So yesterday was Good Friday, and I decided to do some channel surfing in search of a good Jesus movie to commemorate the event (I would normally have gone to church, but decided not to for reasons that are still unclear to me). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any decent movies about Jesus! I found on Spanish-language Jesus film, which was somewhat humorous in its low-budgetness, and the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which was apparently showing such films non-stop all day, but they were all terrible, terrible movies. I gave up pretty quickly and popped in my “Jesus Christ Superstar” DVD instead, which goes to show how desperate I was.
So do good Jesus movies exist? I guess there’s The Passion of the Christ, but I don’t know if I’d like to stomach it again. Any other suggestions?
Touch was a weird, wonderful, oft-overlooked little movie about Jesus’ return. It deals with the question of what might happen if someone appeared in today’s world with the actual, no-kidding ability to heal people with his touch.
The film was written and directed by Paul Schrader (who wrote Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead, among others), and it becomes clear that this is a guy who’s spent a lot of time thinking about how real people, in the actual world, would react to this character. I’ve been a tireless proselytizer for this movie ever since I saw it.
Paolo Pasolini’s Gospel according to St Matthew ’ is the finest ‘Jesus’ movie of all. Italian, but available with subtitles. I’m not a christian, but this is a great film and a great telling of the story, despite (or maybe because of) its conspicuous simplicity.
And is it just me, or does anyone think that Mel Gibson’s re-make of the classic ‘Life Of Brian’ isn’t anywhere near as funny as the original?
I don’t think that there are any that are universally considered to be first-rate films. Indeed, I suspect that the whole subject is so controversial that it’s probably impossible to make a film about Jesus that doesn’t have a significant body of people who thoroughly dislike it. Here are some of the films (not including those that are deliberately ironic or satirical, although some of the following are distinctly odd interpretations) that have been made about Jesus:
King of Kings (1961) The Gospel Accoding to Saint Matthew (1964) The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Godspell (1973) Jesus of Nazareth (1977) The Day Christ Died (1980) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Jesus (1999) Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999) The Passion of the Christ (2004)
There are others going back as far as the silent film era, but I suspect that those films are even less likely to satisfy you.
I’ll second Life of Brian, but I’ll also suggest Jésus de Montréal – in French, of course, and not really about Jesus, but about a group of actors putting on a play about Jesus at Easter.
Ben-Hur has Jesus in it, although it’s not a Jesus movie really, and it’s at least got a real cool chariot race. Which is more than I can say for those other Jesus movies.
This question pre-supposes the existence of Bad Jesus movies.
Were there movies made which were meant to put the fear of Jesus into one? It should certainly find a ready-made target audience. Consider Mellencamp’s song “Small Town”, where he “was taught to fear Jesus”. The mainstream churches in my area certainly preached a message of a real kick-butt Jesus who’d consign you to hell in an eyeblink if you didn’t toe the line.
Or am I reading too much in to the question?
I’d still like to know if any Jesus movies fit my posits above, though.
Don’t know if it’s the best, but the mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, from 1977, is one of my favorites. Peter Ustinov as Herod the Great is fine. And the scene where Jesus(Robert Powell) raises the daughter of Jairus is moving, the smile of joy as she hugs him. And the line where Ian Holm, playing a Temple official, stares into the empty tomb in dismay, and whispers, “Now it begins…it all begins” is good. Besides, this series emphasized the Jewish ethnicity of Jesus more than most, from his circumcision, to his bar mitzvah, and more. Olivia Hussey did a surprisingly good turn as Mary, Jesus mother. The scene where his body has been taken down from the cross, and she kneels in the mud beside him, in the pouring rain, and wails in agony, manages to not sound or look hokey.
As a fan of Anthony Burgess, who wrote the script, I like most of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, except that Robert Powell never blinks. What’s up with that? Would some religious group be offended if Jesus blinks? I mean, I understand the outrage whenever anyone’s made a gay Jesus movie, and I can see why they couldn’t have Jesus breaking wind: “brothers, the air is very close in here; let us repair to Gesthemene.” Judas: “those lentils were part of my plan to lure Him to his enemies!” But a proscription of blinking?
