Abstract
This fascinating collection is a revision to the editors’ 2007 publication, which acted as a handbook to 22 films on Jesus – chosen for their purported importance, availability and diversity – that could be accessed on DVD. After an initial discussion about the degree to which Jesus films should not be assumed to bear Christian meanings, Walsh and Staley point to the differences that this edition has with its predecessor, noting that it is ‘more cinema-centric’ (p. 22) and discloses a shift from the way in which the authors initially approached Jesus films from the starting point of academic readings of the Gospels. Instead of focusing on Scripture, this new edition is more interested in such questions as ‘plot, authority, cultural location, and director’ (p. 5), as well as such film techniques as the use of intertitles, lighting, editing and music. Chapters begin with a plot summary, a list of memorable characters and of memorable visuals, and whether and how the films deal with authority on Scripture, followed by a section on cultural location and genre, the director, a central problematic issue raised by the film, and then – admittedly, in my view, something superfluous and that should have been left behind in the 2007 edition – a list of what is on each film’s DVD, such as chapter lists and the names of each of the chapters in the filmmakers’ commentaries.
In the case of Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979), reference is made in the section on cultural location/genre to how the film ‘creates vaudevillian (and television variety shows) sketch comedy’ and how ‘[i]n one breath, the troupe praises empire or individualism and, in the next, mocks them. Nothing is stable. Everything is grist for the anarchic mill. All that matters is the next laugh, for only the laugh is sacred’ (p. 188). Even though there is a section marked ‘Director’, there is no mention of Terry Jones; instead, there is a reference to the Pythons and another of their subversive films, The Meaning of Life (1983). The best part of this section is where the authors situate the movie in the context of ways of delineating Jesus, arguing that ‘Brian is not enough of a Christ figure for the Jesus adjacent mechanics to work smoothly’ (p. 190).
With respect to Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), there is a very long (and largely superfluous) plot synopsis and a very useful sense of context provided in terms of the culture wars that are identified between political and religious conservatism in 1980s America and ‘their long-standing “secular humanist” enemy’ (p. 219), which included intellectuals, artists and Democrats. Good material also features regarding how ‘the focus on Jesus’s interior, human development lets history slip into psychological character exploration or biopic’ (p. 219) and how, in so doing, the film’s ‘greatest (cultural) offense might simply be its distance from the triumphant, self-confident Jesus popular in the United States’ (p. 220).
Finally, in the case of The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004), the authors note how ‘Gibson’s legacy now seems less the biblical epic’s return and more pre-release, religious marketing’s miraculous possibilities and Hollywood’s increasing openness to smaller market, conservatively oriented religious films’ (p. 288). Just as the chapter on Last Temptation drew comparisons with the Christ-like nature of other Scorsese protagonists from a ‘buddy movie’ such as Mean Streets (1973), where ‘Charlie, like Judas, tries sacrificially to save his impractical, suicidal friend’ (p. 220), so here comparisons are drawn with Braveheart (1995), which is identified as ‘a dress rehearsal for his Passion’ (p. 289). Indeed, ‘[l]ike Jesus, Wallace rises manfully from the ground during his terrible tortures’ (p. 289). The brief section on ‘Problematic issue’, however, sums up what feels out of alignment about this volume. For such a long book with so much space devoted to lists of DVD chapters, when it is acknowledged in the introduction that audiences are more likely these days to watch a film on a streaming platform, it is odd for a film that engendered so much heated debate in the last 20 years to have such a small section devoted to the controversy (note the singular) around its use of violence. So much could also have been said about the film’s alleged anti-Semitism, but it appears that the editors have decided to stick with one issue. If the problem is one of space, such a slender section could have been bolstered by the concomitant reduction of lists of DVD extras, which take up five pages for this movie alone compared with a mere four paragraphs on ‘Problematic issue’.