From La vie et la passion de Jesus Christ to The Passion of the Christ By Mike Hertenstein.
My personal favorite Jesus of Montreal
Jesus of Montreal features a small theatrical troupe who are asked to "freshen up" a traditional Passion Play held annually at a local shrine. As in Kazantzakis's The Greek Passion, the Gospel story blurs into their daily lives, as the actors become echoes of the characters they play.
If you rent Jesus of Montreal, make sure to get the French with subtitles version. The transition between French and English is a huge part of the sub text, and the dubed English version just kills the movie.
I've also enjoyed the recent Gospel of John, going through the entire book of John in three hours, I had a fresh sense of how John focused on the question, Who was Jesus?
Mike's list includes: Monty Python's Life of Brian
The Gospel according to Monty Python goes thusly: Brian of Nazareth falls by accident (and most literally) into the role of prophet, and the people follow him despite his best efforts to shoo them away. Everything he does is interpreted as wisdom or a miracle by the slavish, worshipping crowds. No doubt the religious-epic genre was crying out to be satirized, and sharply; and this film is sharpest with the occasional dead-on parody of 50s-style Biblical drama. The satire is helped by the use of leftover sets and costumes from Zefirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, and a soundtrack complete with those angelic "oohohhoohs" that always seemed designed to provoke a Pavlovian response in viewers, a great argument in favor of a mock-religious film about thinking for oneself.
Meanwhile, Jesus of Nazareth shows up in a brief cameo, in a famous bit where the back of the crowd mishears the distant preacher as saying "Blessed are the cheese makers" (though a liberal-interpreter hastens to note that the reference is not to be taken literally, but applies to any manufacturer of dairy products).
- Peace
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