The Greatest Story Ever Told

[poliphilo]

The Greatest Story is not the greatest story

It begins and ends in fairytale and has a central section where the hero just bats about from place to place causing awe.

You've seen one healing miracle, you've seen 'em all.

Relationships are sketchy and there's no love interest.

The central figure is almost impossible to identify with.

The role of Jesus kills careers. Max von Sydow went from being Bergman's leading man (unforgettable as the knight in the Seventh Seal) to sitting beside his Hollywood pool waiting for the phone to ring. Robert Powell went from nowhere very much to playing a curly haired comic policeman opposite Jasper Carrott.

The only Jesus movie I've ever watched from beginning to end was Jesus Christ Superstar. It was crap.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I don't know - the title works for me if I take 'story' in the sense of 'yarn, fabrication or lie'. ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It just don't think it's all that hot as narrative.

Beauty and the Beast is a better story.

Cinderella is a better story.

Treasure Island is a better story.....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes.

And how about the scene where he heals Blind Pew?

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

"It was crap."

Yes, but you have to admit, Herod had a real catchy tune!

And don't forget poor Max's 20 seconds of exposure in the incredibly dull "Dune".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Prove to me that you're no fool
Walk across my swimming pool...

Yeah, that's cool.

Why didn't they just make a film about Herod? why did they have to water down the weirdness and depravity by introducing that Jesus bloke?

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

It was more depraved in the West End revival, where Herod was more of a slime in a tuxedo surrounded by transvestites. The film Herod was just an old hippy, who'd done a little too much acid.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I played Herod in a passion play once.

I turned him into a lascivious old perve with the hots for Jesus.

I was improvising wildly. At one point my Herod addressed Jesus as "a meaty boy." Poor Jesus had the greatest difficulty keeping a straight face.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

P.S. I feel really bad about Max.

He was an art film god- and he wound up playing Ming the Merciless and third nazi from the left. It's such a shame.

But I guess the money was better.

[silversmoke.livejournal.com]

I recommend Lamb by Chris Moore. Sometimes the wit is a touch forced, but it's the only read that's ever given me any reason to hope that Jesus doesn't get crucified at the end.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know that one at all.

Now there would be a thing: The Jesus story with an different ending! Peter and the guys get their shit together and kick some Roman ass and rescue Jesus at the very last moment...

Mary Magdalen has these cool kung fu moves...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I have been to church on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday--and tonight I go again, then twice tomorrow.

I go to sing, and somehow that is enough, and is communication for me.

When my voice goes--and it will--I will probably still go to church, because it is a peaceful place for me.

And I do wonder--at a quantum level, maybe something is going on.

I'm sleepy and don't make sense of things--Kate came in at seven last night, bringing Jasper, packed up the last of her books and clothes, and then left at six this morning.

This goodbye was easier. Now it's back to Holy Week, that most introverted time of the year.

I like Tennebrae, with its brooding chants in the dark: Now we see him without power or comeliness; his form is gone from him.

Perhaps I relate best to that Jesus--the frightened man in the garden who doesn't want to suffer. I know how that feels, being a timid rabbit all my life now.

The one truth of my religious life is that I love to sing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I never had that outlet. I was the kid who was made to stand at the back of the choir and told to mime.

I think there's something going on at the quantum level too. I think it's beyond our understanding. And the moment we start trying to conceptualise it we make fools of ourselves.

There are things in the Jesus story I can relate to. Mainly the political stuff. The assurance that the Governor and High Priest (aka President and Pope) are in the wrong.

But I think it's a fiction. And I sort of wish we could uncouple ourselves from pleasing religious fictions and move on.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I had a long talk with my 85-year-old mother yesterday. She, understandably, thinks about her death often.

She told me she wishes she could still believe the "stories" she knew as a girl, because they were comforting.

She helped me when I was very young and arguing about evolution with my geography teacher, who was also a preacher.

I told her I was in over my head, arguing with a fierce grownup, and she said, "Look: what do YOU think?" She taught me young to think things out for myself.

She is very interesting. She struggles to understand astronomy and says that is where she finds God. I so understand! And agree!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The universe is so very, very big. So much bigger than we used to think. Its size is one of the things that makes our man-centred ideas of God seen implausible.

I remember the title of a book of liberal theology from back in the day- "Your God Is Too Small."

I believe there's some sort of sense to the universe, but I've given up believing I'll ever understand what it is.

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

One Jesus movie that I recommend--the only one--is Jesus of Montreal, which is a French Canadian film that's not about the Biblical Jesus at all; it's about a group of actors who come together to revise and act a Passion Play at a famous church. It's about ten years old and hard to get hold of, but if your library has films, they might have it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think I might like this.

Ingmar Bergman's A Passion (aka The Passion of Anna) is a very oblique take on the gospel narrative and one of my very favourite movies.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the Christ/Mary Mag slash isn't in the original.

I think that guy did get struck by lightning. That'll teach him to presume.

Heh,heh, heh- the second season of the new Dr Who starts on Brit TV tonight! A nation waits..

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

You're on a roll today - I'm reading them in reverse order, but first the praise of pubic hair, and now this. Huzzah!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

All human life is there....:)

[sovay]

How do you feel about The Last Temptation of Christ? Which I have never seen, but I like Kazantzakis almost on principle; and I notice that Willem Dafoe is still working.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't see that. I didn't want to see it. But I wrote an essay in its defence when it first came out which appeared- bizarrely enough- in a newspaper called The Scotsman.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

I've heard that Pasolini's Jesus movie was pretty good, though there have been some dissenting voices (Pauline kael wrote that she couldn't wait to see "that prissy young man" get crucified.) I'd probably nominate the Arthurian legends, as told in the French vulgate and later on Mallory, as the greatest story ever told.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I watched the first half once. And, yeah, I agree with Pauline Kael. "Prissy" is the word.

The Greatest story ever told? I think I'd plump for Hamlet.

Jesus movies.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I've just had fun writing the reader's digest condensed version of the entire Bible in my last post. Yes, most Jesus movies are interminable and silly:

MAX, (as Jesus): What's your Name?
Young Actor, (was it Sal Mineo?): John!
Max: That's a GOOD name!

Then there was Jeffrey Hunter, with his,(and this will be so relevant to you), SHAVEN ARMPITS and oh, so blue eyes.

I just wanted to strangle Ted Neeley in JCSS, but it sounded like someone was doing it already.

and on ... and on ...and on!

Re: Jesus movies.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bergman was in the running to direct the project that eventually became Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth.

He was going to film on Faro.

If anyone could have pulled off a Jesus film, Ingmar was the man.

Re: Jesus movies.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

The Fellini Jesus would have been something to see.