Professor David Peimer
Portrayal of Jesus in Film

Professor David Peimer | Portrayals of Jesus in Film | 05.07.22

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

- So, welcome everybody, and hope everyone is well. And hope enjoying spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and I guess May in the Southern. So going to look today at a couple of movies and the ways that Jesus has been portrayed in a very contemporary way. And what I’m going to do is I’ve just chosen a few. Rather go into a little bit more depth than a sort of brief skimming over sort of shopping list of a whole lot of films of portrayals of Christ. But looking at just the ways of staging and interpreting and presenting the story and obviously the character of Christ in contemporary film, which is a huge difference naturally from whatever of the original story remains, or even a vague attempt at trying any historical accuracy, ‘cause it’s nonsense, or even a vague attempt at some sort of realistic sense. It’s obviously, you know, the story of a fairly imagined fiction. And it’s obviously the story of a remarkable individual who probably lived in those times. At the same time, how the story is told 2,000 years later is going to, by necessity, be an imagined fiction.

So I’m not going to get into the historical imagined fiction debate because I don’t think it really, you know, I don’t think one can. And I think it’s a red herring, to be frank. What really matters is how is the story become myth, and how is that myth represented or portrayed in films for us today, given the extraordinary power of film and what it will do. I’m going to look at the Zeffirelli film “Jesus of Nazareth,” or based on the TV, the six and a half hour TV series. Then a little bit on the remarkable, for me, fascinating Pasolini film on the story according to the gospel. Then a little bit on “The Passion of the Christ,” the Mel Gibson. Whatever one thinks, and it’s highly controversial film, one cannot ignore. This has been seen by millions and millions, so many millions of people around the world. One cannot ignore the extraordinary popularity, not only how much money it made, obviously, but the extraordinary popularity of Mel Gibson and what he’s doing to get such an audience with “The Passion of the Christ.” Then I’m going to look at lastly, Scorsese’s, for me, fascinatingly brilliant, “The Last Temptation of Christ.” And Scorsese’s film, and a little bit of a couple of other films which I’m going to throw in, and I can’t resist a scene from the “Life of Brian,” obviously.

Okay, so there’s also “Jesus of Montreal” and “Risen” and one or two others that we’ll very briefly touch on. So I want you to approach this with a sense of profundity and a sense of enjoyment, as well, because there’s something for me, obviously as a theater and film and music person and culture, there’s something of a way of looking at how do we take remarkable figures, mythical, historical, a mixture of the two, and how do we portray them in theater, film, and so on. Going back to Agamemnon or Achilles or Oedipus, whether they existed or not. Oedipus, they exist or they didn’t exist. Does it matter? A Caesar, an Alexander, and of course, coming into the far more contemporary times, you know, with some of the great historical figures of the 19th, 20th, 18th, whatever, centuries, our own times. And it’s fascinating because theater and film obviously have the license.

We give it the artistic license to portray these individuals in the way that the interpreter wishes, the writer, the director, with the aesthetics, the choices and the detail, from the costume to the visual image to the accent of the actor to the choice of who is the actor, and the image. So all of this is manipulated choice and manipulated in the best sense of the word, not the pejorative or colloquial sense of the word. And for me it’s about these are imagined stories, these are myths which have been told generation after generation. And they have such power in the collective imagination of the Western consciousness. This story obviously, probably one of the most powerful of all, if not the most powerful, in the Western imagination. So it becomes very important. How on earth is it told? And very, it’s credibly significant. How do we understand it? How does it reach through the imagination straight into the conscious or the unconscious of so many millions, certainly in the western part of the world? And this is what is so important for me, because it dictates behavior, it dictates social decisions, it dictates understandings of justice, of reality, of how do we frame the narrative of our times?

I mean, what’s going on in the Supreme Court at the moment. Obviously, the abortion debates all around religion. The rise of the religious right in America, the rise of nationalism in England through Brexit and other things, and parts of Europe and elsewhere. The rise of these forces cannot be denied. They are the shadow which is looming bigger and bigger in our own times, which is of course the reaction to the Enlightenment and the triumph or partial triumph of reason, rationality, science. And now as science and the Enlightenment recede back into the ocean, the wave is coming. It’s come all the way onto the shore, and now it’s going way back. So it becomes, for me, very important how we have a sense of how the majority in the Western world have an image of this, have an interpretation of the myth they put at the core of their existence so often. There cannot ever be, this idea of purity is, for me, nonsense. There never was a pure image of a Christ, a Caesar, whoever one chooses, an Oedipus, Agamemnon, whatever. There never was a purity of any for me. I think that in itself is one of the most dangerous myths of all, that once upon a time there was a pure Dumbo the elephant who had big ears. Once upon a time there was a pure whoever, wherever.

That is, I think it creates such a dangerous binary, this notion of purity because it is the ally of the notion of superior-inferior. So what’s much more interesting to me is not the question of purity, but the notion of how and why does it strike such a chord that it goes in and it becomes a way of to help people tell the stories. You know, when you look at cathedrals in parts of Italy and Europe and elsewhere and you see the story of Christ, you see the paintings in cathedrals, in churches, and it’s almost like storybook. It’s like story time. And you imagine before people were allowed to read or had the access to reading and writing, not only Gutenberg, but had the access to education and could read or write, they would go into a church and they’d see the story on the window. So it’s almost like storybook, comic book, whatever, you know, animated fiction. So you can see the stories on the windows of cathedrals and churches. What do we see in the synagogue, in the mosque, whatever? But it strikes me that the importance of painting on the windows and the importance of paintings and drawn pictures is part of the way of retelling this ancient mythical story. And today, of course we have film, we have TV, internet, obviously.

These are always for me of using the ancient theater technique and the human nature technique of storytelling, to turn what might have been, probably was a reality, into a myth, and how that storytelling becomes the most powerful means of going all the way down thousands of years in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam, and many other religions, wherever. And it’s that, the heart of it all, which is one of the reasons for me why I believe so profoundly in theater and film is because it’s storytelling. It’s simple storytelling and simplified to a degree or simple capturing complexities in order to speak to generation after generation over thousands of years. Okay, and also having just come through obviously Pesach and Easter, we’re the ones sitting and eating chocolate in front of a TV, watching the good old Easter movies and the stories of Christ yet again, all of the Pesach stories and, you know, all of them yet again, and having a lot of family fun or whatever way one has been engaging. One cannot ignore it.

And I guess because it touches on such a, such an electric chord of religion, that not only how storytelling and religion work together, but also how storytelling is used and needed by religion in order to set the message through, get it through. So I want to begin with a brief interview with Zeffirelli, and this is of the 1977 TV, six and a half hour TV series he made called “Jesus of Nazareth.” And what Zeffirelli does, and what, I’m going to show a little bit of the interview where he talks about the choice of the one scene, the resurrection scene, because obviously Christianity and the whole story of Christianity, it absolutely rests on the resurrection. If that ain’t real, then you know, the whole thing kind of falls apart. So, and he talks about as a filmmaker, how do you tell that story of a resurrection in a film so that the audience will buy it?

[Clip begins]

(Zeffirelli speaking in foreign language)

So for me.

• And on the third day will rise again from the dead to enter his glory. You are my witnesses to this. Now my father in heaven is reconciled to the world, and as he sent me, so I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit. Don’t be afraid.

[Clip ends]

• I will be with you wherever you go. Don’t be afraid, I will be with you.

So what Zeffirelli already has chosen in the end is the film is all about the story of faith and the questioning, the doubting of faith, having faith, what is it to have faith as a human being, whether you believe in the Messiah or not, or the stories and so on. What he’s boiled it down to is the story of faith. And he’s obsessed with how, and it all comes through the questioning of the resurrection scene, because do you portray it like he says, the one time? He looks like Maria Callas, you know, in that white robe. He looks ridiculous. Then another one, do you portray the resurrection, this guy coming out of the tomb? Do you portray this guy just walking out of the cave? Do you portray the usual, you know, light and the shining white light, and you know, do you have stirring music and bit of thunder maybe or whatever, or the sun? What do you do? So these are all very practical questions which is classic for a filmmaker, theater maker, whoever.

You know, how do you find the practical solution to the conceptual? And you always, in a way, seesaw in-between the two. And then the conceptual question, it dawns on him. Why does he come back, this story of this guy that comes back after death? And is it because, does the story need God to do it? Does the guy do it himself? Is there some other force? What is it? And in the end it goes back to the very question for Zeffirelli, why on earth tell the story? Why on earth do this film? Besides being intrigued by the story of Christ, so on and so on. And I think he hits on something which is profound, and I think which is so important and provocative in our own times, is the story of faith. Faith in what? Belief in what? And when you look at the whole film again, I mean, I didn’t re-watch the six and a half hours, but I watched sections of it again.

But you see everything turns around question of faith and belief in one’s self, in one’s own immediate thoughts and ideas, and the eternal shadow of doubt. And the whole film, he re-edits the entire film coming out of this question of how to film and stage the resurrection scene around this very question. It’s Job, of course it’s Judas, and it’s Christ and so on, and there’s Pontius Pilate. All the rest of the story is there. But at the heart what drives it is that one simple word: faith. Believe in me and you’ll be okay. Don’t be afraid. But the character has to have that faith. And, you know, it’s almost at times, it’s too reverent, this film. It’s over, full of excessive reverence for our times in the 21st century. But it does, for me, touch the chord at the heart of it all. And I think this is a very 20th, 21st century notion, this idea of faith in a religious context and in a normal human context, in what? When everything seems equalized today, in our age, in our times, whether we make a million or whether we go on a holiday or whether, you know, so many things are equalized in these times that we live in, in the transactional times, that where is the role of faith in what? Belief in what? Education? Love? Compassion? Ruthlessness? Envy? In what? What are the core values that one chooses in a way?

So I think Zeffirelli at times goes overboard and becomes ridiculously reverent, but he also tries to stick to that key idea, and it comes out in the interview. And the other point in the interview is the discussion around, you know, how do you create mystery in film when the film is full of factual decisions and questions? You know, what costume, what lighting? All the things that go into it. Okay, a little bit about the '77, I’m calling it a movie, 'cause although it was a TV piece in the end, it almost runs and is made like a long six-hour movie. Robert Powell played the main part, as you can see. And Zeffirelli cast him because of his blue eyes, and he thought the blue eyes and even the hair, you know, all of this is almost ahistorical. This image of Christ goes all the way back to the paintings we know. It goes back in so many ways. Why? You know, there’s so many reasons one can argue for why. 'Cause when you look at film you can normally get the decade it was made immediately. You just look at the hairstyle and you look at the shoes. The first two things I ever look at. Shoes, hairstyle, and you get the decade immediately.

But with the Christ films, it’s a little more tricky because it’s so full of all those paintings that we know, there’s thousands of paintings, you know, which always has this kind of image like a Robert Powell one. So Robert Powell went through a nightmare because he decided how on earth do you act the Messiah? How do you on earth do you act this character who believes he’s the Messiah or not? Doesn’t matter. For the film and the story to hold, he’s got to believe it. He’s got to have faith that he actually is. And that’s why at the end this notion of faith, believe in me, this image, this absolute conviction, finally have faith, coming back after the resurrection. What he decided in the acting, which will make you laugh, is to never blink. And this has become a trademark for many actors, not only in in stories of Christ, but in many other films. If you watch Michael Caine and watch a whole lot of others, when they blink and when they don’t, it’s all calculated. 'Cause, you know, you can shoot a shot in a couple of seconds and then, you know, end that and go on to the next. He doesn’t ever blink.

Now this is filmed in Tunisia and Morocco in the boiling heat. Can you imagine trying not to blink for a scene and for a take, and how hard it is and how sore it is on the eye muscles. So a lot of the internal life that we are feeling, this conviction of faith, is the actor desperately trying so hard to not blink, which gives that impression, when we try it ourselves, it’ll give the impression to the observer that I’m really believing so strongly in what I’m doing. And it’s simply a technique of not blinking. And Robert Powell talks a lot about it. Okay, that’s enough. But he became so convincing because of that faith, that belief in not blinking, that sometimes the crew would actually stop swearing and stop doing what they were doing. They became so absorbed in his acting. The movie, the script is written by Zeffirelli together with Anthony Burgess. We all know him of “Clockwork Orange” fame. With with a remarkable cast. Laurence Olivier, James Earl Jones, Anne Bancroft, Peter Ustinov, and so on. The agony and the conviction to not blink is how he found his way into acting.

What it really does achieve, this movie, is a pretty good balance between the biography of Jesus and the political and social context of the story. And that’s the achievement of Zeffirelli, is to pull the two together. The political and social context is given in a pretty even-handed way together with the biography. There’s no lightning bolts. There are no marching Roman legions. No earthquakes, floods. There’s no special effect. And what Zeffirelli sacrifices in showbiz he makes up for with the human impact. It’s a subtle human inner emotion around the question of faith and belief. It seems in an era where we have electronic prophets who use TV and internet talk shows as the pulpit in the era that we live in, where religion is obviously the industry, this almost simple but direct approach of Zeffirelli seems very bereft of gimmicks and special effects by trying to get inside the humanity of the character. Yet it was still accused of being controversial. It was attacked, and you can imagine all sorts of responses to it by the fundamentalists.

The movie was so denounced that it scared off General Motors. General Motors was one of the main sponsors of the film. They’d already sunk, this is in the seventies, they’d already sunk $3 million into the budget, and they pulled out. Proctor and Gamble stepped in, interestingly enough, and they put in the money that GM had taken out. But then they were faced with a big decision, because it was a TV series. Where do you put the commercials for the religious, you know, the people who believe in it, where do you put the commercials? Because you’ve got six and a half hours of TV film. So enormous discussions, and it’s fascinating to go into amongst the directors of Proctor Gamble. And they decided to choose up to 50 consumer products that they had. But when do you put which one in? And I’ll just give you one example. They decided that the Charmin bathroom tissue, it would be okay to, that wouldn’t be okay to interrupt the Sermon of the Mount, but it would be okay to put in Mr. Whipple. Okay?

These are very important decisions taken by the board. Where do you put Mr. Whipple advert? Where do you put the bathroom tissue adverts? For the 50 products that they wanted to sell in the six and half hour TV series. By the way, they picked it up at a bargain rate once GM had pulled out, because GM, of course, broke their contract. Okay, the other thing that Zeffirelli refuses, he refuses the fire and brimstone approach to biblical narratives. That’s huge. Cecil B. DeMille and many others, he shies away from it and sticks with the human story. He shows a fascinating landscape of human faces. And as I said, the social historical context. Jesus does not walk on water in six and a half hours of Zeffirelli. Jesus does not turn water into wine. We don’t see any of all of that. A very different story around belief and faith. He doesn’t try for modern parallels. He tries to simply find the humanity inside that story. He also wanted to avoid the sort of booming voice of God from the heavens. And so he often gives John the Baptist, or other characters, God’s lines.

When you look at the original text, you know, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” He gives John the Baptist that line. Now, in the original, in the Bible, that’s God’s line. Stealing God’s line? That’s not acceptable. You can imagine the clergy and their response. You cannot steal God’s line and put it into the line of a human. You know, like John the Baptist. Never mind actors stealing each other’s lines. This is big stuff we’re talking about. There’s an aura of spirituality, and that’s what he ends here the resurrection scene. And the spirituality, for me, and I don’t think it’s sentimental. I think he avoids sentiment. But it does come from the human heart of compassion. He understands that faith is going to involve a bit of compassion and forgiveness, a little bit of that part of the story. And yes, we know it does go back to ancient Judaism and many other, you know, and and so-called pagan religions of the times. You know, these questions are forgiveness, compassion, they’re not suddenly brand-new. But how do you tell it in the story? The storytelling, again.

One of the most remarkable moments is when you see Jesus on the cross and you see Powell’s body almost slumped, and you have the classic images of the nails puncture the hands. I’m not going to show it now. Robert Powell, to show his commitment as a method actor, as an actor, starved himself for 12 days, where he only ate a bit of cheese in order to create that almost skeletal physical effect for the final, the crucifixion scene, and the last couple of scenes. So that’s why he looks so skeletal, battered and undernourished. Zeffirelli initiated using the handheld camera for this, and how he jumped from intimate closeups to long shots to show the perspective of the crowd and the perspective of the main character. So by interplaying with both, you get the sense of the broader historical era as well as the human story, and by not having a single gimmick of the ones I’ve mentioned. Robert Powell really hurt himself in a lot, in the crucifixion, in many of the other scenes, because he was trying so hard, in a way.

But it’s perhaps the use of the blink technique, if you like, that helped him the most, whether we buy it or not. So in the end, Zeffirelli’s trying to mix the divine with the human. And it’s so hard when you look at biblical art of any kind, and I would say of any religion, we look at the movies, whether, you know, again, any of the big religions coming out of the Middle East, how do you actually tell these biblical stories when you’re trying to mix something of the divine and the human? And that’s part of what he’s trying to, he’s is at least giving a really good stab at, for me, Zeffirelli. When you see Christ talking to the crowd, Sermon on the Mount and others, you see the crowd debating amongst themselves. What’s he talking about? But not just in the Monty Python way. They’re trying to say, well, this is nonsense. Real? What do you mean, suffer all the children and so on? Okay, so there’s something inconclusive, not only in the risen Jesus image and the resurrection, but inconclusive in the question of faith in religion itself, in a god, any god itself. This is not a perfect imagined image of Jesus.

There is doubt and inconclusion all the time, hence I’m showing this last picture so much, because finally the Christ figure reaches that point. Don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you. It’s okay. Well, anybody could be saying that. A father, a brother, a partner, a mother, a sister, anybody. So it’s, I think that he does break with the tradition of the Cecil B. DeMille and all those other, you know, huge spectacles, if you like, in trying to find something that turns from either spectacles or meticulous adaptation of the so-called original story. He turns all of it ultimately into a theological question about faith. And the final image of “Jesus of Nazareth” is the empty tomb. And, of course, it reinforces again. Did it happen? Didn’t it? Is it real? Isn’t it? It leaves the audience open, even after this image of Robert Powell’s eyes. Okay, I’m going to go onto Pasolini and “The Gospel According to St. Matthew.” The '64, for me, this is the most interesting film ever made about the story of Christ, the most remarkable film. And it’s remarkable because he uses the gospel according to St. Matthew. That’s the title of the movie.

So, it’s from that perspective that the story is told. And Pasolini shot the film in three villages in an impoverished southern Italian area in the region of Basilicata, excuse my pronunciation. And he used mostly non-professional actors. A lot of the actors that you’re going to see were obviously young Italians. But also in the sequence I’m going to show after this, they were Spanish students who had fled a lot of the nightmare that was going on in fascist Franco Spain at the time, and he put a whole lot of them into the film, as well. He used ordinary people mostly. And Pasolini mixes that, a kind of a realism, with subtle references to the old painting masters of Italy in particular and Byzantine art. And the music is as varied, from the Bach, “Mass in B minor,” to the gospel of Blind Willie Johnson, and many, many others. Incredible choice of music and image. And he’s so aware of the legacy of Italian painting around all the religious themes.

There is a political emphasis in Pasolini, but it is swamped not by trying to, like Zeffirelli, to show the historical and social era so much, but it’s rather, it’s swamped by a remarkable ability to use the camera to show humanity in all its form, from the humanity’s glory to humanity’s worst, the best and the worst of humanity. And it’s an amazing achievement that in the end is what drives the film. It’s not about faith or even in religion so much. For me, it’s much more. We see every aspect of humanity in the way that he uses the camera to show the face, to show the image, and to show human beings and what you can actually do with a camera and amazing music. It’s not preachy either in any way, and it’s not infused with all the other stuff of doubt and so on. And for me that creates a way that almost transcends the story of Christ. He’s actually, ultimately, Pasolini is fascinated much more about the history of painting in Italy and color and light and shape and the human form and the human image, and to show humanity in all its form. That for me is Pasolini’s obsession, which transcends the original story itself. And for this, I want to show this piece here, which I’m going to show. This goes on here, and you see this is Bach, what he can do with Bach and a whole lot of Spanish students who have fled Franco.

[Clip begins]

♪ Music plays ♪

[Clip ends]

Okay, for me, this is one of the great works of art. This is 1964 and it’s still, for me, it’s so evocative, so gently emotional, and just pulls you right into the sheer humanity of what this filmmaker is doing. You know, it reminds me a bit of Kieślowski, the way he used the camera. “Three Colours Blue” and some of the other of Kieślowski’s film where the camera is almost like a human with you, and you almost, you’re there with the people, and you’re taken almost into the screen, and you’re with these individuals, so close to them, as opposed to the camera merely being more of an observer. The camera’s more like a participant and almost swimming and moving with you. It’s an amazing way of understanding how to use the camera and how to tell a story basically. You know, going back to the basic idea that I wanted to get at. Okay, the other scenes from Pasolini, there’s the donkey scene here, but I’m going to hold on that for the moment for a bit of time. But you’ll get a similar sense. It’s less about the story of Christ than getting on the donkey and going into Jerusalem. It’s more, you know, ordinary bunch of ordinary people, climbs on a donkey, gets the donkey, gets on it and goes in. Fascinating.

You know, that’s what he’s doing. The very ordinariness of the humans involved in this big story. We have the story of, we have “Risen,” the 2016, very interesting film where Joseph Fiennes plays Clavius, the Roman centurion, who is sent by Pontius Pilate to make sure that Christ’s body stays where it is and that it’s guarded. Nobody can steal it and claim that he’s risen. That’s the premise of the whole story. And, of course, it doesn’t go to plan. Christ comes out and then we follow the story through the eyes of the Roman centurion and how he changes, to start to believe in, at least question some of his own ideas and believe in some of the ideas of Christianity. And this is, the idea of Roman soldiers seeing the light, as it were, that’s a very powerful theme, 'cause you can think of the Second World War, we can think of many others, characters who are too a part of the oppressive fascist state, in this case the Romans, but yet something turns them, and the story becomes their story as opposed to the story of the oppressed. So the story of the Roman soldier, and that is such a powerful way of telling the story of the victim. And you know, it’s influenced by the Hollywood movies, “The Robe” in '53, the 1987 film, “The Inquiry,” but the Roman soldier is first on a hunt for the missing body to return it, 'cause that’s his, he’s got to follow his order from Pontius Pilate. But then he starts to get turned by the disciples and Christ coming back, and the story, and he changes. So, but what’s interesting in this film “Risen,” 2016, is that the Roman soldiers are not actually shown, all of them, as heartless, as heartless fascists. There’s quite a bit of variation and subtlety in the showing of it. The problem is that after about halfway through, the movie just becomes imbued with the Christian ideals. And once the Flavius, the Clavius character starts to believe in it, you get swept up in the old problem of biblical narrative, which is reverence for the idea and reverence for the story instead of storytelling. And, of course, you get amazing, perfect British accents and all the others. “Jesus of Montreal,” that 1989 film, is fascinating as well. And I’m sure many know it. I’m not going to go into it now. It’s basically a theater troupe. A bunch of theater actors are getting imbued by, again, the reverence, and that’s the problem with the movie. When it gets seduced by the reverence of the message, for me, any biblical narrative loses its authenticity. For me, any religion. Okay, I’m going to show this from “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson, 2000 foreign film, which is basically just about the 10 hours before Christ is crucified. And why can’t I get it up? There. This is the trailer.

[Clip plays]

Okay, we’re back to lightning, that Zeffirelli was trying to avoid, and all that. Why has this, from the trailer you get the idea of how the film is made, how the story is told. Why, for me is the question, has this film not only raked in hundreds of millions of dollars, it really has, but been seen by millions and millions? This has been seen by more people in terms of the story of Christ than all, any other story, than any other movie about the Christ story. Why? He only tells the last 10 hours before Christ’s death. So it focuses on the horror of Christ’s torture and death. It’s basically, it, you know, it’s about a hundred minutes of a slow torture and the body to death. It’s actually about the body. The focus is not on Christian message of compassion, forgiveness or love or anything. The focus is on the gruesome gore, blood and guts, action/adventure stuff. Yes, techniques, and the sheer horror, the horror movie techniques as well, inside it also. Horror movie, action movie, blood and gore guts of the story. And anything about compassion, all the other stuff is pretty much left out. It’s the extreme cruelty and violence that is the focus. Why in the 20th century, the late 20th century or 21st century, why would this strike a chord with so many people? Yes, it has horror movie genre, action movie genre, all techniques are inside it, in the storytelling and movie making. And I think it’s because it’s, a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s about the body and how the body is so mangled, tortured, distorted. The body has become the center of so much performance in our times. Less about the voice of God, the image of a God, the this, the that or anything else. But the human body so destroyed, so distorted, so violently abused, attacked, just bloodied in every way. That that should strike such a chord with so many millions who flock to watch it. And it fascinates me that the blood bath of the body has become such a predominant image in our times. Look at what we’re seeing on TV. Look at the internet, look at wherever else. What really draws people in? You can see some of the messianic, some of the heroic, some of those images and the music and all of that is of course feeding those aspects of it. But it’s the ultra violence is actually what is capturing. So, living in a Western culture of regulated, almost perhaps anesthetized, perhaps parts of daily life. Why is it that’s such extreme violence in a film should be so appealing to so many millions and millions and millions that they’re going to pay their dollars, pounds, euros, whatever, to go and watch it? I think the answer may be fairly obvious. He also uses the so-called dead languages, as I’m sure you know. The Aramaic, the Latin, et cetera, you know, to try and give a so-called fake authenticity in a way. The anti-Semitic question, I’m not going to avoid it. It’s inside it. And it does show a collaboration of Pharisees, it does show the Jewish mob being manipulated in the way they show deference to the Roman council. It shows the Romans as culpable, as well. It shows Christ caught in the middle by the Jewish elders. It does show Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, as far more guilty in terms of the crucifixion and all of that than Pontius Pilate or any of the Romans. So there is something of that. Even the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said that it was almost, and I’m quoting them, almost monolithically malevolent, almost monolithically malevolent in the portrayal of Caiaphas. So the horror movie convention, the reason why it also I think grabbed such an audience and made so much money, it’s a spectacle of the grotesque, ultimately. We’re back to the ancient Roman amphitheater. Give the people bread and circus, and in the circus, give them as much violence, blood and gore and you’ll keep them quiet. It’s as ancient as the Roman’s amphitheater and all the other, the techniques that he’s using. It’s a spectacle of the grotesque with horror movie convention and a bit of action movie and other stuff thrown in. So I, but it’s important to see it and to know it because then we can get a sense of the zeitgeist of what’s going on in the imagination of so many millions of people around the Western world. Okay, I’m going to go on to the last one I’m choosing, is Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ.” Oh, sorry, it’s here. The resurrection scene is totally different.

[Clip begins]

• [Onlooker] I know you. I saw you with him.

• [Peter] You must be mistaken. It wasn’t me. It must have been someone else.

• [Onlooker] No, I’m right. He is one of his followers.

• [Peter] He’s doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

• [Onlooker] He is one of his followers.

• [Onlooker] It’s him. Get him!

• [Onlooker] It’s him!

[Clip ends]

• Okay, and then I’m going to play, the last one I’m going to show before just talking a little bit about Scorsese’s version. This is from Scorsese’s film. Willem Defoe playing Christ, having a conversation, obviously before, obviously all the crucifixion in the other scenes. And it’s all about doubt of faith and what on earth is he doing? Fascinating. It’s all God wants from me, I’m sure of it.

[Clip begins]

• But think of how you’re blessed. God actually makes himself known to you. I don’t know what God wants from me. All my life I’ve wanted to hear God’s voice. I’ve dedicated my life to him. Sometimes I think I feel him, but I’m never really sure. But you always know. God took you by the hand and brought you here.

• [Jesus] You think it’s a blessing to know what God wants? I’ll tell you what he wants. He wants to push me over. Can’t he see what’s inside of me? All my sins?

• [Disciple] We all sin.

• [Jesus] Not my sins. I’m a liar, a hypocrite. I’m afraid of everything. I don’t ever tell the truth. I don’t have the courage. When I see a woman, I blush and look away. I want her, but I don’t take her, for God. And that makes me proud. And then my pride ruins Magdalene. I don’t steal, I don’t fight, I don’t kill. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m afraid. I want to rebel against you, against everything, against God, but I’m afraid. You want to know who my mother and father are? You want to know who my god is? Fear. You look inside me and that’s all you’ll find.

• So what we have here.

• [Disciple] But the more devils that we have inside.

[Clip ends]

• What we have here, for Scorsese, he’s much more interested in Christ’s inner struggle. What does God want from me? I don’t even know if I believe it. He wants to push me over the edge. He’s setting me up for a job that I’m not even interested in. I don’t even know if I can do it. I don’t have the courage, I don’t have the faith, I don’t have the guts for it. He’s interested in Christ’s inner role, in his struggle, much more than his worldly role, that he’s this figure come from heaven, the Messiah, to change the world and deliver the messages. It’s a fascinatingly brilliant twist. He’s not coming from a worldly perspective or even a Messianic perspective, but from a New York guy perspective. I don’t know if I want this job. I don’t know if I’m even cut out for it. I don’t have the courage. This God guy is going to push me over the edge, drive me crazy. It’s an image of a character who’s weary, self doubting. He’s not always willing to carry the souls of all men and humankind on his shoulders.

At times when he seems not to know what to believe, Son of God or not, this job that he’s been asked to do, he rebukes his mother, he rebukes the memory of Joseph, he berates followers, he confides mostly in Judas, played by Harvey Keitel, who in this, in Scorsese, Judas is a good guy who’s just following orders, just following instructions given by God. What can you do? Not much choice. It’s a re-imagining by the writer, of Nikos Kazantzakis, sorry, the pronunciation. But it’s a novel about this where, you know, I’m given a job, an order. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t if I can carry it out. You can imagine the fundamentalist response. Eventually in the film, Jesus sides with the rebels, but that doesn’t provide him with any respite for his insecurities and his misgivings. He’s eternally at war with himself like Hamlet, like Scorsese, I’m sure with his own Catholicism and himself as a human being. He’s at war with his every impulse, challenges his mind. He’s filled with lust for Mary. He’s distrustful of the pleasures of the flesh, but he craves the pleasures of the flesh. He screams at the top of the crucifix. He wants to be a good son and fulfill the purpose, but he’s confused, he’s frustrated at the demands that have been made of him by a God he can’t even see.

It’s a daringly imperfect protagonist. Jesus is much more a Christian of today than Christ the man. He’s tortured by the conviction that God has given him a job that he just doesn’t want. He doesn’t know if he’s got the courage for it. He doesn’t know if he’s cut out for it. What on earth is he going to do? And that’s the obsession of Scorsese, not about fighting a political system, not starting a whole new religion, not about endless conversations with divinity or assumed belief in divinity. And that’s a remarkable achievement. For me, Scorsese and Pasolini, they win hands down. And the one giving us such a contemporary approach and the other giving us such an almost, I’m going to use this word, but timeless artistic interpretation. Storytelling yet again. And the question always, how do we tell the story? And that for me is the most important thing when we look at these ways of showing the story of Jesus, you know, of this guy caught up. And the amazing thing that I would always celebrate is the artistic choice. And yes, I’ll include Mel Gibson. Whether it’s Gibson or whoever, you know, the freedom to choose whatever way to tell the story, from Moses to Jesus, Einstein to whoever we want, of these remarkably, unbelievably huge iconic figures of human history. Okay, thanks very much everybody.

Q&A and Comments

• [Lauren] David, do you have time to take a few questions?

• Yeah, sure. Okay, Julian. “Go Liverpool.” Thank you. I know. It’s all coming for Liverpool. You know, the quadruple and so on. Susan. “Jesus Christ Superstar.” I know, we could go on, and I was going to do some of it, but when I watched it again in preparation, it’s just so dated. You know, everything. The costume. I mean, some of the lyrics and some of the dances and the songs are fantastic, but it’s just really dated. I’m trying to choose the ones which are maybe a little bit less dated. Barbara. “David, you must watch Christiane Amanpour, interview with Frank Schaeffer about his propaganda, of how his propaganda films help launch the Christian right, evangelicals’ obsession with abortion. He’s now very remorseful.” Hey, he should be. Thanks, Barbara. Ron, thank you. The movie “Doubt.” Yes, I like it enormously, because it is a very contemporary way of, its doubt. You know, it’s a story of Job taking center stage.

Q: Carol, “When you say everything is equalized in our times, what do you mean? Nothing seems equalized to me.” A: It’s in an era where you show images and then you show the advert of, you know, selling a Kit Kat or, you know, whatever. Where so many things seem just thrown out, spewed out endlessly on the internet, on TV. So much noise, in Daniel Kahneman’s phrase. So much noise and clutter that goes on in the mind of constant barrage. And how do you find stories that represent values intentional values, that there’s, well, Mark Ravenhill summed it up, the brilliant contemporary British playwright, where the title of the play is “Shopping and Fucking.” And whether you shop or whether you fuck, the story of the play and the theme is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you go shopping or you buy a fuck or whatever you do. And that play, it’s a play written at the end of the last century, But it for me summarizes so much of a contemporary zeitgeist. Nobody really cares anymore. Does it really matter? And hence, the reaction to that is an addiction to extreme religion and extreme nationalism, to find some value and belief, having come from an a period of such equalizing of value. I’m giving my own interpretation here. Romaine.

Q: “Faith is a state of grace. Can it really be analyzed?” A: Nope, I agree. But we can take Plato’s idea. There are those who wish to live the examined life and those who wish to live the unexamined life. And we all engaging in this project of education, questioning, thinking, so faith is a state of grace. We want to examine it, question, explore it.

Mitzie. “Zeffirelli’s Christ surely ain’t Jewish.” Well it’s, you know, those eyes. But, you know, you can use all sorts of contact lenses. Jackie. “You say nothing about the blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian, Max von Sydow’s Jesus in the ‘65 film 'The Greatest Story Ever Told.’” Absolutely, Jackie. And I would’ve shown some images, but, that was the influence for Robert Powell, as well. By the way, you can see some of Pastolini’s influence in Scorsese, where he’s looking for faces all the time, because it’s the faces of the ordinary people to try and tell the story, not only the face of the main protagonist. Zoom.

“It occurs to me that if the actor does not blink, the audience will do the blinking. This means that the spectator creates the own blinking in time.” Great comment. “You speak of the broader creative image in many facets. What are the creativity and denial of aspects of the images to the de-Jewdification included in the myth. Yep. I know. I mean, there would be a fascinating if you took, you know, you could take a comic approach of the Robin Williams. You know, he’s just doing daddy’s, you know, he’s jumped into daddy’s business, you know, and follow all of that. Or you could do a more serious, the idea of him being Jewish and actually focus on that, which hasn’t been done. It’s a fantastic idea. Naomi. "Thanks again. Christ is always portrayed as white.” Yep. Middle Eastern, who knows? Skin color, hair, I mean, everything. You know, you can see it all, you know, these choices, whether the influence from Italian and European painting over the last four, five, six centuries and much longer, or imagined. You know, the flowing robes, and of course, all of that stuff. Robert.

Q: “Is there any evidence of a Jesus-like person that would support the evidence of such a person at time in history?” A: Yes. Flavius Josephus, who was the Jewish scribe who jumped sides. He was part of the siege of Jerusalem and then jump sides and joined the Romans, Vespasian, and so on, and Titus, and goes off and eventually ends up in Rome, and he wrote the history. He wrote these books of the history of the Jews and history of the times, et cetera. And he does mention the Christ person, that there was Christ, you know, there are some lines which go into it. So, you know, Josephus. As a Jewish scribe who became a Roman citizen around the time of the destruction of the temple.

Okay, Romaine. “About the attraction of extreme violence in the Mel Gibson film.” Yep. The power of projection. Absolutely. Why we need so much violence. We hunger for such graphic violence, at least vicariously in film, TV and so on. Betty.

Q: “Would not Mel Gibson’s film be a real instigator for showing Jewish culpability in Jesus’ death? Mel Gibson’s well known as an anti-Semite. Was it to incite?” A: Yes. I think the other part of it, it was, of course, and I said there is an anti-Semitic approach because Caiaphas is shown in a pretty cardboard cutout manner, and he’s obviously the Jewish guy, not only Judas, actually Caiaphas, who is pushing for the crucifixion. So it’s less the Jewish Judas, it’s more the Jewish high priest Caiaphas in the Mel Gibson interpretation of the story. And that Caiaphas as the high priest is pushing for Christ to be crucified and killed basically. So it’s, Gibson gives it that twist in terms of the anti-Semitic approach, without a doubt.

But what I wanted to, and I did mention that what I wanted to focus on is the extreme violence. You get almost 95 minutes of the most graphic violence on the human body. I mean it’s all staged, it’s all choreographed. But the effect you can imagine on fairly naive audiences is extremely powerful in our times. Not necessarily in other times. And to gain the performance of the body. How do you, in storytelling, and I think it’s so important in our times, how do you present the body? How do you show the body? Because the body is the site of public discourse. The body has become the site of public discourse, the site of public performance for me in so many ways. And you can see that in the internet, you can see it in film. And that’s what Mel Gibson understands, and that’s why he uses the horror movie genre influence.

Susan. “I rarely have ever watched these movies. For me the Christian version of Jesus is a fantasy and the movies only intensify Christian practitioners casting Jews in the role of murderers.” That’s true, but I think it’s important to understand how people think. You know, whichever side of the spectrum they are on. For me, what is interesting and important is how do they interpret the stories that are so powerfully important? You know, and how these stories told. Gail. “Hi, and hope you’re well in Joburg. Scorsese’s Jesus seems to have a lot in common with Jonah.” Yep, absolutely. Neville. “Hope you well. Longstanding friend of Robert Powell.” Fantastic. And his wife. “His whole acting career has been unfairly overshadowed by the power of this role.” I agree.

Q: “Do you know the film released in 1977 was over three years in the making?” A: Yes. “And when he was cast, it was gently suggested he didn’t look good for Jesus.” Yeah, I understand what it did for him. It’s an impossible role, if you really think about it. But other roles, you know, can be as challenging.

The Ken Burns series on Jesus. I know. We have to choose, though. Lilly. Lilly, thank you. Stephen.

Q: “Any comments on the Monty Python?” A: Yes, I was going to show the last scene in Monty Python, always look on the bright side, but I thought everybody knows it in the scene so well. Plus, I just ran out of time. But I love it and I think it’s absolute genius, and it’s a brilliant satire. And it’s the courage of these guys to take on that story with satire, which I love satire, is brilliant. Pulls it right down to earth.

Barbara, thank you. Michael, thanks. “In the modern age when with Jesus hearing voices might be considered he had schizophrenia.” Okay, David. “Josephus was a Jewish general.” I thought he was a scribe who jumped sides and then wrote up the stories when he became a Roman citizen. I think. I’ll check it. Howard. “The Josephus proof is an interpretation.” We can debate that. I think Josephus lived and I think Josephus wrote, and I think he got the, you know, that’s me. Ron. “The reference to Josephus is widely rejected by most historians.” I know. “He’s not being authentic and inserted in the Middle Ages.” I know. I personally choose to believe it, So I’m not on the side of all of those, but happy to debate at any time.

Okay, thank you so much everybody. I think that’s most of the main questions. And hope everybody’s well. Lauren, thanks so much again.