The following is the introduction to Screen Jesus, our regular contributor Rev Peter Malone’s in-depth study of depictions of Jesus on screen, both silver and television, over the history of the cinematic arts. The book is available from Scarecrow Press or from your favorite book retailer. We will be featuring on ongoing series of excerpts from the book courtesy of Rev. Malone.
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Introducing the Theme
H.B. Warner gliding soulfully through Jerusalem? Robert Powell speaking the Gospel parables with beautiful articulation? Jeremy Sisto dancing and splashing water on his disciples? Jim Caviezel enduring a scourging of sadistic brutality? Who is the real Jesus?
It is important to look at the major portrayals of Jesus on screen over more than a century to see why millions of people worldwide have responded to the Jesus films and how these films have interpreted Jesus and the Gospel message.
However, it may also be useful to go back over the hundred years or more of these portrayals of Jesus with a second purpose. There have been distinctive phases of how Jesus could be presented and what was outlawed from the screen. The expectations of a generation that was in its teens in the 1940s when there were no Jesus-films, only memories of Cecil B. De Mille’s The King of Kings, is different from those who were in their teens in the 1950s and enjoyed The Robe, The Silver Chalice, The Big Fisherman, and Ben Hur. Teenagers in the 1960s saw the remake of King of Kings while those in the 70s saw Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. In the late 80s, they might have gone to see The Last Temptation of Christ. After a very quiet period during most of the 1990s, there was quite some Jesus-film activity for the millennium. American television made a Jesus as well as Mary, the Mother of Jesus. British and Russian animators created The Miracle Maker. The evangelical British Jesus of 1979 (The Jesus Project) was reissued to large audiences, dubbed into many languages, especially in India, and distributed by the Vatican to guests in Rome for the celebration of the Jubilee year, 2000.
And, of course, the early 21st century brought the unpredicted worldwide box-office and VHS/DVD phenomenon of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
This means that it is possible to trace an outline of Christian spirituality as well as Christology as gauged by the Jesus’ films and audience response, especially in Europe, the Americas and western-influenced cultures.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a devout piety as can be seen in the plaster statuary and holy cards, where Jesus is somewhat ethereal, almost tentatively incarnate. With the longer feature films of the silent era and the possibility of filming on location in the Middle East, audiences were able to gain a more realistic impression of Jesus in his historical and geographical context. To that extent, the incarnation became more real. However, Cecil B. De Mille went back to the studio and the Gospel story was made an extravagant artifice with a solemn ‘holy’ Jesus. And then Jesus disappeared from the popular screen for thirty five years, in the 1950s his presence merely suggested visually.
With the 1960s, there was change. Jesus was impersonated by an actor. He was seen. He spoke. The reverential tradition prevailed in the American films, but Pier Paolo Pasolini wanted a more rugged, earthy and earthly Jesus in Il Vangelo secondo Matteo. With the Jesus movement and the rock operas, Jesus was seen as a superstar. These images showed the humanity of Jesus. Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, with its right blend of humanity and divinity indicated that a human and divine Jesus was part of the consciousness of Christians around the world.
There was a veering towards an emphasis on humanity and its limitations and challenges with The Last Temptation of Christ in the 1980s but by 2000, there was a renewed emphasis on the unity of humanity and divinity, especially in the made-for-television, Jesus and Mary, the Mother of Jesus (both 1999), the animation film, The Miracle Maker (2000) and the full text of John brought to the screen with word and image in The Gospel of John (2003).
Audiences were challenged by The Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson’s emphasis on the suffering and its intensity appealed to an older piety and to cultures which were more emotional. Cooler blooded cultures found some sequences too much and lamented the lack of emphasis on the resurrection. However, a newer generation welcomed a sense of a transcendent Jesus in the midst of his sufferings.
A review of the Jesus’ films also has the advantage of opening up the panorama of the developments in cinema: from the short one reelers of the early silent era to the feature films of D.W. Griffith with immense sets but with fixed tripod camerawork and some tracking; the initial experiments with colour tinting; the introduction of sound; colour processes; widescreen experiments; the age of the biblical spectaculars with huge screens and stereophonic sound systems; the influence of television and its styles; video production; the transition to the digital era.
