Celebrity Passion Play
Part V of the Celluloid Christ series
Long before I finally sat down to watch George Stevens’ epic The Greatest Story Ever Told, I knew precisely one thing about it: that John Wayne played the centurion at the crucifixion, intoning in his unmistakable voice “truly this man was the Son of God.”
Wayne’s five second cameo is just the last in a cavalcade of stars who parade through the film. Some of these are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos (Angela Lansbury as Claudia, Pilate’s wife), some are more substantial scenes (Sidney Poitier as Simon of Cyrene), and some are extended and narratively important roles (Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate).
Despite all this star power, The Greatest Story Ever Told does not live up to its name. In its efforts to cast as many famous people as possible, it forgot to give most of them interesting roles to play. Characters who had been richly fleshed out in previous films in this series are here returned to cogs in the wheel of Jesus’ life. The Virgin Mary has little to do, most the disciples are bland and interchangeable, and Mary Magdalene is more a couple of plot points than an actual character. Lazarus is briefly interesting as an early but not fully committed follower of Jesus, but that scene primarily serves to set up his resurrection by Jesus as a pivot point in the story, right before the intermission.
Perhaps the most egregious character failure in this movie is Judas. In my previous two reviews, I noted how these films made a concerted effort to portray Judas in a way that gave him motivations that fleshed out the character and helped to drive the story. I can only assume Stevens saw these films and decided Judas had to remain incomprehensible, both to himself and to the audience.
Early on, Judas is a follower of John the Baptist. He follows a post-temptations Jesus because John says that Jesus “is our shepherd, the one.” Later, when Jesus asks “who do you say I am,” he asks Judas first, getting the response “the greatest teacher of all.” Judas then fades into the narrative background until the second act, when he has the chance to disapprove of Mary Magdalene’s anointing Jesus.
Judas again fades into the background until the preparation for the Last Supper, when he heads off to Caiaphas to betray Jesus. The interview between Caiaphas and Judas is shot and acted in a way meant to evoke the deep inner struggle that Judas has, but it is saddled with this dialogue:
Caiaphas: “How long have you been his friend?”
Judas: “I have been Jesus’ friend for three years.”
Caiaphas: “And now you are no longer his friend?
Judas: “I am his friend still, I believe.”
Caiaphas: “Why have you come to us?”
Judas: “I will give him to you, if you promise that no harm will come to him.”
Sorak (henchman): “If you are willing…to give him to us, why do you care what happens to him?”
Judas: “He is the purest, kindest man I have ever known. I have never seen him do anything but good. His heart, his heart is so gentle. Old people worship him. Children adore him. I love him.”
Caiaphas: “Very well. We will do our best to see that no harm comes to the man.”
…
Judas: “I will lead you to him tonight. I must be there. I am not so much a coward that I cannot face him when I stab him.”
Caiaphas’ question, “why,” is a great question, but one the scene refuses to actually answer. Judas has no discernible reason for betraying Jesus - it’s not for money (he explicitly says this when money is offered to him), it’s not because Jesus refuses to be king (as it was in 1927’s The King of Kings), and it’s not to force him to act against the Romans (as in 1961’s King of Kings). Maybe Judas is jealous of how good Jesus is, given that everything he says about Jesus is uniformly positive, but even this motivation would have nothing earlier in the film to suggest it. Rather, Judas simply…wants his great and gentle and loving friend to be arrested? Is this a prank? Is Judas trolling Jesus?
It’s genuinely unclear. Charitably, maybe Stevens was trying to make an argument about the surd of sin, about the incomprehensibility of evil in the human heart. Judas can’t have a “reason” because sin is fundamentally irrational. But even in that irrationality, people have motivations for why they do evil, and Judas isn’t even given that here.
Most of the characters in Stevens’ film end up more like those in the earlier, passion play inspired films like La Passion or From the Manger to the Cross: they perform certain actions because the Gospels dictated that they do so, not because the films had developed the inner worlds of the characters. They are opaque, or perhaps shallow, and this weakness is exacerbated by the stunt-casting of so many of them
In truth, there was only sustained aspect of The Greatest Story Ever Told that I think really worked. Donald Pleasence (perhaps best known as Dr. Loomis from the Halloween franchise) plays a hermit who is actually Satan. When we first meet him during Jesus’ temptations, he is sojourning in the desert, hospitably offering Jesus food and a seat by the fire. Over the course of their time together, the “dark hermit” offers the temptations of bread, power, and letting God catch you - the Lukan order - while giving somewhat more grounded versions.1 So instead of simply “turn these stones into bread,” he notes that Jesus must be tired and bread would give him strength.
The underlying thesis of the dark hermit’s temptations is described early on:
“Life should be as easy as a man can make it. And it can be easy friend, if a man knows the way to power and glory in this world.”
He offers Jesus an easy way out, one that avoids the physically demanding ascetic life he follows, that would give him easy dominion over all the people he is there to save, and that would avoid the pain, the torture, and the death that would come during his trial and crucifixion. Not only will power and glory make life easy, but Satan is the one who can provide that power and glory.
This read of the temptations highlights quite well the tension between a kingdom of this world and a kingdom not of this world. Pilate, Herod, and many of Jesus’ opponents (and followers) are unable, or unwilling, to understand the difference between the two. Power and glory in this world are tempting, but in that temptation they would become an idol that blocks one from the true power and glory that belong to God alone.
Of course Jesus rejects these temptations, his last rejoinder to the dark hermit being that
“It is written that a man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”2
The whole time that Jesus speaks this line, he is out of frame, the camera remaining on the dark hermit as he eats his own piece of bread. On the whole, the temptation sequence is really well-done, far better than the lazy voiceover temptations of 1961’s King of Kings.
Importantly, the dark hermit continues to pop up throughout the film. He shows up in Capernaum, standing amid a crowd that presses in on Jesus and desires to make him king. It reaffirms the persistent temptation of kingship, which Jesus must slip away to avoid.
We see the dark hermit again, watching from the shadows as Judas heads off to Caiaphas with plans to sell Jesus out. This recalls, but does not explicitly enact, Luke 22:3-4: “Satan entered into Judas…and he went to the chief priests and temple guards to discuss a plan for handing him over to them.” This scene could have given a motivation to Judas, except Judas was on his way to Caiaphas long before Satan shows up.
The dark hermit is then the first person to ask Peter if he is a “friend of the Nazarene,” which prompts Peter’s denials before the cock crows. Here again, Luke 22 is referenced, as Jesus had warned Peter about Satan just before he prophesied about Peter’s forthcoming denials (22:31-34).
Lastly, the dark hermit helps lead the crowds during the trial of Jesus. He is the first to yell out “crucify him” when Pilate tries to figure out what to do, and he is later the first one to tell “we have no king but Caesar.” In each case, he instigates and motivates the crowd against Jesus. That final shout, about the kingship of Caesar, is a contrast to the dark hermit’s earlier efforts to tempt Jesus in to being a king in this world.
Stevens’ decision to have this dark hermit/Satan character appear throughout the film is an effective way of expanding on the temptations in Luke. Unique among the temptation narratives, Luke states that “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time” (Luke 4:13). Luke is not really explicit about when the devil returns, although the aforementioned moments from Luke 22 are often mentioned in study Bible footnotes as examples.
The recurring dark hermit also contrasts well with Max von Sydow’s Jesus. His portrayal is both intense and set apart, aided both by a blue-eyed stare that contrasts with the brown and gray color palette that makes up much of the film and by the Swedish actor’s slightly accented English, which sets his speech apart from nearly every other actor. The film includes a minimum of miracle scenes, blowing nearly all its fireworks on the resurrection of Lazarus (accompanied, melodramatically, by the Hallelujah from Handel’s Messiah). Yet even despite this, there is something otherworldly about Jesus.
The dark hermit is one of the only characters to actually know and understand Jesus’ mission, shown by the knowing glances he gives to Jesus (and that Jesus sometimes returns back to him). These appearances serve to highlight that mission and the cup that it demands from Jesus. The audience is better able to see Jesus as both human and divine through these encounters.
The Greatest Story Ever Told is, unfortunately, quite boring, often lazy, and generally uninterested in its characters. This makes it difficult to see the people who encountered Jesus as actual humans with reasons for following, or rejecting, or opposing, or betraying him. Judas is emblematic of this failure, but it’s not exclusive to him.
The portrayal of Jesus is mostly well done, making him just off-putting enough that (a) there is a kind of balance of the human and divine natures in this Christ and (b) one can see why people in general would follow him. But again, it’s hard to see why any of the people in this movie actually do follow him. Thus even a successful Jesus is not enough to redeem the film, which fails to make the disciples (and the enemies) of Jesus real and imaginable to the audience.
Stray Thoughts about The Greatest Story Ever Told
Beyond the portrayal of Satan and Jesus’ temptations, there were a few things I appreciated in the film. One is that Charlton Heston is actually quite funny as John the Baptist. When he is hassled at the Jordan by Caiaphas’ men, he quips “you insult the decent sinners who come here to repent.” Later, when he is arrested and the man says “I have orders to bring you to King Herod,” John retorts “I have orders to bring you to God, heathen.” It’s a bit over the top, but it entertained.
A second thing is a bit meta, but the actor who plays Nicodemus in this film, Joseph Schildkraut, is the actor who played Judas in DeMille’s 1927 The King of Kings. His role here is understandably more minor, but it’s nice that he gets to play one of the “good guys” from the Gospels after so convincingly portraying Judas almost forty years earlier. This was also his final film, released more than a year after his death.
There was also a nice recurring liturgical dimension to the film. Several times, such as when Jesus was teaching the Lord’s Prayer, the person leading prayer would say a line, and then the crowd would repeat it. These moments had a strong grounding effect whenever they occurred.
Next time in the Celluloid Christ series: Jesus of Nazareth (1977), directed by Franco Zeffirelli. You can find links to all the posts as they come out in the series page.
In the film’s temptation sequence, there are technically four temptations. First the dark hermit first offers his own bread, then second tells Jesus he can give him the kingdoms if he pays the hermit homage. Third, the hermit tosses some stones down a cliff and recounts that the angels will not let him be harmed. At this point, Jesus is mostly done with the hermit, so the latter then tells him to turn the stones into bread. Jesus then closes with the “bread alone” sequence. So the order isn’t precisely that of Luke, but Luke’s temptations are clearly the inspiration for the scene.
This fuller quote is found in Matthew 4:4; the Lukan version only says “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”