dual personalities

Tag: Jesus of Nazareth

March 28, 2013

Rend your hearts, and not your garments

by chuckofish

I regret to say that as Lent comes to a close I haven’t blogged about or even mentioned my usual Lenten movie watching traditions, because, alas, I haven’t watched any of my favorite Lenten movies! Last year I wrote about them here and here and of course here.

Indeed, it hasn’t been a typical Lent. In fact, the only thing I gave up for Lent was going to church! Sigh. Well, anyway, I will definitely watch Ben Hur on Good Friday.

ben-hur_pic_heston_nd2009_1000px

Earlier in March I did try to watch The Bible, the television miniseries produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett on the History Channel, but I really couldn’t watch more than 15 minutes. Myeh.

Perhaps this weekend I will watch some of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, the miniseries first aired in 1977 which I like very much. It has a wonderful script by Anthony Burgess and I like Robert Powell as the unblinking Jesus.

Jesus-of-Nazareth-film

Also memorable are Laurence Olivier as Nicodemus, my girl Claudia Cardinale as the Adulteress, Ralph Richardson as Simeon, and Ian McShane as Judas. James Farentino (!) as Peter and Ann Bancroft as Mary Magdalene, prove that, although it helps, you don’t have to be British to star in a biblical film. They are both wonderful.

Speaking of favorite biblical miniseries–I love Peter and Paul, a 1981 biblical drama starring Anthony Hopkins as Paul of Tarsus.

1981 Peter and Paul 03

Ever since first watching it in 1981, whenever I read the words of Paul, I hear them spoken in Hopkins’ Welsh accent.

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

“For thy sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8: 31-39

Well, we all worship in our own way.

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March 29, 2012

To watch or not to watch

by chuckofish

As you know, I have been blogging about great movies to watch during Lent. But really, when you think about it, most “religious” movies are pretty bad.

Case in point: King of Kings (1961), directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Jeffrey Hunter as the Son of God. Now when the dual personalities were little girls, we loved this movie. We thought Jeffrey Hunter was the perfect Jesus. Granted, the music by Miklos Rozsa is great and Jeff does have beautiful blue eyes, but really now, this rendition is hardly “the life of Christ intelligently told and beautifully filmed,” as the movie poster promises. The journeyman screenwriter Philip Yordan, who actually won an Oscar for another potboiler Broken Lance in 1955, was way out of his league. The gospel here is presented as a biblical Rebel Without a Cause, strictly trying to appeal to a teen crowd with Jesus as a dreamy all-American quarterback hero.

And as far as actual screen time, Barabbas, memorably played by Harry Guardino as a New York thug, gets way more than poor, sincere Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. The respected Irish actress Siobhan McKenna is just ghastly as the Virgin Mary promising to “intercede” with her son for the lovelorn Mary Magdalen. It is just awful. I must admit that I kind of like Robert Ryan as John the Baptist, who has a certain disgusted look on his face that I can relate to. And he gets all the good lines: (to Herodias, played by the fashion model Rita Gam) “Woman, is not your cup of abominations full enough?” This movie is full of abominations.

Then there’s The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the second to last movie directed by the great George Stevens.

It was a major fail for him. It is based on a book by Fulton Oursler who wrote the story of Jesus with the expressed intention of trying to “make it as interesting as a serial story in a popular magazine.” Well, there you have it. This movie is deadly dull and deathly serious, while at the same time poor Max Von Sydow as Jesus is unintentionally humorous as he says his lines with a Swedish accent. “BapTIZE me, Yon,” he says to Charlton Heston (as John the Baptist) who manages to keep a straight face. This movies is chock full of famous actors and actresses in cameo roles–everyone from Pat Boone to Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters got into the act. Even David McCallum, at the height of his Ilya Kuryakin fame, plays Judas. This is all very distracting. One is always trying to figure out who is who. Oh look, it’s Angela Landsbury! Blerg. It is just awful.

There are a few good ones. I really like the Franco Zeffirelli mini-series, Jesus of Nazareth (1977), which is an appropriately reverent and close adaption of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Anthony Burgess (of all people) did a fine job with the screenplay. There is no “He betook himself to Jerusalem” hokey narration like in King of Kings. He does not try to improve on the scriptures, taking much of the dialogue straight from them and the actors make it work. All the actors are excellent, especially the English actor Robert Powell as Jesus.

To watch the whole thing takes all week, so we better get started!

(The best movie about Jesus is the one where ironically his face is never seen–Ben Hur. This movie deserves its own post, so stay tuned.)

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