Everybody, from De Mille forward, has been made aware that they are going to have a Jewish issue here,” said Steve Humphries-Brooks, a religious studies professor at Hamilton College who is writing a book titled The Celluloid Saviour.
”Gibson has voiced some surprise that Jewish groups have gone after him, and that amazes me,” Humphries-Brooks said. ”I can’t believe he hadn’t thought about that, unless he’s just oblivious to history — especially film history.”
After Ray’s King of Kings remake, the next and last time Christ was given the epic treatment was in George Stevens’ 1965 effort The Greatest Story Ever Told.
The spiritual impact of the film was undermined by the distracting appearance of a dizzying array of star names in minor roles or cameos — such as crooner Pat Boone, Telly Savalas, Sidney Poitier and, most famously, John Wayne as a centurion at the crucifixion.
Hollywood legend has it that after hearing Wayne say his one line in the movie — ”Truly this man was the son of God” — Stevens suggested he try delivering it with ”more awe.”
Wayne dutifully did the take again, solemnly declaring: ”Awwww, truly this man was the Son of God.”
Prior to Gibson’s The Passion” the most controversial take on Christ’s life was Scorcese’s film which, in countries where it wasn’t banned, provoked angry protests and even bomb threats against theatre owners.
While Christian groups were outraged by its depiction of Jesus struggling with basic human urges like sexual lust, audiences had problems with characters like Harvey Keitel’s Judas speaking with strong Brooklyn accents.
Jesus himself has nearly always been represented as a waspish European rather than the Middle Eastern jew he actually was, with Robert Powell in Franco Zeffereli’s 1977 Jesus of Nazareth setting what remains the blue-eyed standard.
”All the films remain costume dramas in some way,” said Humphries-Brooks. ”They may not have the bad beards of De Mille’s actors, but they adhere to the same underlying fake iconography.”
Humphries-Brooks says he has yet to see a truly satisfying film about Chrsit’s life.
”The mainstream ones coming out of America are really more about America and what America needs to be saved from, rather than trying to represent the Jesus of history,” he said. – Sapa-AFP