CHRIST ON CAMERA
THE DUKE LOOKS AT
RELIGIOUS CINEMA
THE DUKE LOOKS AT
RELIGIOUS CINEMA
Preface – As this is an article what deals with the “religion”
and so on, I will make a gesture of good-will and censor my
otherwise filthy tongue. As such, asterisks will be applied
when deemed a m**herfucking necessity.
As far as The Duke can tell, the biggest copyright blunder
what ever befell the denizens of literature, occurred back in
the middle ages or whenever The Bible was written. This is a
book what has not only outsold Pet Semetary, but even Misery,
surely Stephen King’s greatest achievement, and has been
filmed or adapted for television more often even than Mr
King's esteemed scribblings. And yet, impossible as it may be
to fathom, one would be hard pressed to uncover the identity
of a single author, let alone any disclaimers pertaining to
intellectual property rights.
What this means, basically, is that whilst God and various
other deities have suffered at the hands of the entertainment
industry in a manner what would shock even George Michael of
Wham!, Hollywood has found that not only do adaptations of
Biblical narratives often equal exceptional box-office
returns, but they also cost not a jot for to obtain.
Also, audiences care little for actor recognition.
Consider the daunting sessions of nit-pickery what await
anyone foolhardy enough for to don James Bond’s immaculately
pressed suit, and yet more actors than anyone cares to
remember have got all messianic in the role of Jesus Christ.
From Robert Henderson-Bland in Sidney Olcott’s 1912 effort
From The Manger To The Cross, to Robert Powell in Zeffirelli’s
1977 mini-series Jesus Of Nazareth, right up to the present
day with Jim Caviezel’s gore-drenched portrayal in The Passion
Of The Christ, only God himself armed with a reasonable search
engine could hazard a guess at how many folks have been
handing out the loaves and the fishes onscreen.
What we can deduce, though, via the utilisation of various
scientific and numerological appliances, is that there have
been quite a few, all being told.
Still, truth is, the best Jesuses are usually not credited as
such.
Boris Karloff, for instance, in James Whale’s immaculate Bride
Of Frankenstein, does a better job of portraying The Christ
than many of the “authentic” models. Same goes for Peter
Weller’s turn in Robocop, about a man is brutally tortured and
then resurrected for to save humanity.
Again, with all the predictions and prophecies going on, you’d
think someone would have foreseen this heinous level of
plagiarism.
If The Duke were to dish out an award for Best Christ On
Camera, I would have to do my own bit of miracle-flaunting,
and create two awards from one, since both that Jim fella from
The Torturing, Lashing, Whipping, Scourging And Passion Of
Christ and Enrique Irazoqui from Pasolini’s beautifully
understated The Gospel According To Matthew, are
transcendently magnificent in the role. (Also, a nod in the
direction of Max Von Sydow’s performance in The Greatest Story
Ever Told is, I believe, justified.)
Bizarrely enough, both performances are rather similar, yet
differ on a couple key aesthetic issues.
For instance, both fellas approach the role with a touch of
the subtlety, even if, in Caviezel’s case, he was the only
subtle element in the whole mo**erfucking affair. Jim sighs
and looks skyward and says very little. Enrique says quite a
bit in places, but does it without much hoo-hah. He just
flings out a line or two about the kingdom of God is at hand,
and then goes along his merry way.
Interestingly, both one of the earliest examples of Jesus
cinema, and one of the most recent, bare striking similarities;
La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ, or, The Life And The
Passion Of Jesus Christ, directed by Lucien Nonguet and
Ferdinand Zecca in 1905, had only two actors, and none of them
played the title character. Rather, the film granted us a
bizarre sensation of being inside Christ’s skull, as we looked
out upon the antics of Mary and Joseph. Almost a hundred years
later, in 2001, Lance Tracey directed the critically-acclaimed
but seldom-seen The Cross, which utilised the same gimmick.
Whereas those fellas in 1905 had to take such a route on
account of blasphemy laws and so on, what prohibited any
mortal from acting all deified, Tracey opted for the “through
the eyes of Christ” carry-on to bring home the ultimate
realities of His sacrifice.
Mel Gibson, of course, achieved this by having Jim get whipped
for an hour.
And, like many prior Christ On Camera excursions, The Passion
was the subject of a whole hell of a lot of controversy.
Oddly, though, it wasn’t on charges of blasphemy this time
around, but rather it was on account of the anti-Semitism,
except in places such as The Duke’s homeland of The Northern
Ireland, where it was denounced as idolatrous and blasphemous
by a number of highly regarded and very esteemed gentlemen
what went to great lengths for to come to this conclusion,
none of which involved actually viewing the work in question.
Martin Scorsese, though, he would’ve been glad of an anti-
Semitic accusation or two, in place of the ever-so-Christian
death threats he received following the release of his sadly
underwhelming The Last Temptation Of Christ. Taking the point
of view that Christ was as human as he was divine, a view
unheard of since way back when The Bible was first published,
Scorsese was the proud recipient of a whole heap of fuck
y*u's, in a manner similar to those which Nikos Kazantzakis
himself received upon publication of the source novel.
Again, where might the lawyers have been?
A year later Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman capitalised on the
infamy by releasing Toxic Avenger III – The Last Temptation Of
Toxie, a film superior to Scorsese’s in at least nine areas.
Whereas Scorsese brought to us the tribulations of a Christ
tormented by the lure of the “normality”, however, Kaufman and
Herz took the differing theological path of presenting a Toxic
Avenger riddled with guilt upon taking work at a corporation
run by none other than Satan.
Incidentally, Troma, the company behind The Toxic Avenger,
also distributed Jesus Christ – Vampire Hunter, which detailed
the little-known story of how Jesus returned to earth to get
all kung-fu with regards the undead. (An earlier Jesus film
had the hero portrayed as a vampire himself, having to be
placed upon the cross via a wooden stake.)
For many, of course, the undisputed King of King Of Kings
pictures, is the late, great Cecil B DeMille, who not only
produced and directed the explicitly Jesus-orientated King Of
Kings in 1927 (later remade by Nicholas Ray, who directed
James Dean in, I believe, Rebel Without A Seat-Belt), but also
the martyr epic Sign Of The Cross, 1935’s The Crusades, and no
less than two versions of The Ten Commandments, in 1923 and
1956, making a total of twenty commandments brought down from
the mount for to scare th* fuck out of those bovine-worshiping
pagans.
The Ten Commandments, of course, concerned itself with Moses,
being a key protagonist in The Old Testament, the first of the
two collections of narratives housed within The Bible. Jesus,
in fact, although referred to on a number of occasions
beforehand, doesn’t show up until The New Testament, a much
shorter affair which, like The Hills Have Eyes Part 2,
utilises a bewildering array of flashbacks to tell,
essentially, one story. What this means is that The Life Of
Christ is told in four separate narratives, or Gospels, and
yet none of them are as bloodthirsty as Mel Gibson’s take on
the events.
Some folks like to yack about The Bible is a load of old toss
and shouldn’t be read and is filled with hate. To be honest,
The Duke tends to skip those sentences about Thou Shalt Not
and so on, and just focuses on the bit about Love Thy
Neighbour. Whatever the hell you might think about the
institutions what formed around the book, you simply can’t
fault those sentiments.
I mean come on, have you saw some of the folks what read the
Harry Potters?
Somewhat unique in the Jesus film arena, is Denys Arcand’s
Jesus Of Montreal, what concerns itself with a group
attempting to put on a Passion Play, yet works on a less than
subliminal level as a modern-day retelling of the original
tale. It is on occasion rather ponderous and a tad
pretentious, but it has half-an-hour devoted to the
performance itself, half-an-hour what is filled with cinematic
invention. Also, it has a very funny scene involving the
dubbing of a pornographic film.
When it comes right down to it, though, one of the best Jesus
films features Christ only in the opening scenes, similar to
the portrayal of The Messiah in Ben Hur or The Robe. The
classic in question, Monty Python’s Life Of Brian is as acute
a picture of Judean politics of the time as anyone would hope
to find, and also, it’s very funny, like when Brain’s mum
tells him about his father. Also, there are aliens, something
which at least 62% of religious epics overlook.
I don’t know that I’m a Christian, to be honest, but the
teachings of the Fella Himself tend to get The Duke all
inspired and filled with the well-being. Spiritual, I believe,
is the term what best describes The Duke’s particular God-
related stance. But the religious cinema is a genre dear to
mine blood-pump, one I feel as passionate about (no pun
intended) as I do concerning the exploitation cinema or the
documentary.
The stories behind these slabs of pomposity often fit snugly
within the confines of the life-affirming, or at least
morbidly fascinating, from the folks behind The Jesus Film
Project who take their, admittedly pretty poor, flick around
the world for nothing more than the evangelical thrill of it
all, to the divine inspirations granted Braveheart for the
making of The Passion, a film which, I believe, is among the
best examples of American cinema in the past decade.
So go forth, brethren, and seek ye such wonders as The Cross
and The Gospel According To Matthew, and be and sure and do
good and so on, since no one likes a m**herfucker.
Drop The Duke A Line Via Electronical Email
and so on, I will make a gesture of good-will and censor my
otherwise filthy tongue. As such, asterisks will be applied
when deemed a m**herfucking necessity.
As far as The Duke can tell, the biggest copyright blunder
what ever befell the denizens of literature, occurred back in
the middle ages or whenever The Bible was written. This is a
book what has not only outsold Pet Semetary, but even Misery,
surely Stephen King’s greatest achievement, and has been
filmed or adapted for television more often even than Mr
King's esteemed scribblings. And yet, impossible as it may be
to fathom, one would be hard pressed to uncover the identity
of a single author, let alone any disclaimers pertaining to
intellectual property rights.
What this means, basically, is that whilst God and various
other deities have suffered at the hands of the entertainment
industry in a manner what would shock even George Michael of
Wham!, Hollywood has found that not only do adaptations of
Biblical narratives often equal exceptional box-office
returns, but they also cost not a jot for to obtain.
Also, audiences care little for actor recognition.
Consider the daunting sessions of nit-pickery what await
anyone foolhardy enough for to don James Bond’s immaculately
pressed suit, and yet more actors than anyone cares to
remember have got all messianic in the role of Jesus Christ.
From Robert Henderson-Bland in Sidney Olcott’s 1912 effort
From The Manger To The Cross, to Robert Powell in Zeffirelli’s
1977 mini-series Jesus Of Nazareth, right up to the present
day with Jim Caviezel’s gore-drenched portrayal in The Passion
Of The Christ, only God himself armed with a reasonable search
engine could hazard a guess at how many folks have been
handing out the loaves and the fishes onscreen.
What we can deduce, though, via the utilisation of various
scientific and numerological appliances, is that there have
been quite a few, all being told.
Still, truth is, the best Jesuses are usually not credited as
such.
Boris Karloff, for instance, in James Whale’s immaculate Bride
Of Frankenstein, does a better job of portraying The Christ
than many of the “authentic” models. Same goes for Peter
Weller’s turn in Robocop, about a man is brutally tortured and
then resurrected for to save humanity.
Again, with all the predictions and prophecies going on, you’d
think someone would have foreseen this heinous level of
plagiarism.
If The Duke were to dish out an award for Best Christ On
Camera, I would have to do my own bit of miracle-flaunting,
and create two awards from one, since both that Jim fella from
The Torturing, Lashing, Whipping, Scourging And Passion Of
Christ and Enrique Irazoqui from Pasolini’s beautifully
understated The Gospel According To Matthew, are
transcendently magnificent in the role. (Also, a nod in the
direction of Max Von Sydow’s performance in The Greatest Story
Ever Told is, I believe, justified.)
Bizarrely enough, both performances are rather similar, yet
differ on a couple key aesthetic issues.
For instance, both fellas approach the role with a touch of
the subtlety, even if, in Caviezel’s case, he was the only
subtle element in the whole mo**erfucking affair. Jim sighs
and looks skyward and says very little. Enrique says quite a
bit in places, but does it without much hoo-hah. He just
flings out a line or two about the kingdom of God is at hand,
and then goes along his merry way.
Interestingly, both one of the earliest examples of Jesus
cinema, and one of the most recent, bare striking similarities;
La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ, or, The Life And The
Passion Of Jesus Christ, directed by Lucien Nonguet and
Ferdinand Zecca in 1905, had only two actors, and none of them
played the title character. Rather, the film granted us a
bizarre sensation of being inside Christ’s skull, as we looked
out upon the antics of Mary and Joseph. Almost a hundred years
later, in 2001, Lance Tracey directed the critically-acclaimed
but seldom-seen The Cross, which utilised the same gimmick.
Whereas those fellas in 1905 had to take such a route on
account of blasphemy laws and so on, what prohibited any
mortal from acting all deified, Tracey opted for the “through
the eyes of Christ” carry-on to bring home the ultimate
realities of His sacrifice.
Mel Gibson, of course, achieved this by having Jim get whipped
for an hour.
And, like many prior Christ On Camera excursions, The Passion
was the subject of a whole hell of a lot of controversy.
Oddly, though, it wasn’t on charges of blasphemy this time
around, but rather it was on account of the anti-Semitism,
except in places such as The Duke’s homeland of The Northern
Ireland, where it was denounced as idolatrous and blasphemous
by a number of highly regarded and very esteemed gentlemen
what went to great lengths for to come to this conclusion,
none of which involved actually viewing the work in question.
Martin Scorsese, though, he would’ve been glad of an anti-
Semitic accusation or two, in place of the ever-so-Christian
death threats he received following the release of his sadly
underwhelming The Last Temptation Of Christ. Taking the point
of view that Christ was as human as he was divine, a view
unheard of since way back when The Bible was first published,
Scorsese was the proud recipient of a whole heap of fuck
y*u's, in a manner similar to those which Nikos Kazantzakis
himself received upon publication of the source novel.
Again, where might the lawyers have been?
A year later Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman capitalised on the
infamy by releasing Toxic Avenger III – The Last Temptation Of
Toxie, a film superior to Scorsese’s in at least nine areas.
Whereas Scorsese brought to us the tribulations of a Christ
tormented by the lure of the “normality”, however, Kaufman and
Herz took the differing theological path of presenting a Toxic
Avenger riddled with guilt upon taking work at a corporation
run by none other than Satan.
Incidentally, Troma, the company behind The Toxic Avenger,
also distributed Jesus Christ – Vampire Hunter, which detailed
the little-known story of how Jesus returned to earth to get
all kung-fu with regards the undead. (An earlier Jesus film
had the hero portrayed as a vampire himself, having to be
placed upon the cross via a wooden stake.)
For many, of course, the undisputed King of King Of Kings
pictures, is the late, great Cecil B DeMille, who not only
produced and directed the explicitly Jesus-orientated King Of
Kings in 1927 (later remade by Nicholas Ray, who directed
James Dean in, I believe, Rebel Without A Seat-Belt), but also
the martyr epic Sign Of The Cross, 1935’s The Crusades, and no
less than two versions of The Ten Commandments, in 1923 and
1956, making a total of twenty commandments brought down from
the mount for to scare th* fuck out of those bovine-worshiping
pagans.
The Ten Commandments, of course, concerned itself with Moses,
being a key protagonist in The Old Testament, the first of the
two collections of narratives housed within The Bible. Jesus,
in fact, although referred to on a number of occasions
beforehand, doesn’t show up until The New Testament, a much
shorter affair which, like The Hills Have Eyes Part 2,
utilises a bewildering array of flashbacks to tell,
essentially, one story. What this means is that The Life Of
Christ is told in four separate narratives, or Gospels, and
yet none of them are as bloodthirsty as Mel Gibson’s take on
the events.
Some folks like to yack about The Bible is a load of old toss
and shouldn’t be read and is filled with hate. To be honest,
The Duke tends to skip those sentences about Thou Shalt Not
and so on, and just focuses on the bit about Love Thy
Neighbour. Whatever the hell you might think about the
institutions what formed around the book, you simply can’t
fault those sentiments.
I mean come on, have you saw some of the folks what read the
Harry Potters?
Somewhat unique in the Jesus film arena, is Denys Arcand’s
Jesus Of Montreal, what concerns itself with a group
attempting to put on a Passion Play, yet works on a less than
subliminal level as a modern-day retelling of the original
tale. It is on occasion rather ponderous and a tad
pretentious, but it has half-an-hour devoted to the
performance itself, half-an-hour what is filled with cinematic
invention. Also, it has a very funny scene involving the
dubbing of a pornographic film.
When it comes right down to it, though, one of the best Jesus
films features Christ only in the opening scenes, similar to
the portrayal of The Messiah in Ben Hur or The Robe. The
classic in question, Monty Python’s Life Of Brian is as acute
a picture of Judean politics of the time as anyone would hope
to find, and also, it’s very funny, like when Brain’s mum
tells him about his father. Also, there are aliens, something
which at least 62% of religious epics overlook.
I don’t know that I’m a Christian, to be honest, but the
teachings of the Fella Himself tend to get The Duke all
inspired and filled with the well-being. Spiritual, I believe,
is the term what best describes The Duke’s particular God-
related stance. But the religious cinema is a genre dear to
mine blood-pump, one I feel as passionate about (no pun
intended) as I do concerning the exploitation cinema or the
documentary.
The stories behind these slabs of pomposity often fit snugly
within the confines of the life-affirming, or at least
morbidly fascinating, from the folks behind The Jesus Film
Project who take their, admittedly pretty poor, flick around
the world for nothing more than the evangelical thrill of it
all, to the divine inspirations granted Braveheart for the
making of The Passion, a film which, I believe, is among the
best examples of American cinema in the past decade.
So go forth, brethren, and seek ye such wonders as The Cross
and The Gospel According To Matthew, and be and sure and do
good and so on, since no one likes a m**herfucker.
Drop The Duke A Line Via Electronical Email
