.JPG)
Title: Movies - ruining the book since 1920
Design: white slogan and grey graphic on black
Make: Threadless
Cinema is the medium for telling the biggest stories. And there’s been a temptation since film-making began to try and tell the greatest story ever told. Jesus doesn’t get much bigger than on the big screen.
Every film gives us a new cultural take on Jesus. Monty Python tried to do the messiah as comedy, while Martin Scorsese asked ‘what if Christ doubted his divinity?’ Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ contained what was probably the most accurate depiction of the gore of crucifixion ever for cinema-goers just getting into ‘Saw’ movies, while The Da Vinci Code rewrote history by blatantly plagiarising from several ‘alternative historians’. And then there was Dogma, with the Buddy Christ ready to welcome us all into Heaven, even if we are fallen angels.
What does this tell us, this cultural obsession with Jesus? More importantly, how can so many films get it so different? Why do we feel the need to rewrite the story to suit our own ends?
One thing most of those films do is humanise Jesus. Life of Brian, for all it’s faults (and minor blasphemies), does ask the thought-provoking question ‘what if people made a mistake?’ Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ has a very human Jesus tempted to quit and live a normal life. The Da Vinci Code – one example where a film-maker simply couldn’t ruin the book because the book was execrable – again paints a picture of a human Christ.
But those aren’t the only films that somehow seem to get Jesus a little bit wrong. Most of us of a certain age will have watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, with Robert Powell as the good-looking blue-eyed messiah, surrounded by an all-star ensemble cast. Apparently Zeffirelli instructed Robert Powell to try not to blink, to make him stand apart from the other characters and give him an other-worldliness. It works. Watch the movie. It’s a bit creepy.
The ‘Jesus’ evangelistic film follows the same route – an altogether too good-looking chap who seems to float ethereally through the main gospel events. I watched about ten minutes of it, and I have to admit I turned it off out of cringing embarrassment.
About ten years ago I had a row with another church leader who wanted us to go door-to-door offering people the opportunity to watch the Jesus video. I made what I felt was the very valid point that I didn’t feel such an airbrushed view of Jesus with such low production values was going to cut it in the inner city area we were working in. People were used to blockbusters and we were giving them a less-than-great movie.
He challenged me on my negativity – ‘How could I possibly say that people wouldn’t respond. Thousands of people had become Christians as a result of watching it.’ Me, being well-versed in hype, questioned that, and asked if he knew any of these converts, at which point he told me my argument was stupid.
Truth was, we were both arguing from ignorance. But he had seniority and so plans were made to distribute the video. It wasn’t a successful evangelism tool. Hey, sometimes you have to let people learn the hard way. Especially those who have seniority.
But seriously, what I think that film missed is that it was too earnest; too interested in capturing the absolute awesomeness of who Christians claim Jesus to be. In films like that, Jesus has to be ‘different’, ‘other-worldly’, slightly spooky, and what you end up with a borderline-autistic alien proclaiming epithets and coining proverbs at random.
It doesn’t seem to ring true with the earthy Jesus in the Bible. This is the Jesus who frequents the kind of parties that earn disapproving tsks from the holiest people of the day. At one meal, a known prostitute enters the room, weeps over Jesus’s feet and wipes her tears away with her long hair.
That scene sounds embarrassingly intimate just in the one-line summary I’ve given you. She wipes his feet with her hair? You don’t want to watch that. People don’t know where to look. Some people get in a huff. You can read it yourself in Luke 37: 36-50. There’s a similar story in John’s gospel when Mary of Bethany (Lazarus’ sister) does the same sort of thing (John 12: 1-8).
When I read those stories and try to imagine airbrushed, blue-eyed Jesus having that done to him it doesn’t really add up. There’s something deeper going on, as if Jesus takes that intimate – and slightly disturbing – action and transforms it into something beautiful.
The thing is people have seen the airbrushed, gentle, floaty, non-confrontational Jesus of the movies and that’s the Jesus they recognise and ignore. That Jesus doesn’t seem to have anything to say about the harsh realities of, say, getting screwed on your income tax, or putting up with bullies at work, or dealing with judgmental religious hypocrites.
And that I think is where the films get it wrong. Because Jesus talked about tax frequently (e.g. Mark 12:13-17), and how to deal with people who persecute you (e.g. John 15: 18 – 16: 4) and as for religious people… He didn’t have very many nice things to say about them at all!
That Jesus would be an interesting subject for a film. And you wouldn’t have to make up a load of tosh about him getting it on with Mary Magdelene.
Blue-eyed Jesus
Cinema is the medium for telling the biggest stories. And there’s been a temptation since film-making began to try and tell the greatest story ever told. Jesus doesn’t get much bigger than on the big screen.
Every film gives us a new cultural take on Jesus. Monty Python tried to do the messiah as comedy, while Martin Scorsese asked ‘what if Christ doubted his divinity?’ Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ contained what was probably the most accurate depiction of the gore of crucifixion ever for cinema-goers just getting into ‘Saw’ movies, while The Da Vinci Code rewrote history by blatantly plagiarising from several ‘alternative historians’. And then there was Dogma, with the Buddy Christ ready to welcome us all into Heaven, even if we are fallen angels.
What does this tell us, this cultural obsession with Jesus? More importantly, how can so many films get it so different? Why do we feel the need to rewrite the story to suit our own ends?
One thing most of those films do is humanise Jesus. Life of Brian, for all it’s faults (and minor blasphemies), does ask the thought-provoking question ‘what if people made a mistake?’ Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ has a very human Jesus tempted to quit and live a normal life. The Da Vinci Code – one example where a film-maker simply couldn’t ruin the book because the book was execrable – again paints a picture of a human Christ.
But those aren’t the only films that somehow seem to get Jesus a little bit wrong. Most of us of a certain age will have watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, with Robert Powell as the good-looking blue-eyed messiah, surrounded by an all-star ensemble cast. Apparently Zeffirelli instructed Robert Powell to try not to blink, to make him stand apart from the other characters and give him an other-worldliness. It works. Watch the movie. It’s a bit creepy.
The ‘Jesus’ evangelistic film follows the same route – an altogether too good-looking chap who seems to float ethereally through the main gospel events. I watched about ten minutes of it, and I have to admit I turned it off out of cringing embarrassment.
About ten years ago I had a row with another church leader who wanted us to go door-to-door offering people the opportunity to watch the Jesus video. I made what I felt was the very valid point that I didn’t feel such an airbrushed view of Jesus with such low production values was going to cut it in the inner city area we were working in. People were used to blockbusters and we were giving them a less-than-great movie.
He challenged me on my negativity – ‘How could I possibly say that people wouldn’t respond. Thousands of people had become Christians as a result of watching it.’ Me, being well-versed in hype, questioned that, and asked if he knew any of these converts, at which point he told me my argument was stupid.
Truth was, we were both arguing from ignorance. But he had seniority and so plans were made to distribute the video. It wasn’t a successful evangelism tool. Hey, sometimes you have to let people learn the hard way. Especially those who have seniority.
But seriously, what I think that film missed is that it was too earnest; too interested in capturing the absolute awesomeness of who Christians claim Jesus to be. In films like that, Jesus has to be ‘different’, ‘other-worldly’, slightly spooky, and what you end up with a borderline-autistic alien proclaiming epithets and coining proverbs at random.
It doesn’t seem to ring true with the earthy Jesus in the Bible. This is the Jesus who frequents the kind of parties that earn disapproving tsks from the holiest people of the day. At one meal, a known prostitute enters the room, weeps over Jesus’s feet and wipes her tears away with her long hair.
That scene sounds embarrassingly intimate just in the one-line summary I’ve given you. She wipes his feet with her hair? You don’t want to watch that. People don’t know where to look. Some people get in a huff. You can read it yourself in Luke 37: 36-50. There’s a similar story in John’s gospel when Mary of Bethany (Lazarus’ sister) does the same sort of thing (John 12: 1-8).
When I read those stories and try to imagine airbrushed, blue-eyed Jesus having that done to him it doesn’t really add up. There’s something deeper going on, as if Jesus takes that intimate – and slightly disturbing – action and transforms it into something beautiful.
The thing is people have seen the airbrushed, gentle, floaty, non-confrontational Jesus of the movies and that’s the Jesus they recognise and ignore. That Jesus doesn’t seem to have anything to say about the harsh realities of, say, getting screwed on your income tax, or putting up with bullies at work, or dealing with judgmental religious hypocrites.
And that I think is where the films get it wrong. Because Jesus talked about tax frequently (e.g. Mark 12:13-17), and how to deal with people who persecute you (e.g. John 15: 18 – 16: 4) and as for religious people… He didn’t have very many nice things to say about them at all!
That Jesus would be an interesting subject for a film. And you wouldn’t have to make up a load of tosh about him getting it on with Mary Magdelene.
Pauline tried to comment, but couldn't so messaged me instead - here's her comment.
ReplyDeleteHi, Jon,
I tried to post a comment- but I can't seem to get the hang of these accounts Google account .etc.. I tried to set one up- and all I got was a Google Chrome icon on my desktop, but still can't post comments!!!!
Anyway- this is what I said-
"Quote- "When I read those stories and try to imagine airbrushed, blue-eyed Jesus having that done to him it doesn’t really add up. There’s something deeper going on, as if Jesus takes that intimate – and slightly disturbing – action and transforms it into something beautiful."
I agree with this! I don't know if this anything I say is a valid comment, as, apart from going to Bible Study and helping a theological student structure his assignments, I have no qualification in theology.
People would not have been drawn to a slightly autistic spooky Jesus. I feel that Jesus in his human form would represent all that is positive in normal human emotion.(Note I say FEEL- I can't prove or argue from a theological standpoint.)
He got angry- but it was valid anger. He didn't convey the message, "anger is BAD." He showed that anger is valid on behalf of others, whether they had been judged by the hypocritical, or set up stalls in the temple to do their dodgy deals in God's House. Not only that, as we learned at Bible study- the outer courts where the traders had set up stalls were the only place where the gentiles could go, at that point, to worship. Jesus was also angry that the "den of thieves" had defiled the only place permitted for these people to meet with God.
He was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton because he enjoyed relaxing with friends. I can picture him smiling and relaxing and enjoying being with friends. He showed the value of just "being" and saw listening and conversation as a "gift" as much as "doing". He challenged the po-faced assumption that you have to be grim faced and rushing round like Martha all the time, to avoid being labelled as "lazy"!
I can picture Jesus with twinkling BROWN eyes, and dark Jewish looks, having a line in gentle humour. As you so rightly say, he was and IS concerned about the ordinary, worrying things that concern people- tax returns..etc... He can't have floated through his earthly life, unblinkingly detached from the concerns of ordinary people.
It wasn't only by his sacrifice on the cross that he redeemed us. As you so rightly point out, he changes things that seem "wrong" and embarrassing to those whose hearts are set in the stone of hrash, judgemental religion, and makes them into something beautiful. Therefore, I see a redemptive process going on throughout Jesus life on earth.
It is a far cry from the portrayls in the films.
Pauline