{"id":15539,"date":"2019-02-28T02:41:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T02:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=15539"},"modified":"2019-03-01T23:24:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T23:24:00","slug":"what-drives-the-appeal-of-passion-of-the-christ-and-other-films-on-the-life-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-drives-the-appeal-of-passion-of-the-christ-and-other-films-on-the-life-of-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"What drives the appeal of ‘Passion of the Christ’ and other films on the life of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate<\/a>, Hamilton College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Church isn\u2019t the only place people go to learn about Jesus.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of Lent, 15 years ago, devout evangelical Christians did not go to church to have ashes marked on their foreheads. Rather, they thronged to theaters to watch<\/a> a decidedly Catholic film to begin the Lenten season.<\/p>\n

That film was Mel Gibson\u2019s \u201cThe Passion of the Christ,\u201d which would go on to gross over US$600 million globally. It brought to screen a vivid portrayal of the last few hours of the life of Jesus and even today many can readily recall the brutality of those depictions. The film also stirred up a number of cultural clashes<\/a> and raised questions about Christian anti-Semitism and what seemed to be a glorification<\/a> of violence.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the only film to bring Jesus to cinema in such a powerful way. There have, in fact, been hundreds of films about Jesus produced around the world for over 100 years.<\/p>\n

These films have prompted devotion and missionary outreach, just as they have challenged viewers\u2019 assumptions of who the figure of Jesus really was.<\/p>\n

From still images to moving images<\/h2>\n

For the last two decades, I have researched the portrayal of religious figures on screen<\/a>. I have also looked at the ways in which audiences<\/a> make their own spiritual meanings through the images of film.<\/p>\n

Images of Jesus<\/a>, or the Virgin Mary, have long been part of the Christian tradition<\/a>. From amulets to icons, paintings to sculptures, Christianity incorporates a rich visual history, so perhaps it is not surprising that cinema has become a vital medium to display the life of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Inventors of cinematic technologies, such as Thomas Edison<\/a> and the Lumi\u00e8re brothers<\/a>, were among the first to bring Jesus\u2019s life to the big screen at the end of the 19th century. Hollywood continued to cash in on Christian audiences all through the 20th century.<\/p>\n

In 1912, Sidney Olcott\u2019s \u201cFrom the Manger to the Cross\u201d<\/a> became the first feature length film to offer a full account of the life of Christ.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, crowds flocked to see Cecil B. DeMille\u2019s \u201cThe King of Kings\u201d<\/a>, demonstrating the power of a big budget and a well-known director. Writing about DeMille\u2019s film some years later, film historian Charles Musser commented<\/a> how the film evoked \u201cChrist\u2019s charisma\u201d through \u201ca mesmerizing repertoire of special effects, lighting and editing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Hollywood\u2019s portrayal, Jesus was a white, European man. In Nicholas Ray\u2019s 1961 film, \u201cKing of Kings\u201d<\/a> Jeffrey Hunter made a deep impression on his audience in the role of Jesus with his piercing blue eyes. Four years later, George Stevens\u2019s \u201cThe Greatest Story Ever Told\u201d<\/a>, cast the white Swedish actor Max von Sydow in the lead role.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jesus, portrayed by Swedish actor Max von Sydow, moves through a mass of people in this scene filmed on May 1, 1963, at Pyramid Lake, Nevada, for<\/span>
\nAP Photo<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In all these films, evidence of Jesus\u2019s Jewish identity<\/a> was toned down. Social or political messages found in the gospels \u2013 such as the political charge of a \u201ckingdom of God\u201d \u2013 were smoothed over. Jesus was portrayed as a spiritual savior figure while avoiding many of the socio-political controversies.<\/p>\n

This was, as Biblical studies scholar Adele Reinhartz put it<\/a>, not Jesus of Nazareth, but the creation of a \u201cJesus of Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global moral instruction<\/h2>\n

Many of these films were useful for Christian missionary work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An advertisement for Olcott\u2019s film<\/a>, for example, stated how it was \u201cdestined to be more far-reaching than the Bible in telling the story of the Savior.\u201d Indeed, as media scholars Terry Lindvall<\/a> and Andrew Quicke<\/a> have noted<\/a>, many Christian leaders throughout the 20th century utilized the power of film for moral instruction and conversion.<\/p>\n

A 1979 film, known as \u201cThe Jesus Film\u201d<\/a>, went on to become the most watched<\/a> film in history. The film was a relatively straightforward depiction of the life of Jesus, taken mainly from the gospel of Luke.<\/p>\n

The film was translated into 1,500 languages and shown in cities and remote villages around the world.<\/p>\n

The global Jesus<\/h2>\n

But, as majority Christian population shifted<\/a> from Europe and North America to Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and South Asia, so did portrayals of Jesus: they came to reflect local cultures and ethnicities.<\/p>\n

In the 2006 South African film \u201cSon of Man\u201d<\/a>, for example, Jesus, his mother and disciples are all black, and the setting is a contemporary, though fictionalized, South Africa. The film employed traditional art forms of dance and music that retold the Jesus story in ways that would appeal to a South African audience.<\/p>\n

It was the same with a Telugu film, \u201cKarunamayudu\u201d (Ocean of Mercy)<\/a>, released in 1978. The style resembles a long tradition of Hindu devotional and mythological films and Jesus could easily be seen as part of the pantheon of Hindu deities.<\/p>\n

For the past four decades in southern India and beyond, villagers have gathered in front of makeshift outdoor theaters to watch this film. With over 100 million viewers, it has become a tool for Christian evangelism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other films have responded to and reflected local conditions in Latin America. The Cuban film \u201cThe Last Supper<\/a>,\u201d from 1976, offered a vision of a Jesus that is on the side of the enslaved and oppressed, mirroring Latin American movements in Liberation Theology<\/a>. Growing out of the Cold War, and led by radical Latin American priests, Liberation Theology worked in local communities to promote socio-economic justice.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the appeal of some of these films can also be gauged from how they continue to be watched year after year. The 1986 Mexican film, \u201cLa vida de nuestro se\u00f1or Jesucristo,\u201d for example, is broadcast on the Spanish-language television station Univision during Easter week every year.<\/p>\n

The power of film<\/h2>\n

Throughout history, Jesus has taken on the appearance and behavior of one cultural group after another, some claiming him as their own, others rejecting certain versions of him.<\/p>\n

As the scholar of religion Richard Wightman Fox<\/a> puts it in his book \u201cJesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession:\u201d<\/a> \u201cHis incarnation guaranteed that each later culture would grasp him anew for each would have a different view of what it means to be human.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Films about Jesus can move around the world quickly. Posters promoting \u2018The Passion of the Christ\u2019 in Bucharest, Romania.<\/span>
\nAP Photo\/Vadim Ghirda<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cinema allows people in new places and times to grasp Jesus \u201canew,\u201d and create what I have called<\/a> a \u201cgeoreligious aesthetic.\u201d Films, especially those about Jesus, in their movement across the globe, can alter the religious practices and beliefs of people they come into contact with.<\/p>\n

While the church and the Bible provide particular versions of Jesus, films provide even more \u2013 new images that can prompt controversy, but also devotion.\"The<\/p>\n

S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate<\/a>, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Cinema and Media Studies, by special appointment, Hamilton College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate, Hamilton College Church isn\u2019t the only place people go to learn about Jesus. At the beginning of Lent, 15 years ago, devout evangelical Christians did not go to church to have ashes marked on their foreheads. Rather, they thronged to theaters to watch a decidedly Catholic film to begin the Lenten season. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":15535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2450],"tags":[5956,2383,2876,1409,2150,1237,5955,5957,5958],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15545,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15539\/revisions\/15545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}