Goings on with The Gospel of John

Twelve and a half years ago I wrote about Bruce Marchiano's plans to film a new version of The Gospel of John. At the time, another word-for-word adaptation of the fourth gospel had only recently been made - and by Marchiano's previous employers, The Visual Bible. In the intervening period David Batty's team at Lumo have produced another word for word adaptation of John, and, I assumed that, given the delay, that Marchiano's project was off.

At least I did until I started researching The Visual Bible: Matthew for the book I'm writing and I happened to be listening to a podcast/interview with Marchiano from June 17th last year, where he explains that he is still involved with the project and where he is with it:

I'm in development...I'm very close to pre-production on a word-for-word film of The Gospel According to John. In fact right before we got online I was working the budget numbers to try to bring them in line...We'll shoot that probably within a year....So I'm raising money for a film The Gospel According to John and that's my main aim right now.

Since then there have been a few tweets by Marchiano. Firstly on the 12th December he tweeted:

"...for you who've donated to the making of "The Gospel Acc to John" please keep us in prayer as we're make some big product'n decisions--tomorrow morn we'll nail down location/date..."

Then the following day he posted this:

"...well, we didn't "nail it down" as far as location/date but we certainly narrowed it down. so JOHN is on the move!"

So after all this time it seems that this one is still ongoing. Credit to Marchiano, he is certainly tenacious and not one to give up easily! There is an official webpage for the film and the promise that those donating to it will get a screen credit. Marchiano's face is on the publicity, but I'm not sure whether he still harbours the desire to play the lead role himself, or whether he will be casting around for someone younger. In any case it seems like the project is hitting an exciting phase. I've been re-evaluating the influence of Marchiano's contribution, via Matthew to the Jesus film genre in general and with this project having been for roughly as long as this blog, I'm really interested to see how it turns out.

The Resurrection on FilmPart 4 - John's Gospel

This is the last in a series of short posts for Easter this year looking at film portrayals of the resurrection. The idea is to take each of the Gospels in turn and look at one or two films that have sought to portray the resurrection in a manner that fits with that particular Gospel. Yesterday I looked at the resurrection in Mark's Gospel and so today we end with the Gospel of John.

As is well known, John's Gospel is significantly different from the other three "synoptic" gospels. Whilst the resurrection scenes are not an exception we do see something interesting in how John essentially takes the basic plot structure from the other three gospels and expands it with the writer's own ideas as well as adding on a significant chunk of new material towards the end. This is essentially a microcosm of what John does with the Synoptic text as a whole. (I realise that some dispute whether John was even familiar with any of the synoptics).

What we have in John's gospel is Mary Magdalene visiting the tomb, finding it empty, running to tell the apostles, who run back to the tomb and find it empty. When they leave she comes face to face with Jesus, although initially she mistakes him for someone else. That evening Jesus appears to the disciples. John then adds a 2nd appearance eight days later, this time where the "doubting" disciple is present. Then we get a later incident, sometimes called an appendix or the epilogue where Jesus appears on a beach and cooks the disciples fish for breakfast before rehabilitating Simon Peter. One of the reasons this second chapter (21) is sometimes called an epilogue or appendix is because the text seems to have come to a close at 20:31, but then starts up again.

Overall these incidents are not that well represented in film, indeed when thinking about them the main two that spring to mind are the two word for word adaptations, one from the Visual Bible in 2003 and 2015's version from the Lumo Project. That said two versions of the appearance to Mary Magdalene - the episode from John's resurrection scenes that gets the most coverage in Jesus film - are worth a brief mention.

Brief Mentions
The first is in The Miracle Maker (2000) which as I alluded to yesterday gives better coverage to the events of the resurrection than practically any other film. Here we get a nice point-of-view shot as Mary first sees the risen Jesus, partially accounting for her failing to recognise him.

Also mentioned yesterday was the BBC's The Passion (2008). As with the Road to Emmaus scene in Luke's Gospel where Jesus isn't recognised by seemingly close friends, the film uses a different actor to portray Jesus as he meets Mary.

The Lumo Project's Gospel of John (2015)
So how do the word for word translations do? Some of the Lumo Project's Gospel of John of the resurrection  are available on YouTube. The Magdalene, Thomas and Simon Peter scenes are obviously filmed specifically for this instalment but there's quite a bit of footage that is recycled in the other films. Part of the disappointment with this version is that it doesn't really do anything particularly interesting with what it has available and conversely part of the disappointment is that, again, some of the nudges in the text are ignored. I suspect it's the practicalities of trying to create re-useable footage, more than a desire to minimise the distinctives of each gospel that is the driving consideration here, but the result is much the same.

The Visual Bible' Gospel of John (2003)
In contrast I find the Visual Bible' Gospel of John more moving and it uses a couple of nice filmic techniques to good effect. It actually spends fifteen minutes on these two chapters, not quite as long as The Passion, but still one of the longest treatments.

The first thing that really stands out here is that Magalene's case of mistaken identity is because Jesus is rather oddly crouched down behind a plant. This seems a little bit odd (what was he doing at that moment? Had he got distracted from his important business of making his debut post-resurrection appearance by a stray weed or something?), but is one way to deal with a somewhat odd bit of the story.

What really stands out about this film's resurrection sequence - memorable to me even before I watched it, is the very end of the film. As Jesus' conversation with Peter draws to a close, the group of them are walking along the beach. Peter gestures towards the disciple that Jesus loved and asks "What about this man?". Jesus replies "If I want him to live until I come, what is that to you". The "other" disciple is standing behind the two of them but compositionally he is in the middle of the frame between Jesus and Peter. Once Jesus has spoken the line he an Peter walk past the camera (which is tracking back very slowly) such that the other disciple is left alone in the middle of the frame and gradually moves closer to the camera looking more than a little taken aback. Then the footage freezes, the image turns sepia and then merges into a sketch -type version of the image (pictured above). At the same time, the music to the film - which I find to be one of it's strong points - swells in a particularly moving way. The freeze frame/sepia-ing/distorting of this image really conveys the passing of time and the sense that the live action we have been witnessing passed into history. It's my favourite moment in the entire film, poignantly placing an emphasis on what happened to these followers, and the church who followed in their wake, after the story we have seen has been completed. And when it comes to the resurrection, perhaps that is the most significant thing.

Bible Films Blog Review of 2014

In previous years, I’ve offered a review of the year, although this has rather fallen by the wayside in recent time. However, 2014 was a bit of a stonker, so it would seem remiss not to do at least something.

The big news was, of course, the long awaited release of a number of biblical epics, which hit not just the odd art-house cinema, or graced a local congregation with a decentish video projector, but in the local, everyday cinemas. Russell Crowe was talking about Noah in primetime TV shows. The Guardian was offering opinion pieces about Moses every time Ridley Scott coughed in a vaguely atheistic manner.

As it turned out neither film made the, um, waves, that their respective studios had hoped for and neither director will be pleased to hear that they are more likely to win a Razzie than an Oscar come the spring.

But before all that there was the matter of the Son of God - not so much the actual one as the cinema release of the Gospel footage from the History Channel’s 2013 series The Bible. Cutting down a TV series to a movie is a risky strategy. On the one hand the popularity of the “best of” genre might mean that he TV series might just be part of a lengthy marketing campaign – the world’s longest ever trailer if you like. But the question still remained, why would people get in their cars, drive out of town and pay through the nose to watch something they have already seen for “free”?

As it turned out Son of God did rather well, perhaps because compelling answers were found to that question. Buying a ticket to Son of God was a statement of faith, a chance to send a message to Hollywood. Or you could buy two and bring along a friend with whom you wanted to share your faith.

From an artistic point of view however the quality of the product was largely the same as that of the original 2013 series. Jesus was still too blond and off-puttingly good looking; the dialogue and the acting still left a great deal to be desired; and it still wasn’t really clear what Jesus was actually about other than being nice.

One Bible film hero who eluded, with consummate ease, any charge of being overly nice, was Russell Crowe’s Noah, who shifted from grunting environmentalist to genocidal maniac over the course of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. It’s the kind of precipice along which many edge along when they tell us how bad humans in general, and children in particular, are bad for the environment? But that’s another matter.

Actually the scenes where Noah contemplates whether he should kill his own granddaughter were, in my opinion, rather misunderstood. Noah didn’t want to murder members of his own family, he just thought it might be what “The Creator” was calling him to do. After all it was the logical extension of what he had already done – a point that may of the faithful struggle to appreciate. It was a great performance from Crowe, but the terrain of unlikeable anti-hero seemed to leave the film, rather than just its antihero rather unloved. It was a shame. Aronofsky’s bizarre epic was drenched in biblical and other religious references, many of which weren’t even half as odd as the original text.

December is often a busy time of year for those of us interested in Bible films and 2014 would prove no exception. In the cinema Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings (my review ) received a fairly lukewarm welcome in many western countries and was banned in several countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In the current climate it's hard to know which is more damaging, western indifference or Egyptian anger.

In the west the film's biggest talking point was the supposed white washing, casting Joel Edgerton and Christian Bale as an Egyptian and someone who manages to pass as an Egyptian for forty years. I must admit I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand Christian art has always portrayed the faith's heroes in its own image as a way of relating to them. At the same time, as my comments above about Son of God suggest I also like to see more realistic casting.

One film that did embrace a more ethnically accurate Jesus was The Gospel of John the latest output from the Lumo Project (an offshoot of Big Book Media). The series, which is available on Netflix, narrates John's Gospel over dramatized reconstructed video footage. Jesus is played by Selva Rasalingam who is half Tamil. If his face is familiar it’s because he has been playing Jesus in various Lumo/Big Book projects over the last few years, including the music video for Deliriou5?'s "History Maker" and the BBC’s The Story of Jesus (2011). Also part of those projects, as well as 2012’s David Suchet: In the Footsteps of St Paul, is director David Batty.

The Lumo Project will eventually cover all four gospels in the same style, and Netflix features narration in both the King James and the New International versions of the Bible. As a medium it’s very similar to the Genesis Project’s Gospel of Luke (1979) which starred Brian Deacon and was recut as Jesus (1979), certainly it’s quite different in feel from other the two Visual Bible word for word projects Matthew (1994) and Gospel of John (2003).

Given that John’s Gospel only received the word for word treatment 11 years ago, it’s surprising that the filmmakers have chosen to start with John, particularly as John’s wordy gospel is perhaps the one least suited to such a treatment. Personally I wished they’d opted for the only gospel not, yet, to have been filmed this way, Mark. But that will later this year if the IMDb is to be believed. Hopefully it will get a UK Netflix release as well. Incidentally 2015 will also see Rasalingam star as James in a Jesus-cameo film Clavius

The appearance of The Gospel of John on Netflix seems to reflect a broader trend of niche faith-based films being broadcast away from traditional channels. Another such production in 2014 was The Red Tent, an adaptation of Anita Diamant’s historicalish novel of the same name. Diamant’s novel took the stories from around Genesis around Leah and Jacob’s daughter Dinah and re-imagines Shechem as her lover rather than her rapist. Young’s mini-series, which aired on the Lifetime network early in December, cast Rebecca Ferguson, star of 2013’s excellent The White Queen’s, and also features Minnie Driver, Debra Winger, Morena Baccarin and Hiam Abbass in prominent roles. Peter Chattaway has a great interview about the series with the director Roger Young.

The other TV film worth a mention was the BBC animated short film On Angel Wings, which aired in the UK on Christmas Eve. It starred an old man recalling the visit of the Angels on the first Christmas night to the group of shepherds he worked for and how one angel secretly flew him to the stable so he got to meet the baby Jesus. Readers may recall my enjoyment of the Fourth King a fictional tale about the magi. On Angel Wings would make a good companion piece dealing as it does with Jesus' other Christmas visitors.

Then there were several smaller films which brought the more poetic parts of the Bible to the screen. The Song re-imagined the life of King Solomon as an amorous country singer, with nods to both Song of Songs/Solomon and Ecclesiastes. Meanwhile Amos Gitai directed one of the short films in the anthology film Words with Gods. Gitai already has two fine Bible films under his wings, [Esther (1996) and Golem: l'esprit de l'exil (1992)] and here he took the on the work of his namesake, the prophet Amos.

Perhaps the most significant of the films dealing with the more poetic parts of the Bible was Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan. As with The Song it took the form of a modern story, this time the story revolves around a man fighting corruption in the coastal town where he lives, but there is also a healthy dose of the Book of Job. It's also likely to be the most successful of those films with a substantial link to the Bible, having been Russia's entry for the foreign language Oscar it's now one of the final nominations and has already won the Golden Globe in the same category.*

Documentary-wise it was a fairly light year, though it's more than possible I missed something. David Suchet did feature in In the Footsteps of St. Peter, the follow up to his 2013 In the Footsteps of St Paul .

However, there were a couple of new books about Bible Films that are worth a mention. David Shepherd's "The Bible on Silent Film" looks to be an excellent guide to an under-discussed period in the genre's development. I couldn't afford the hardback or a Kindle editions so I've only read excerpts but the bits I've read are full of fascinating detail and insight. Technically the hard back was released right at the end of 2013, but seeing as the paper back will be released in March this year, we can split the difference. I'm looking forward to getting a copy.

Another book to touch upon the sub-genre is Graham Holderness' "Re-Writing Jesus: Christ in 20th-Century Fiction and Film" which touched on Last Temptation of Christ, The Passion of the Christ and The DaVinci Code, as well as various books about the life of Jesus. There were also various books released related to the films mentioned above including a picture book for the team behind Son of God.

And lastly there was a conference. Not so much about a Jesus Films as a very close relation. "Jesus and Brian: or What Have the Pythons Ever Done for us?" ran for three days in June in Kings College, London and featured an impressive team of speakers, including John Cleese and Terry Jones, and even gained some national press coverage. Sadly neither time, nor money, nor health, permitted me to be there, but Mark Goodacre made it, blogged about it and did rather rub salt in the wounds of those of us who would have loved to be there but weren't. I mean, he got to meet John Cleese.

Anyway 2015 promises a great deal. There are various films due for release about which Peter Chattaway is doing some great blogging. He also posts numerous things on the Bible Films Facebook page, for which I'm incredibly grateful. There's also a few books to look out for, including David Shepherd's follow up volume "The Silents of Jesus" and there might even be a book with a couple of chapters by myself to report on in next year's review of the year.

*There were some subsequent edits here, made after the Oscar nominations

Gospel of John:4-6

(From a series os posts looking at Visual Bible's Gospel of John).

Chapter 4 of John's Gospel starts with Jesus taking a short cut through Samaria and his meeting with a Samaritan Woman. It's a fairly rare scene in Jesus films. On the one hand this is a surprise: most films try to up the involvement of women to widen their appeal to both sexes. However, at the same time one of the ways that they do this is to enhance the role of key women (notably the Marys of Nazareth, Magdalene and Bethany) in order to make them into more fully rounded, fleshed out characters. This women is clearly not any of those three. She's not even Jewish.

So whilst it's not the realms of possibility that a filmmaker might try and mix her in with her Mary Magdalene it hasn't happened yet (as far as I can recall at least). Only a handful of films have shown this scene although it does appear in the earliest Jesus film I have seen La Vie du Christ (1899) and its subsequent updates (Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1902-1905) and Son of Man (1915)). I think its significant that these films were more tableaux than films about people with developed plots.

Since then only the Living Christ Series and Il Messia have covered this story aside from the Gospel of John. It's disappointing then that this scene is relatively poor. Perhaps its just me, but I don't find the actress playing the Samaritan to be at all convincing. She seems fairly at ease with her state in life (whereas I think she would be far more broken), she looks Jesus in the eye, and whilst there is a hint of flirtatiousness there's little to connect her to her past. Even the way she runs through the disciples rather than around them suggests confidence.

One of the differences between John's Gospel and the Synoptics (only Matt and Luke in this case) is that whereas they have a centurion asking Jesus to heal his servant, John has a basilikos (translated variously as courtier / royal official / nobleman). Given that this occurrence happens in Cana, Galilee (Capernaum in Matt/Luke) it seems likely that a courtier would be from Herod's court, rather than a Roman. Yet here, either sub-consciously or in a deliberate attempt to harmonise John with Matthew and Luke, the official comes in the garb of a Roman soldier.

I've commented on the this film's portrayal of the healing at the pool before, and I've nothing more to add this time around. What follows is a confrontation with the Jewish authorities (as the Good News translation, and therefore this film, has it). This ends in the shot above which is meant to be artful, but ends up feeling rather contrived. I am interested however in the contrasting use of black and white clothing for Jesus' opponents. I've been noticing recently how often Jesus' opponents wear black - which certainly goes a way to suggesting that they are the "bad guys", and therefore is rather unhelpful. Is this, then, an attempt to restore some balance, or a way of showing that Judaism was actually rather diverse at this point with different parties with strongly opposing views? For most of the rest of the film the Jewish authorities wear black, but this perhaps ties in with the opening title card explaining that the gospel perhaps exaggerates / invents some of the enmity that existed. By depicting these opponents in such a caricatured fashion it encourages the audience to take the extent of their opposition less seriously.

I quite like the portrayal of the feeding of the five thousand here, barring the moment when everyone all gets up at once, which is a little unconvincing. But the lack of fanfare surrounding the miracle itself is a nice piece of understatement.

Rather more showy is the scene of Jesus walking on water. This film is now 7 years old, but it holds up reasonably well. Of course we know that some of this was done with a blue screen, and other bits are done in a water tank, but it works reasonably well.

Gospel of John:1-3

(From a series of posts looking at Visual Bible's Gospel of John)
Having worked my way through all of Visual Bible's Matthew and half of the Genesis Project / New Media Bible's Luke the group I lead is now on to John and so I'm going to work through the Visual Bible's Gospel of John in a similar fashion.

The first thing I notice is that John is very much a step up in terms of quality. Christopher Plummer is a better narrator than Richard Kiley, widescreen is better than 4:3 and just the quality of the filmstock and sets makes this a better viewing experience. The script is less adaptable however, and I suspect that will start to grate sooner or later.

A couple of observations on the first couple of chapters. Firstly, John is the only gospel where Jesus isn't baptised (or at least John doesn't tell us about it), but the film puts in in anyway, as a flashback as John the Baptist is speaking.

Secondly, the clearing of the temple scene is really good here. Whilst I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea of a Jesus quite as angry as this one (particularly as it's not really clear why) this is pretty much the only film to depict this scene plausibly in my opinion.

Lastly, it always seems strange to me that Jesus doesn't get to deliver the immortal :) words of John 3:16. Plummer gets these, but I'd always thought (perhaps wrongly given some modern translations) that these are words spoken by Jesus rather than the author. I might have to look into that one.

Jesus, the Christ Out on DVD

I blogged a while back about Bruce Marchiano's plans to make a word for word version of the Gospel of John using the NIV translation. I added myself to their mailing list and have been following developments reasonably closely.So I was intrigued to get an email from them the other day about a DVD release for a film called Jesus, the Christ.

I recently bought the four-hour word for word Visual Bible version of the Gospel of Matthew in which Marchiano played Jesus. Jesus, the Christ essentially is version of this footage cut down to 90 minutes, and, I presume, arrange the remaining material so that the finished product is more of a movie and less of a, well, visual Bible.

The DVD is available to buy for $20, and you can watch a fairly lengthy trailer at Marchiano's website. There are also a selection of other media there, relating both to the original production and this new film. The 2 DVD set includes:

* The film, Jesus the Christ
* The Larnelle Harris Music Video, Man of Sorrows
* The Kathy Trocolli Topical Bible Teaching, The Healing Touch of Jesus
* Kathy Trocolli Music Video, When I Look at You
* The Evangelical Video Tract, Who is Jesus
* Movie Night Outreach Media Kit

Proceeds will go towards funding The Gospel of John

Gospel of John 5:4

My church is looking at John 5 on Sunday (The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda) and I was asked to find a video clip for it. As far as I'm aware the only proper version of this story on film is from Visual Bible's Gospel of John. So I sat down to watch it and noticed something I'd not seen in my previous viewings.

Now many translations these days, including the Good News Bible which this film is based upon, omit part of John 5:3 and all of verse 4 as it doesn't appear in the more important manuscripts. It's thought to be a later addition, included to explain the paralysed man's comment in 5:7 ("Sir, I have no one here to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up" - GNB). The surplus text explains this comment thus:

They were waiting for the water to move, 4 because every now and then an angel of the Lord went down into the pool and stirred up the water. The first sick person to go into the pool after the water was stirred up was healed from whatever disease he had.

The thing I noticed yesterday was how the film cleverly makes reference to this missing verse, without actually speaking the words. As Christopher Plummer reads out the first 2 verse we see a shot of the 5 porches, followed by a panning out God shot of the pool itself (shown at the top of this post). As you can see the water is bubbling there seemingly all by itself.

The next shot is a brief action shot: a couple of characters run to some of those waiting by the pool. The character at the back of the above screen grab is slightly blurred. We then see a couple of shots of people helping those around the pool to get in. All this is happening whilst Plummer reads out the first part of verse 3.

The way these shots are edited together suggest the missing text of verse 4. The use of a God shot rather than one that is more conventional; the way that the pool is being stirred, in a fashion, without anyone doing it; and the way that all of a sudden people are rushing to help others into the pool.The angel is obviously unseen which makes the reading of the scene somewhat ambiguous, but I like the subtle way with which this small detail is included.

Gospel According to John-a-thon

Bruce Marchiano and his team are still attempting to get sufficient funding to get The Gospel According to John off the ground, so today their holding a John-a-thon.

The idea is to have a day of publicising the film to friends and family via email with a view to raising funds for it. For various reasons I haven't /won't be giving to this film (plus I'm a little concerned about the potential for it to turn into a spam-thon), but I would like to see the film get made. So I thought I'd post about it here instead in case it would be of interest to any of those who visit this site. If that's you then I'm sure the folks at the official website would be only too happy to help.

Podcast:Gospel of John

The fourteenth entry in my Jesus film podcast is up, and this month I'm talking about The Gospel of John (2003). Apologies that it's a bit late to those who listen to it. The other thirteen talks are still available to download.

January Podcast Delayed

Apologies to listeners of my Jesus Films Podcast: January's entry is late. Life is just very hectic at the moment. I'm in the middle of doing one house up whilst trying to sell another; I've started an extra job to earn a bit more cash; My other job is going through it's busiest period of the year; and I'm trying to be a husband, father, friend and blogger as well. On top of all of that, this afternoon we're off to Cambridge for the weekend to watch a performance of the musical my brother has written Academy of Death (based on the story of notorious 19th century doctor Robert Knox.

New Blog for Gospel of John

I made a few comments earlier in the month on the Visual Bible's 2003 adaptation of The Gospel of John. I've just got back from Greenbelt Arts Festival to find a couple of comments from a new blogger, devoting their blog (gospelofjohnthefilm.blogspot) to the film.

I'm hoping this is going to be an ongoing blog rather than just a one off post for the sake of publicity. The film hasn't really gained as much attention as it deserves, and it would be nice to see some in depth discussion of it. Hopefully this blog will be a good source for that.

The Gospel of John (2003) - A Few Thoughts

My wife and I have been working through Philip Saville's Gospel of John (2003). It's one of those films that there is obviously no point doing a scene analysis for because it's a word for word reproduction of the fourth gospel. However, there is plenty of other things to say about the film. Firstly, in watching it again, I'm surprised that this film avoided criticism for being anti-Semitic given that it was released during the period when Mel Gibson's film was being pre-emptively protested against. It's true that this film did employ the wise tactic of utilising an advisory panel of scholars, and that the film-makers implemented one of their suggestions to open the film with some text explaining the context in which the gospel was written. Nevertheless, when I try to explain the problems with Gibson's film, the kinds of problems that I tend to point to all seem to be present here. Lack of neutral Jewish characters (tick). A noble sensitive Pilate in contrast to a swarthy, shifty looking bunch of Jewish elders (tick). There are various other points of similarity, but most of these relate to the text, and here the comparison falters. The Gospel of John is, by nature of the project, stuck with some of its textual difficulties, and these are mitigated to some degree by the disclaimer. Gibson, on the other hand, had free reign, and so chose to favour John's weak-willed Pilate, instead of the butcher we read about in Luke 13:1-3 (and various non-biblical sources). Of course, you could ask why the film-makers chose this particular gospel instead of Mark or Luke (having already completed Matthew in 1994), but then I suppose the similarities between the synoptic gospels would make John the most appealing.

Once again I was impressed with Henry Ian Cusick's portrayal of Jesus. Cusick notes in one of the DVD extras that there are certain Johannine passages which he couldn't do anything but recite with a degree of anger. Given that there are a several such confrontational passages, it's surprising that Cusick's Jesus still manages to come across as warm and approachable. Equally impressive is Christopher Plummer's narration, and Stuart Bunce's silent role as "John",(who should really have been credited as "the disciple whom Jesus loved"). It's interesting (and perhaps a little disappointing) that it's Plummer, not Cusick who gets to deliver the immortal words of John 3:16. Given that the gospel puts them on Jesus's lips, I'd be interested to see the proportion of films using this verse that actually have Jesus saying it.

I was also impressed with some of the historical details that this film gets right, and in a few cases it chooses to go against the majority of Jesus films. Most notably, Jesus is nailed to the cross through his ankles on either side of the upright. I've always intrigued by the way numerous portrayals show the crucifixion of the two theives in a variety of ways, but Jesus is usually crucified in accordance with standard iconography. A break was made with this pattern for the Jesus films of the late eighties (Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus of Montreal), but things soon settled down again. Another such break is made with the mode of Jesus carrying the cross piece. Until Jesus of Nazareth in 1977 films tended to portray the whole cross being dragged up to Golgotha. Since then, most films (although not Gibson's) have shown Jesus just carrying the crosspiece upon his shoulders. Here though, the crosspiece is simply slung over just one shoulder. I have no idea that there is anymore historical precedent for this, but I suppose at least it draws the viewer's attention to the uncertainty we have over this part of the practice.

Finally, the shot on the right, really stood out this time around as reminiscent of the closing shot from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. In fact, the only time the shot is not overlaid in John, is when it is shown in a black and white flashback. I wonder if this is an intentional reference or just coincidence.

Another Gospel of John Film

My Dayasagar review was visited by a fellow blogger called Ronald who is charting the progress of a new film on John's Gospel. The Gospel According to John is still in the very early stages of production, but already has an official website with a ringing endorsement from Jack Hayford (president of the International Bible Society).

The project is already interesting at this stage for two reasons. Firstly, it is only 3 years since the release of the last filmed version of John's Gospel, Phillip Saville's word for word adaptation The Gospel of John. That film was made using the Good News Bible by Visual Bible International - their third film following on from Matthew and Acts. There had been some discussion about a Gospel of Mark, including a teaser trailer buried in the "Video Clips" section of this site, but sadly it appears that Visual Bible International gone into receivership.

Secondly, this new project is the brain-child of Bruce Marchiano, the same actor who played Jesus in those first two Visual Bible films. After filming those films he wrote a book about his experiences, "In the Footsteps of Jesus", and started Marchiano Minisitries.

There's a couple of points I'd like to make about this. Firstly one cannot help wondering if Marchiano was disappointed not to be asked to reprise the role for Saville's Gospel of John. I certainly couldn't blame him, as an actor, for wanting to explore all four gospels, particularly having got a taste for it after Matthew. Secondly, Marchiano was 28 at the time of Matthew (1994), which would make him around 40 now, and presumably around 42 by the time filming might be completed. Marchiano is cautious about whether he will get the role or give it to someone else. Answering a few likely questions on the film's website he says:

Will you play Jesus? Let me answer this way... If the cameras rolled today, yes, I would play Jesus. At the same time it would be grievous error to be presumptuous in such a holy pursuit. So even though I would love nothing more I have to be willing to lay it down for His perfect desire if He calls me to. So when it comes to casting Jesus we will make that decision on our knees before Him. That is the only way John will be all God wants it to be.

If Marchiano did take the role, he would be one of the oldest actors to play Jesus behind HB Warner (who was 51) and possibly Robert Wilson (who I can't find a date for - there is a more comprehensive list of the ages of actors playihg Jesus here courtesy of Peter Chattaway).

That said, some scholars at least consider that John 8:57 ("you are not yet 50") suggest Jesus was older than the more commonly ascribed 33. I doubt Marchiano is tapping into this line of thought here, but I suppose if you commit yourself to reproducing John irrespective of what the other gospels say then it's certainly a possibility. (This is reminiscent of how the Jesus (1979) film based solely on Luke did not give him a crown of thorns as that detail does not appear in that gospel).

There's a wealth of information on the film at the official website and the blog. Peter Chattaway also covered this story on Saturday.