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Jesus and the Movies
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Roger Fritts
on March 16, 2003
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Jesus once asked his followers "Who do people say that I am?" Two thousand
years later we are still trying to answer that question.
If we asked President Bush he might say that Jesus was the person who
tossed the money changers out of the temple. The President might refer us to
Matthew chapter 21, verses 12 and 13.
Then Jesus entered the Temple and drove out all who were selling and buying
in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the
seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, "it is written, ‘my house
shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers."
On the other hand, if we asked a Quaker who Jesus was we might be referred
to Matthew Chapter 5, Verses 38 through 41.
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you
on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and
take your coat, give your shirt as well, and if anyone forces you to go one
mile, go also the second mile.
From the President on down, many people in our country look for guidance in
the teachings and the life of Jesus. To engage others in a meaningful
conversation, I need to try to understand how they think about Jesus.
Some of people’s information comes from reading the Bible. Some information
comes from sermons and Bible study groups. And some of people’s information
comes from seeing Jesus’ life recreated in movies and in television programs.
In the past few years the number of hours we spend reading has decreased. The
number of hours we spend watching television has increased. I suspect that
more and more when people think about Jesus, they are thinking about the Jesus
they see in movies and television.
In the early years of the movies the most famous silent, black and white
Jesus movie was Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings, created in 1927.
In the movie Jesus appears primarily as a healer. DeMille displayed the
miracles of helping the blind to see, raising the dead and other healing
miracles. To make his point. DeMille even invented two healing episodes that
are not in the Bible.
For thirty-four years no more movies that told the life of Jesus appeared.
In 1930 the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America adopted a
Production Code, which included the rule that "References to Deity, God, Lord,
Jesus, and Christ shall not be irreverent." This made it risky to make any
movie focusing on the life of Jesus. Having Jesus make only a few appearances
as he did in the movie Ben Hur was safer.
A remake of The King of Kings appeared in 1961, to many negative
reviews. The Greatest Story Ever Told followed it in 1965. Reviewers
said the movie had the appearance of a series of Hallmark cards. A Marxist
atheist Italian made The Gospel According to St. Matthew, in 1966. It
was well received on college campuses, but Pauline Kael, in her caustic best,
wrote "I could hardly wait for that loathsome young man to get crucified."
Two musicals appeared in 1973, Jesus Christ Superstar and
Godspell. Both portraying Jesus as a hippy and reflected the youth culture
of the late 1960s.
In 1973 Franco Zeffirelli started work on a six-hour television mini-series
called Jesus of Nazareth. Zeffirelli emphasized how he would portray
Jesus as an ordinary man, gentle, fragile and simple. Before the movie was
made Bob Jones, of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina attacked
the film on the assumption that it would in some way compromise Jesus’s
divinity. Conservative Christians sent eighteen thousand angry letters to the
sponsor General Motors, and GM canceled its sponsorship. Procter and Gamble
eventually agreed to sponsor the program.
Antony Burgess the English novelist wrote the script and Zeffirelli filmed
the movie in Morocco and Tunisia. Maurice Jarre who had written the musical
scores for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago composed the
musical score for Jesus of Nazareth. The morning before NBC showed the
program the Pope said in his Palm Sunday address, "Tonight you are going to
see an example of the fine use which can be made of the new means of
communication that God is offering man."
With this papal recommendation, ninety million viewers in the United States
watched Jesus of Nazareth along with millions of others in Great
Britain and Italy. This first broadcast was during the week of Easter in 1977.
NBC has shown it several times during the last 26 years, always at Easter.
In spite of Zeffirelli’s claim that he would portray Jesus as an ordinary
man, the movie showed Jesus as a highly spiritual person. Zeffirelli portrayed
Jesus as the suffering-servant messiah, separated and detached from the
concerns of everyday life. I was taking a New Testament class at the Graduate
Theological Union in Berkeley during the spring of 1977. My New Testament
Professor acknowledged the artistic strengths of the film, but found it
lacking in historical authenticity. She had worked for many years in the
middle east as a Biblical archeologist and she did not like the fact that
Zeffirelli’s Jesus had blue eyes.
Eleven years later, in 1988, the most controversial Jesus movie appeared.
The Last Temptation of Christ, was based on a book by Nikos Kazantzakis,
published in the early 1950s. Perhaps you remember the reaction to the movie:
The head of Campus Crusade for Christ offered to buy all copies of
the movie from the producers so that he could destroy them.
Jerry Falwell called for a boycott against the parent company of
Universal Pictures.
The director of Morality in the Media said that the movie was an
"intentional attack on Christianity."
With all this publicity, I could not resist the temptation to see the
Last Temptation of Christ. In August 1988 Leslie and I made a trip to the
Biograph Theater in Chicago, (the same theater where John Dillinger was shot
by the FBI in 1934). Because of bomb threats a sign at the ticket booth said
that all packages must be inspected. Inside the lobby was a private security
guard. "Get the large popcorn," he advised me, "It’s a long movie."
The Catholic director, Martin Scorsese, tried to make Jesus more human and
therefore more accessible. Scorsese said about his film: "If we can see Jesus
struggling, it should be of some comfort to us." He tried to show a Jesus who
has moments of confusion and feelings of worthlessness. Scorsese hoped that if
we saw Jesus asking the same questions about his life that we ask about our
lives, we will feel less alone when we have doubts about ourselves. We will
feel closer to Jesus, and we will be more likely to follow his teachings.
Reviewers did not like this portrayal of Jesus as a reluctant Messiah. One
said the movie was "an honorable mistake." Another said it was "theologically
wacko."
Another Jesus movie came out two years after the Last Temptation of
Christ. Jesus of Montreal opened in New York City in 1990. Its
distribution in the United States was limited to larger urban areas, academic
communities and art movie houses, so it has not been widely seen in the United
States.
The director’s encounter with an actor-friend sparked the idea for the
film. The friend explained that he was growing a beard to play the role of
Jesus in a passion play staged for tourists at a Catholic shrine on a mountain
overlooking Montreal. In the movie a young actor rewrites and restages the
traditional passion play in an attempt to make it more interesting. Conflict
arises between the company of actors and the church authorities because of the
non traditional nature of the story they narrate and perform. Conflict also
arises between the actors in the passion play and the larger world as the
leader of the actors increasingly internalizes and acts out the role of Jesus.
Jesus of Montreal received awards in France and in Canada and some
positive reviews in the United States. I love the mixture of humor and
seriousness in the movie.
Our understanding of Jesus can be influenced by the movie we rent from the
video store or see on cable television.
- If you see The King of Kings, your image of Jesus may be that of
a miracle worker, a magical healer able to help the blind see, and to raise
the dead.
- If you see The Gospel According to St. Matthew, your image of
Jesus may be that of a prophet, a man of the moment, whose words and deeds
are often in conflict with the authorities.
- If you see Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, your image
of Jesus may be that of a peace and love hippy from the 1960s.
- If you see Jesus of Nazareth, your image of Jesus may be that of
a blue-eyed man whose deep spirituality separates him from the cares and
concerns of mundane, everyday life.
- If you see the Last Temptation of Christ, your image of Jesus may
be that a reluctant Messiah who has moments of doubt and feelings of
inadequacy.
- If you see Jesus of Montreal, your image of Jesus may be that of
a social critic condemning the values of modern clergy and the modern
consumer culture.
Personally, of all the Jesus movies I have seen, the one that made the
strongest impression is the one I saw first—the movie I saw before I ever read
the accounts of Jesus in the New Testament. I was eight years old in
1959 when I went with my Cub Scout Troop to see the movie Ben Hur.
Filmed in Rome, and nearly four hours long, the movie cost fifteen million
dollars and nearly bankrupted Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The story of Ben Hur is set entirely within the framework of the
life of Jesus. Two direct encounters occur between the character Ben Hur,
played by Charlton Heston, and Jesus. The first occurs after Roman officials
have sentenced Ben Hur to hard labor as a galley slave. As the guards lead him
through Nazareth, the chain-gang stops for water. Not allowed by his guard to
drink, Ben Hur collapses crying, "god help me." Suddenly a hand with a gourd
offers him water as Ben Hur gazes transfixed into the stranger’s face. The
viewer sees only the man’s hand and later his back and head with long wavy red
hair.
A second encounter occurs toward the end of the film. Ben Hur has returned
to Judea. He has defeated and killed his rival in a chariot race. He has
reunited with his love interest and his mother and sister, both of whom he
discovered to be ill with leprosy. As Jesus makes his way to the place of
crucifixion carrying the cross, Jesus stumbles before Ben Hur and the three
women. Ben Hur says "I know that man." He rushes to fill a gourd with water
and extends a drink to Jesus. We see Jesus only from the rear. The lengthy
sequence from Jesus’s trial before Pilate through the crucifixion itself is
shot from a distance, or with angles that avoid showing Jesus’ face.
Long before I read the New Testament I hand in my mind the image of Jesus
as that nice, courageous man in that 1959 movie. The movie highlights Jesus’
teaching on forgiveness and love. Jesus appears as a nonviolent, crucified
redeemer. Redemption for Ben-Hur involves his transformation from one who
vengefully wields the sword to one committed to the way of love. This
transformation occurs near the end of the film. After Ben-Hur returns from the
crucifixion of Jesus, Ben-Hur reports how he heard Jesus on the cross say
"father forgive . . ." With that, he says, he felt the sword being taken out
of his hand. (This is Charlton Heston speaking!) Jesus’s words about loving
your enemies, as relayed earlier in the movie struck home both to the
character Judea, Ben Hur, and in the mind of at least one eight-year-old in
the audience.
That mythical image of Jesus, from the Gospel according to
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, has stayed with me over the years. My image of Jesus,
supported by my reading of the Bible, and by my parents, is of a non violent
man who taught forgiveness and love. This mythology has guided me in my life.
Are the teachings and the life of Jesus important to you, or have you other
religious guides that are more helpful to you? What is your image of Jesus?
How do you understand his life and teaching? What is the source of your
understanding? Does it come from a parent, or a minister or a teacher, or a
book, or a movie, or is it a combination of all these sources?
In this church you are welcome to make up your own mind about these
questions. Still, whatever your views on Jesus, in this culture, knowledge of
the stories and the representations of his life in books, in paintings and in
films is helpful. By understanding the many different views of who Jesus was,
we might better understand the people of this country. Whether it be the
president saying that Jesus is his favorite political philosopher as he
prepares for war, or a Quaker refusing in Jesus’s name to take up arms.
Jesus once asked his followers "Who do people say that I am?" Two thousand
years later we are still trying to answer that question.
Office@CedarLane.org
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