Word: jesus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...allow me to baffle or anger my new flock by getting to today's subject: a simple, informative survey of a dozen or so film biographies of Jesus, noting particularly how their depiction of the Messiah's conviction and death compared with Mel Gibson's. The alleged Messiah is once again hot (in the more attractive sense of that word), and readers may be helped by these scattershot notes on other examples of the genre. All of the films, including "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter," are available on video and/or DVD from amazon.com...
...Here is the first major film on the Jesus story, and probably the earliest feature-length film - 1hr.12min. in its restored version - made in America. Directed by Sidney Olcott (who made 18 other shorter films that year) and written by its Mary Magdalene, Gene Gauntier, the picture was shot in Palestine and Egypt. One charming shot shows Mary and Joseph sitting in front of the Sphinx. Virtually every shot is a static scene, a tableau, illustrating the intertitles...
...Commandments" in 1923 - to its time, the top-grossing film after "The Birth of a Nation." Four years later, the extravagant auteur went from Old to New Testament. Another hit, thanks to De Mille's showmanship and expert marketing, and a color sequence for Easter Sunday, with Jesus surrounded by enough doves for a John Woo movie. "The King of Kings" played around the world for decades after it was released, until the proselytizing efforts of the Church of the Nazarene managed to put the 1979 film "Jesus" (with Brian Deacon as the Christ) in towns and villages all over...
...book "Spectacular! The Story of Epic Films," the elegant historian Carlos Clarens (using the pseudonym John Cary) gave a fair evaluation of "King of Kings": "De Mille's version of Christ was a fundamentalist one: H.B. Warner was indeed 'a sweet Jesus, meek and mild,' and this time sheer reverence held De Mille in check. There were a couple of zebras drawing Magdalene's chariot, and the earthquake that follows the crucifixion was as stunning as the Red Sea parting, although virtually thrown away.... De Mille's sincerity was on a par with his stern ruling that, during production...
...signatures of gigantic sets (a 30-ft. eagle statue in Pilate's chambers) and special effects (in the earthquake a man grabs at a rock that breaks off and carries him to a crashing death) take a back seat to the hallowed story and processional pace. H.B. Warner's Jesus is in the gaunt El Greco mode; the scenes are essentially brisk illustrations of the Gospels. Nearly all the dialogue and narrative intertitles are from the Gospels. The exceptions: a few that mitigate supposed Jewish guilt for Jesus' death. Magdalene: "The High Priest speaketh not for the people...