Issue 175
News: How not to do a Jesus biopic: Another long-term essay.
A few weeks ago, I saw the movie, The Passion of the Christ. My mother heard about it, and she said that she never wanted to see it (and she's the most religious member of my immediate family, although for her, it means self-identifying as Lutheran, and occasionally going to Church on Christmas or Easter, depending on her health), especially since she heard that it was little more than a glorified snuff film. Well, I ended up renting it from the library, and, it turns out, she was right. The fact is that it was almost entirely devoted to the torture and execution of Jesus, with surprisingly little focus on any other aspect of his life. And, even though they went through the trouble of translating the script into the languages that would have actually been spoken at the time, they even manage to get that wrong, especially since the Roman soldiers were speaking in ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN. Honestly, if you're going to translate your dialogue into a foreign, dead, language, make sure it's the right one. I like a bit of the old ultraviolence now and again, but really, when the entire point of the movie is devoted to one man's execution, it is not good. Even Funny Games took time out of showing the two men torturing the Yuppie family to break the fourth wall and play Naked City music. To keep the contrast to other religious movies, The Passion of Joan of Arc devoted itself to the last few hours of the life of a saint, but C.T. Dreyer focused the movie not only on the suffering itself, but also at least gave Joan some character development. However, Mel Gibson gives his Jesus very little room for such character development, and gives us no real reason to care about his suffering except that we're supposed to care about Jesus being crucified. Indeed, I think there can be, and actually have been, some great interpretations of Jesus' life on film, like Pasolini's Gospel According to Matthew (although a lot of my admiration can be due to its eclectic sountrack), Nicholas Ray's King of Kings, or, in terms of sheer comprehensiveness, Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth. I'd even recommend Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, even if its casting choices are suspect, to say the least, and it isn't even based on the Gospels. While we're on adaptations of the Bible done by unusual people, I recently read R. Crumb's adaptation of the Book of Genesis, and, as it turns out, the man who created Mr. Natural and wrote the source material for the first X-rated cartoon film actually does a pretty good job of adapting the first book of the Bible. He even manages to make the "begats" interesting by actually giving the people being "begotten" a face, and it's actually surprisingly reverent for R. Crumb, and quite possibly the most oddly reverent adaptation of the Bible since Aphrodite's Child's rock opera of Revelation: "666."
Relevant Quote: "The New Testament tells two stories for two different sorts of readers. One is the old story of the achievement of our salvation by the sacrifice and atonement of a divine personage who was barbarously slain and rose again on the third day: the story as it was accepted by the apostles. And in this story the political, economic, and moral views of the Christ have no importance: the atonement is everything; and we are saved by our faith in it, and not by works or opinions (other than that particular opinion) bearing on practical affairs.
The other is the story of a prophet who, after expressing several very interesting opinions as to practical conduct, both personal and political, which are now of pressing importance, and instructing his disciples to carry them out in their daily life, lost his head; believed himself to be a crude legendary form of god; and under that delusion courted and suffered a cruel execution in the belief that he would rise from the dead and come in glory to reign over a regenerated world. In this form, the political, economic and moral opinions of Jesus, as guides to conduct, are interesting and important: the rest is mere psychopathy and superstition."
_______________________George Bernard Shaw, Preface to Androcles and the Lion.
Tract Reviews: The Little Sneak: a kid hides his parents' life savings and a preacher coerces him to giving up the money's location. For his trouble he is killed.
Is Allah Like You: A muslim father reads the Quran and finds out how much of an A-hole Allah is, and converts to Christianity. Jack is completely oblivious that many of these criticisms he makes of Islam can be made of Christianity, and can even be given scriptural citations.
A few weeks ago, I saw the movie, The Passion of the Christ. My mother heard about it, and she said that she never wanted to see it (and she's the most religious member of my immediate family, although for her, it means self-identifying as Lutheran, and occasionally going to Church on Christmas or Easter, depending on her health), especially since she heard that it was little more than a glorified snuff film. Well, I ended up renting it from the library, and, it turns out, she was right. The fact is that it was almost entirely devoted to the torture and execution of Jesus, with surprisingly little focus on any other aspect of his life. And, even though they went through the trouble of translating the script into the languages that would have actually been spoken at the time, they even manage to get that wrong, especially since the Roman soldiers were speaking in ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN. Honestly, if you're going to translate your dialogue into a foreign, dead, language, make sure it's the right one. I like a bit of the old ultraviolence now and again, but really, when the entire point of the movie is devoted to one man's execution, it is not good. Even Funny Games took time out of showing the two men torturing the Yuppie family to break the fourth wall and play Naked City music. To keep the contrast to other religious movies, The Passion of Joan of Arc devoted itself to the last few hours of the life of a saint, but C.T. Dreyer focused the movie not only on the suffering itself, but also at least gave Joan some character development. However, Mel Gibson gives his Jesus very little room for such character development, and gives us no real reason to care about his suffering except that we're supposed to care about Jesus being crucified. Indeed, I think there can be, and actually have been, some great interpretations of Jesus' life on film, like Pasolini's Gospel According to Matthew (although a lot of my admiration can be due to its eclectic sountrack), Nicholas Ray's King of Kings, or, in terms of sheer comprehensiveness, Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth. I'd even recommend Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, even if its casting choices are suspect, to say the least, and it isn't even based on the Gospels. While we're on adaptations of the Bible done by unusual people, I recently read R. Crumb's adaptation of the Book of Genesis, and, as it turns out, the man who created Mr. Natural and wrote the source material for the first X-rated cartoon film actually does a pretty good job of adapting the first book of the Bible. He even manages to make the "begats" interesting by actually giving the people being "begotten" a face, and it's actually surprisingly reverent for R. Crumb, and quite possibly the most oddly reverent adaptation of the Bible since Aphrodite's Child's rock opera of Revelation: "666."
Relevant Quote: "The New Testament tells two stories for two different sorts of readers. One is the old story of the achievement of our salvation by the sacrifice and atonement of a divine personage who was barbarously slain and rose again on the third day: the story as it was accepted by the apostles. And in this story the political, economic, and moral views of the Christ have no importance: the atonement is everything; and we are saved by our faith in it, and not by works or opinions (other than that particular opinion) bearing on practical affairs.
The other is the story of a prophet who, after expressing several very interesting opinions as to practical conduct, both personal and political, which are now of pressing importance, and instructing his disciples to carry them out in their daily life, lost his head; believed himself to be a crude legendary form of god; and under that delusion courted and suffered a cruel execution in the belief that he would rise from the dead and come in glory to reign over a regenerated world. In this form, the political, economic and moral opinions of Jesus, as guides to conduct, are interesting and important: the rest is mere psychopathy and superstition."
_______________________George Bernard Shaw, Preface to Androcles and the Lion.
Tract Reviews: The Little Sneak: a kid hides his parents' life savings and a preacher coerces him to giving up the money's location. For his trouble he is killed.
Is Allah Like You: A muslim father reads the Quran and finds out how much of an A-hole Allah is, and converts to Christianity. Jack is completely oblivious that many of these criticisms he makes of Islam can be made of Christianity, and can even be given scriptural citations.
Labels: Long-Form, Movies, Religious Right, The Damn Bible, Tract Reviews
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