Celluloid Christ
Cinematic mediations of the mediator of all revelation
I’m teaching Christology this fall to a cohort of candidates for the permanent diaconate. It’s been a couple years since I last taught it, so one thing I like to go back to when prepping is a question I asked the last two cohorts the first day of class: “what are you hoping to learn this semester?”
From my notes from those first meetings, the questions they most often mentioned wanting to learn more about were
The life of Jesus, especially why we know almost nothing about the period between his infancy and the beginning of his public ministry.
Jesus’ knowledge: of himself, his mission, of everything. One student described this question as “the sacred heart of Jesus vs. the sacred brain of Jesus;” another student, channeling Howard Baker, asked “what did Jesus know, and when did he know it.”
How to make sense of the relationship between the humanity and divinity of Jesus in scripture, in theology, and in their ministries today.
Being the professional that I am, I tend to assume I’m going to cover most of the important theological subjects about Jesus: the main events of the Gospels, like the nativity, ministry and teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection; the development of Christology in the early church, with special attention to the councils and related controversies; differing theories of atonement and salvation; and of course my personal favorite, Jesus’ temptations. From these, I think I get at most of their questions anyway, but I’ve tried to pay more attention to theological responses to Jesus’ knowledge and self-knowledge too.
As I was revisiting the syllabus I used last time and revising some of the readings, I was reminded of an assignment I used years ago as a teaching fellow at Boston College. For two years I taught the year long sequence “Exploring Catholicism,” and I always took Christology as the focus for the latter half of the fall semester. As part of that we read the Gospels and selections from Paul, as well as some secondary sources on the development of the Trinity in Christian thought. But I also wanted to push them to think about artistic approaches to Jesus, so I both had them read Shusaku Endo’s Silence and view and analyze a wide range of paintings and sculptures of Jesus and the Trinity.
Then when it came to the final exam, I set it up as a group oral exam that analyzed a film depiction of Jesus in light of what we had read in scripture and what we had studied about biblical interpretation. I remember that students selected their own groups, but I can’t recall if they got to pick the movies from a list I gave or if I just assigned them the movies myself.
These were the movies I used for the course:
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Norman Jewison, 1973)
Godspell (David Greene, 1973)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)
Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)
Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004)
The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, 2006)
In addition to their film, all the students read an essay by Stephen Prickett, “The Bible in Literature and Art,” from the Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation. They all received the same general reflection questions on scriptural (e.g. which gospels does the film draw on, is there any apparent Pauline influence, do you see any references to Old Testament texts), theological (e.g. how are the human and/or divine aspects of Jesus portrayed, are the Father or Holy Spirit presented at all), and cinematic (e.g. what cinematic techniques are used to portray Jesus, what does the movie do with race, gender, ethnicity, and/or language, what settings does the film use) aspects of the movies to keep in mind when watching.
I had designed the exam to focus on acts of interpretation, to see how these films made sense of scriptural stories within a particular artistic medium, and to think about how interpretation is always a part of our interaction with texts. It was fascinating to engage with students on the particular questions about Jesus and scripture the films raised for them, some of which looped back to the very issues my diaconate students are asking me now. The doubt and inner turmoil in Jesus Christ Superstar or Last Temptation of Christ is a far different presentation of Jesus’ humanity than the brutalized but convicted endurance in The Passion of the Christ.
On some level, the question about Jesus’ knowledge and self-knowledge is a reflection of the difficult mystery of reconciling Jesus’ humanity and divinity, not as theological concepts, but as aspects of the daily life of the incarnate person. Presenting that daily life in film brings that tension to the fore in a clear way.
Reflecting on this assignment, I was also recognizing that I haven’t seen some of these films since I last assigned them to students, and that there were plenty of other Jesus movies I wanted to watch too (some that released after I last gave that assignment in 2012).
So as I work through my deacon candidate course this fall, I thought I might also give myself that final exam from a decade or so ago. Tentatively, these are the movies I’m looking to watch and reflect on here over the next few months. I’ve grouped them, somewhat arbitrarily, into the following categories:
Early Films about Jesus:
Giant Epic Jesus:
Alt Jesus:
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988) - Part I, Part II
Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)1
Last Days in the Desert (Rodrigo Garcia, 2015)
Mary Magdalene (Garth Davis, 2018)
Song and Dance Jesus:
Jesus Christ Superstar (Norman Jewison, 1973)
Godspell (David Greene, 1973)
Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979)
I’ve seen about half of these before, while the other half will be new viewing experiences. There are plenty of others I could have included but chose not to (I don’t have a strong desire to go back to Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ at this point, and I don’t recall being struck by The Nativity Story much at all). I’m hoping to do all these throughout the course of the semester, but maybe I’ll do some more after the new year begins. If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to watch along with me, leave your comments and reflections, and see what happens.
I’ll link subsequent posts in the series back to this one as I go. Up first in my next post will be the Lumière brothers’ La Passion from 1898.
I had originally intended to review Nader Talebzadeh The Messiah from 2007 after Jesus of Montreal, but further research revealed it was cut together from a larger TV series he had done, and I decided that would take too much time.