We give you the gospel on the all-singing, all-dancing, all-miracle-working films about the man who brought you the Easter bank holiday
It is the time of year when, bloated with cheap chocolate and bored of our own families, we slouch in front of a television after a couple of days of saying, “It’s a shame not to make the most of the sunshine”. And lo, it came to pass that you watch films about Jesus Christ at Easter. It doesn’t matter what you believe, or if you prefer George Michael’s faith to Cliff Richard’s, because there have been a lot of genuinely entertaining films made about the big JC over the years. Here we give you the ten best in a guide that’s as definitive and binding as a Papal bull. These films may not be as good as Breaking Bad or The Wire, but they are better than Homes Under The Hammer, and you can’t say fairer than that. Self isolation has never seemed so selfless.
1. The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964)
In a league of its own. This majestic, challenging Pier Paolo Pasolini film shot in three villages in the impoverished southern Italian region of Basilicata features non-professional actors and locals, including Spanish student Enrique Irazoqui as Jesus, truck driver Otelli Sestili as Judas and the director’s own mother as the older Mary. Pasolini mixes his neorealist style with subtle references to old masters and Byzantine art, while the music both upends and complements the film’s supposed verity, including Bach’s Mass in B Minor and St Matthew’s Passion and the gospel of Blind Willie Johnson and Odetta Holmes.
This is one for Sunday night alone, rather than a lazy afternoon with other chatterbox family members. Pasolini, a poet and artist who attracted trouble like a 20th-century Caravaggio (he was murdered in 1975 in mysterious circumstances) described himself as a “Catholic Marxist”, but even that doesn’t cover enough ground to contain this masterpiece. The overtly political emphasis leaves an immediate mark on the viewer, like a bruise you press to feel the pain. Then the film become transformative, akin to magic, conveying the message of the Gospel in a way that transcends any simplistic reading of either a socialist interpretation or a dogmatic Catholic one. Ironically, it isn’t preachy.
2. Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Or Jesus Christ Superstore, as my daughter called it, which is an intriguing proposition. It is so exuberant that the concept’s weaknesses become either charming or funny, and yet it does retain moments of genuine tension and excitement. Seen predominantly through the eyes of Judas as the Big Man’s misunderstood best friend, Tim Rice’s lyrics combine scripture and some of his own best work – “To conquer death you only have to die” – with hilarious early 1970s theatre-type grooviness: “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happenin’” and “One thing I’ll say for him, Jesus is cool”. It’s beautiful to look at, being filmed on location in Israel, and there are some dark touches of having fighter jets and tanks stand in for avenging angels of the Lord. The youthful Andrew Lloyd Webber delivers the score’s most transferable song, “I Don’t Know How To Love Him”, and there are plenty of other musical moments of genuine verve between the sniggering. For those of you of a theological bent, the main theme of JCS is free will and the questionable role of God the Father in condemning his Son and an essentially good man, Judas, to perform roles neither wanted, in order to fulfil his cosmic plan. Discuss over the mint sauce at dinner. See also for similar levels of Christ-like fabulousness in dungarees: Godspell.
3. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Not necessarily as billed (and banned), in that it was not simply an exploration of Christ’s humanity by hypothesising what would have happened if he had rejected his mission to go on living. When it was released, the focus was on Willem Dafoe’s Jesus wanting to explore the pleasures of the flesh with Mary Magdalene rather than die on the Cross, but Martin Scorsese’s film was much more subtle than that, balancing the idea of man’s sense of sacrifice against his desire to enjoy a full, rich life with his family. Harvey Keitel was born to play Judas and David Bowie lends his name to a long line of eccentric Pontius Pilates. The twists and turns of the plot, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, are far less blasphemous than the protests and narrow-minded hysteria would have us believe, but no less interesting because of it.
4. The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
A massive film in every sense, but then also a rather beguiling one. It is never truly greater than the sum of its parts, but most impressive of all is the stillness and space allowed in such a monster of a blockbuster. This is a dark, brooding Gospel story led by the immaculately conceived haircut of Max Von Sydow, who somehow can’t quite bring his usual brilliance to the role of Jesus. Much of it is filmed in the wilds of Utah and California’s Death Valley, which adds to the sense of foreboding and eerie calm. The star turn is Donald Pleasance, who plays Satan as a sneaky old man, but the cast is almost overwhelming: Charlton Heston, Telly Savalas, Sidney Poitier and Claude Rains, plus a leading candidate for the most ridiculous cameo in the history of cinema – John Wayne standing in the rain at the Crucifixion and proclaiming “Truly, this man was the Son of God” like he’d just shot up a saloon.
5. The Passion Of The Christ (2004)
Worth watching once for impact alone, this focuses almost exclusively on the horror of Christ’s protracted torture and death. And boy, is it protracted. Mel Gibson had the dialogue spoken in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew, which made American evangelicals believe they were watching a documentary and kept them spending their dollars by the gazillion. The “star” of the show is the actual flesh of Jesus, with which Gibson appears to have an unsettling obsession.
6. King of Kings (1961)
As with The Greatest Story Ever Told, part of the thrill of this is the scope. Without the Avengers-style cast of A-listers of its successor, it makes up with Technicolor majesty and bombastic consistency what it lacks in star quality. Its curveball is an overlong emphasis on Barabbas as a political revolutionary against the Roman occupiers, juxtaposed against Jeffrey Hunter’s highly poised Jesus. In a film nearly three hours long, maybe that would have been the bit to cut.
7. Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
OK, this is a mini-series, not a film. In fact, it’s kind of Netflix before Netflix, with huge budgets and equally impressive production and casting. Most famous for Robert Powell’s beguiling turn as the Nazarene, in particular his deep blue and very Caucasian eyes. Powell decided the trick to making the audience believe he was a convincing messiah was not to blink, which meant agony in the garden and everywhere else while filming in the dry air of Morocco and Tunisia. This was an Anglo-Italian production from Lew Grade and Franco Zeffirelli, with a script written by Anthony Burgess, so there was pedigree throughout, including Anne Bancroft, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Quinn, Ralph Richardson, Peter Ustinov, Christopher Plummer, Rod Steiger and Olivia Hussey, plus a host of Italian stars.
8. Risen (2016)
The strength of this is the neat premise of having a Roman soldier charged with persecuting Christ and the disciples who is then converted to the new faith by his contact with them after the Crucifixion (there are various non-canonical myths about this, but this version puts a fresh spin on it). Featuring a classic bored and restless Pontius Pilate (always an interesting character in these films, whose defining characteristic is the sense that he is not master of his own destiny) played by Peter Firth, and Joseph Fiennes as the tribune Clavius, it has moments of genuine tension and some neat action scenes as the disciples run and hide from the authorities. The most unsettling (and therefore best) moment is when Clavius finally meets the risen Christ (Yeshua), only for him to disappear. Spooky.
9. Mary Magdalene (2018)
Very much a version of the story from a 21st-century perspective. Rooney Mara conveys a fierce intelligence and conviction as the female follower of Jesus, played by Joaquin Phoenix, in a film that seeks to distance Mary from the usual reformed prostitute (to use the traditional nomenclature) and reposition her as an equal of the male disciples – including Peter, with whom she clashes throughout. This is a very earnest film, but a very beautiful one, shot on location in several of the same places that graced Pasolini’s film half a century before.
10. Monty Python’s Life Of Brian (1979)
Oh, go on then. As the Monty Python team were at pains to point out, this is not a film “about” Jesus, but about religion itself. Jesus does appear briefly, of course, healing an ungrateful leper and being misheard during the Sermon On The Mount.
Honourable mentions: 1979’s Christ Stopped At Emboli – doesn’t actually feature Christ but looks at the nature of sacrifice in Fascist Italy (another film shot in Basilicata). Son Of Man from 2006, a reimagining of the Gospel set in South Africa. Touchstone epic Ben-Hur, which includes a great over-the-shoulder scene with JC offering water to Judah Ben-Hur, memorably parodied by the Simpsons with Monty Burns playing the Son of God.
Also read: How Monty Python and the Holy Grail became a comedy legend
Featured photo source: Allstar
Source: George Chesterson – British GQ
