Quo Vadis (1924)

Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby's 1924 Italian silent is not one of the more popular adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1896 novel "Quo Vadis?", but it has now been given a decent restoration by Nederlands Filmmuseum who have made it available to watch on YouTube. 

Italian cinema found itself in a precarious state after the First World War. While the European nations were fighting among themselves, the American film industry was migrating to Hollywood (especially over the period 1911-1916) and making the most of the lack of competition from overseas. The resulting economic problems in much of Europe saw the number of Italian-made films dropped off from 371 in 1920 to just eight a decade later (1) as Mussolini's Black Shirts took power.

In an attempt to rally, Arturo Ambrosio attempted to return to the historical films of Italian silent cinema's glory days, namely Cabiria (1914) and, more pertinently, the 1913 version of Quo Vadis? Despite it's huge budget, the film flopped and, alongside the similarly disastrous Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1926) took down the Italian epic for over a decade.(2)

Despite the public derision at the time (3), the film is pretty good. Certainly the expensive sets and costumes still look remarkable, particularly the scenes of Rome burning and the resultant punishment of the Christians in the arena are massive in scale, but not lacking in detail. The only off thing here is how most of the arena shots seem to be set in the Colosseum, but then suddenly they are in an arena big enough to host a chariot race (which presumably would have taken place in the Circo Massimo). Initially I thought that this was some used footage from the initial, disastrous, Italian-based shoot of Ben-Hur (1925), but a closer examination of the architecture of the arena remains consistent, even if the camera's placement feels like a little break in the continuity. 

Biblical content

The film is a bit more faithful to the book that the most famous 1951 adaptation, although it plays with the order a little and whereas the book (and the 1951 version) features both Paul and Peter, here Paul's  part is all rolled into that of Peter. So it's Peter that counsels the Christian heroine Lygia (American Lillian Hall-Davis) towards the start of the film.

We get several scenes inside the catacombs, included the shot above, where the lighting and composition are just beautiful. The use of the slope here is not just aesthetic, it enables Peter to be portrayed as still the humble fisherman of the Gospels, but also as a towering, elevated figure, already far closer to heaven than those who follow him. Of course, given this film was made where is it was, when it was, it's not surprising to see Peter's role built up and given primacy in this way.

There are also several scenes/moments not found in the book. Of particular relevance here is the flashback to the Via Dolorosa in the lead up to Jesus' crucifixion. Unlike the 1951 film, D'Annunzio and Jacoby are happy to show Jesus's face, not only from a distance, and then in a mid-shot, but also miraculously wiped onto Veronica's cloth. The quality of the image in this footage is significantly distorted compared to the rest of the film. I almost wonder if this too is a later insertion, either from an earlier Jesus film (or a significantly degraded later one) or of footage that was originally left on the cutting room floor. You can see what I mean at 1h42m17s.

Lastly, from a Bible-adjacent context, we get Jesus' appearance on the Appian Way (I guess the intention here might be to juxtapose the Via Dolorosa scene with the Via Appia Antica, particularly as they appear just 5 minutes apart). Here Jesus is shown (above)  as only a largely transparent, ghostly figure and his brief appearance is marred by a rare bit of damage on the filmstock. Peter does say the words "Quo Vadis, Domine?" before they fade into the translation. Interestingly the film has Peter persuaded by his closest confidants to leave Rome, so Jesus' rebuke seems a tad harsh,

Quo Vadis? and Fascism

D'Annunzio and Jacoby's adaptation arrived only two years after Mussolini came to power, so came very early in his 21-year regime. In some ways its an unusual choice for a film, at least aside from the previous adaptation proving to be a financial success. Essentially, it's a story that tells the story of an egotistical, Rome-based, dictator, so this could easily be seen as risky territory, particularly given that it concerns his conflict with the church of Rome. That said  D'Annunzio's father Gabriele, had been a significant influence on Mussolini and so this probably afforded the film sympathetic reception.

At the same time "(e)ven before the March on Rome in 1922, the Fascist party had constructed its own identity and legitimised its actions through the tropes of an ancient Rome reborn".(4)

The potentially negative parallel with Mussolini is also offset, or at least made more ambiguous / contradictory (itself a hallmark of small eff fascist filmmaking) by a number of factors. Firstly, while Emil Jannings portrays Nero, as per normal, as a childish, egotistical, psychopath, the film seems to make it clear that this is just him, not his constitutional position.

This becomes particularly true as the film reaches its climax, whereby the legions are described as having "Proclaimed Galba Emperor and are marching on Rome", something we're told "The city welcome". The specific use of "marching on Rome" is a clear reference to Mussolini's own (somewhat mythologised" March on Rome, particularly given it's not how Galba's rise to power is typically described. The fact that Galba held power for just 7 months also seems to have escaped scrutiny.

One further detail on this is that Nero kills himself as a troop of Roman soldiers bear down on him. Learning of his death they turn to their leader (who I think is Vincinius) and give the "Roman" salute (see above) and he returns it, which I suppose brings the Roman church into alignment with the Roman state in a decidedly fascist manner. I should point out that the Roman salute actually derives from the 18th century).

Fascism, crowds and spectacle?

There's a line of thinking that links fascism to the body. James Hay, for example, argues that

By accommodating masses of people, often for whom the central characters acted, the historical spectacles seemed to address a more extensive and consolidated audience. It is no wonder, therefore, that these films became ideal vehicles for presenting nationalistic themes. Through these throngs of extras, mass audiences were given a stake in the films, action, and they were able to visualise on the screen their own collectivity.(5)

Quo Vadis? very much fits the bill here. As with its predecessor and the majority of the biblical epics that have followed, the crowds of extras are seen in numerous scenes: Nero's "regal banquet"; Nero performing his music to a large crowd; the chaotic street scenes as the crows try to escape from Rome's fire; the arena scenes, naturally; and even the underground scenes of the early church at worship. And the sheer size of some of these crowds, in combination with the film's impressive architecture, give the film a sense of spectacle and power

What I find particularly interesting is how these crowds – totally opposed to one another at the start of the film – come together as it progresses. Gradually Nero's retinue deserts him and becomes more sympathetic to the Christians, such that ultimately the crowd in the arena – having turned up to see the slaughter – eventually take the Christian's side (as well as Galba's).

The is reinforced by the use of the camera. In the scenes in the catacombs it is very much located in and amongst the crowd (see top image) whereas in the orgy scene, the camera is typically placed in a slightly elevated position (though to a lesser extent with two-shots etc.). Likewise in the climatic arena scene, initially the camera's eye-line is within in the arena, but gradually switches to a seat in the stands and accompanied by individual reactions of nameless characters in the crowd ("She is a mother" one woman cries as the race wears on). Thus whereas Wyke is correct to observe that "(r)epeatedly, however, as Nero peers through his emerald ring... the camera takes up his point of view", (Wyke 129-30) it is important to note that ultimately that point of view deserts him in favour of the Christians and a more worthy candidate for Emperor.

Body Violence

There are further associations between the body and fascist cinema, both in terms of physical perfection and in terms of suffering, endurance and ordeal. These ideas were put forth by Susan Sontag in her stinging takedown of Leni Riefenstahl's photography book "The Last of the Nuba" (1974) which, Sontag argues, suggests that Riefenstahl's thinking had not moved on as much as she would have the world believe.(6) 

While there is less of a focus on physical perfection here (certainly compared to the cinema of our own day) this film does appear to increase the amount of violence against the human body, particularly compared to other adaptations. Even in the film's opening scene – where Nero relaxes by a fountain surrounded by beautiful women and apparently sycophantic men –  one unfortunate woman is thrown into pool full of Lamprey eels who devour her.   

On top of this we also get:

1. Nero attempting to rape Lygia only for Ursus (Lygia's Maciste-like slave and protector) to intervene and throttle / fishhook the emperor,
2. the burning of Rome, which is more widescale distress than specific body-violence,
3. once Nero blames the Christians, his retribution is to burn them on flaming on crosses. This is shot with some close-ups, and others where those are just the background in a prolonged scene,
4. Petronius and Eunice's suicides, where we see a "surgeon" slicing their wrists
5. Nero's own suicide, by stabbing himself in the neck

Of course, the biggest scene of violence against the body occurs in the arena where we witness various Christians being mauled by lions; dragged through the dirt during a chariot race and then finally Lygia being strapped to the back of a bull who Ursus has to fight with his bare hands.(7) In most of these scenes Nero is not only revels in this violence, but is (sexually?) excited by the cruelty of it. It's noticeable that Poppea (Elena Sangron who also starred in Rome-related Fabiola (1918) and 1925's Maciste in Hell) is not infrequently disturbed by the violence that her husband finds so appealing.

Despite Nero being the only character who seems to enjoy these scenes of torture and violence, and the fact that the film's cartoonish villainization of him takes tings to an extreme, there is still something a bit nasty lurking under the surface of these moments and the way the camera dwells on them.

Overall

I've dwelt on the fascist issues related to this film mainly because the time and place of its release seem pertinent, but cinematically this doesn't deserve to be remembered purely as a film that "flopped disastrously",(8) after it was deemed a "critical failure" and was "poorly received by both critics and the general public".(9) 

I've already mentioned the sets and the costumes, and the lighting, but the colour tinting is nicely used as well (with the exception of the fire scenes where it tends to suffer from low contrast making the scenes fuzzy. It is a little long, one or two subplots over complicate things, but some of the editing in individual sequences is quite impressive. Indeed, the editing is a significant part of the reason why the violent moments are so shocking, particularly the sequences with the lions and the eels. Perhaps Elley says it better in five words than I have in two thousand: "all spectacle and no content".(10) 

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1 - Reich, Jacqueline (2013) "Italian Cinema in the 1920s" in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) Italian Silent Cinema (John Libby) p.137.
2 - Scipione l'Africano (1937), set almost 300 years earlier, ended that barren run, in one of the most pro-Fascist films of Mussolini's reign.
3 - Reich, p.137.
4 - Wyke, Maria (1997) Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History. Routledge, p.128
5 - Hay, James (1987) Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy: The Passing of the Rex. Indiana University Press, p.152.
6 - Sontag, Susan (1975) "Fascinating Fascism", New York Review of Books, Feb. 6. Available online – https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/33d/33dTexts/SontagFascinFascism75.htm
7 - This said, the terror here is mitigated somewhat by Lillian Hall-Davis being replaced by an unconvincing dummy being tied to the back of the bull instead.
8 - Elley, Derek (1984) The Epic Film: Myth and History (Routledge and Keegan Paul), p.20.
9 - Wyke p.130
10 - Elley, p.20

La Passione (Carlo Mazzacurati,2010)

I just came across this interesting sounding Italian "making a Passion play" film, La Passione directed by Carlo Mazzacurati in 2010. The plot seems to be that a film director reluctantly agrees to direct a small Tuscan town's Good Friday celebrations in order to avoid getting sued. So it's another film about people making a Passion play.

I came across it looking at the filmography of one of Nanni Moretti's frequent collaborators Silvio Orlando, who has starred in at least 4 of the films directed by Moretti as well as co-starring in Mia Madre (2014). 

From the look of the trailer its a comedy, perhaps albeit with some more emotional moving reflection at the end of the film. There also seems to be some borrowing from Jesus of Montreal (1989). This clip certainly has some familiar resonances, so I'm assuming an influence on some level, if not actual homage.

I'll try and get hold of a copy and see what it's like and report back. Meanwhile I've updated my list of Italian Jesus films to include this and a number of other titles I've discovered since 2019 when I first wrote it.

I dieci gladiatori (Ten Gladiators, dir: Gianfranco Parolini, 1963)

I actually sat down to watch I dieci gladiatori thinking it was a non-biblical Italian peplum as part of my research into Italian cinema. Having seen a lot of the biblical pepla, I've been feeling the need to ensure I understand the broader context. Imagine my surprise then when it began to emerge, even as early as the credits, that this was, if not a full blown New Testament film, it was at least a partially blown Roman-Christian epic.

The first clues are laid down during the credits sequence which indicates its determination to grab onto the coat tails of Quo Vadis (1951 but possibly 1913 also). Not only does it star Dan Vadis as the leading gladiator Roccio, but the filmmakers even seem to choose Vadis-esque English names for some of the other cast members, such as Susan Paget, Margaret Taylor (eerily similar to the stars of Quo Vadis, Deborah Paget and Robert Taylor). Neither name appears in the IMDb credits, which supports my suspicion that they were just featured so prominently to catch a glimmer of Quo Vadis's glamour.

The similarities with Mervyn LeRoy's 1951 epic only deepen the film continues. After some opening fight scenes between the titular ten and various Roman soldiers we're introduced to Nero and realise that while Gianno Rizzo's performance is a little more restrained it's only a matter of time before Rome begins to burn and the finger of suspicion falls on the Christians.

While none of the main characters are Christians we do get another staple of the Roman-Christian genre, a scene of a church meeting in the catacombs (pictured above). This is all part of plot by one of Nero's advisors Tigellinus to frame, and thus eliminate another, Lucio Vero. Vero, played by director Gianfranco Parolini himself, is a pagan (half way between Vadis's Marcus Vinicius and Spartacus's Crassus). Tigelinus and his men drag him to the catacombs and then accuse him of being a Christian so he ends up in the arena.

But there is the tantalising shot above of this church meeting. We're not told who this man is, but the implication (based on how the equivalent scene is put together in Vadis) that this is if not actually St. Peter, someone that will make you think of Peter. Perhaps a leader in Peter's mould.

The other thing that is interesting about this scene is the dialogue. The snippet of the church service we hear says (according to the subtitles) "Our consciences are full of our sins. And even if one day we still fall prey to human violence, we have to accept this violence." It doubtless sounds better in Italian, but it's not something that seems particularly reminiscent of anything. More interesting is Tigellinus's withering comment afterwards, "Filthy bums who worship a thief who died on a cross". Even on the lips if an enemy of Rome that's quite a shocking for an Italian film to say about Jesus. Remember Pasolini had been prosecuted for La Ricotta's lack of reverence to Jesus just a few months before

But there's another strange thing about the films portrayal of Christians. Later as a group of Christians are about to be sent into the arena we see another church-type meeting, again being led by an older man with white hair (above). Here the arrangement of the characters is less formal (more of a circle than in rows facing him as before) and he's speaking as the camera pans by, but it's a different man, (although, even more than before, he resembles Vadis's Finlay Currie). Is either man meant to be St. Peter? Are they meant to be te same man or not?

But perhaps the most explicitly Christian image of the film comes after this arena scene (which leads to the burning of Rome) Seeking to blame the Christians, Nero starts rounding them up and persecuting them. Caught up in proceedings is Roccio's friend Livia (it's a bit ambiguous whether the two are, or have been, lovers, or if they're just good friends). And so Nero and starts tying them and her to crosses and torturing them and so we get the rather striking image below.

Dieci gladiatori was released as Ten Desperate Men at one stage in the United States. It's super camp and there's a too much gymnastics, body oil and beef cake on display to give much weight to the proceedings even with some fairly graphic (for the time) on display. This gives the film a rather uneven feel, it almost feels like two different films. The ten gladiators seem far closer in spirit to the merry men in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) than the comrades in arms in Spartacus (1960). Those parts are fun, but seem so alien to today's portrayal of men in historical epics. On the other hand, the body count is quite high and the implied violence combines with the onscreen violence to bring a dark edge to proceedings. Nevertheless, the scenery looks good and the costumes, (aside from being a little skimpy) look splendid.

This mix of men pals and and even mix of violence, fun and gymnastics is not unusual for Parolini. Six years later he directed a war movie called 5 per l’inferno (Five for Hell) which featured soldiers with a number of gimmicks. He's best remembered though for directing two of the Sabata trilogy starring Lee van Cleef. The same year as 10 Gladiators, he also directed Maccabean epic Il vecchio testamento (The Old Testament), his second film with a somewhat misleading, biblical-sounding title following Sansone (1961).

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If you want to see this film, it's currently available to view with subtitles on Peplum Paradise's channel on YouTube. They've upscaled it which is gives a cleaner version of the film than has previously been available, (It does mean that some of the screen grabs I've used from the film look a little bit odd if you look too closely).

Another Italian Nativity Film: Vangelo Secondo Maria (2023)

Over the years I've written about lots of Italian Bible films and quite a few Nativity films, indeed there's a special, and surprisingly large niche of Italian Nativity films, with one seeming to come along every few years most recently 2019's Il primo Natale (Once Upon a Time in Bethlehem) which went on to become that year's biggest grossing home-grown Italian movie at the box office.

Clearly, then there's a market -- in Italy at least -- for modern reworkings of the Nativity story and given the prominent role that Catholicism still has in Italian life it was only a matter of time before a new one came along. And so Sardinian director Paolo Zucca has adapted Barbara Alberti's controversial 1979 novel for Sky Cinema/Vision.

This time though it appears to be more of a dramatic re-telling than a comedy. From the looks of the trailer, and a few of the comments I have read about the film, Vangelo Secondo Maria will offer a more feminist take on the story (it came out in May in Italy) although it is naturally more conventional than Il primo's time travelling comedy.

The film stars Benedetta Porcaroli (above) as Mary, best known for the Netflix series Baby (2018-20) and the recent Sidney Sweeney nun-horror Immaculate (2024). Opposite her as Joseph will be Alessandro Gassmann (below), 33 years her senior, best known for . More pertinently, though, is the fact that he has already appeared in two other Italian Nativity films, Un bambino di nome Gesù (A Child Named Jesus, 1988) where he played the adult Jesus and Raffaele Mertes's La sacra famiglia (The Holy Family, 2006) where he also played Joseph. He had previously had a minor role in one of Mertes's other biblical TV movies Samson and Delilah (1996). So it's interesting to see him both play the father of a character he played a generation ago and to see him play the same character twice in otherwise unrelated movies. Also worth noting is Maurizio Lombardi who played Inspector Ravini so brilliantly in Netflix's recent Ripley remake.

The film's trailer came out 2 months ago and certainly gives the impression that it really wants to bring the story into the 21st century. For a start the camera work seems very contemporary with similar colour tones and lighting, and quirky camera angles, point of view shots that are more about conveying emotion than fact and some sequences that might be fantasy or might just be very outside of the typical telling of the nativity story. 

Then there's the music, which may be nothing to do with the film's final soundtrack, but it certainly conveys a contemporary feel, and the fact that it's sung by a woman adds to the impression that this will be a Mary-centred retelling. Lucia Tedesco puts it so nicely "Quello a cui noi assistiamo è la storia della vita di Maria dall’unico punto di vista di cui avremmo dovuto disporre, ovvero il punto di vista di Maria"(What we are witnessing is the story of Mary's life from the only point of view we should have had, that is, Mary's). That's something that comes across in the dialogue too. Right at the start Mary says "I don't want to get married" and cries that the law is made for men not women". Later on we just hear Mary's voice cry out "I'm challenging you to answer me".

But there's more to it than that. At one point Mary says "let's pretend that instead of husband and wife you're the teacher and I'm the student" and the following shots and dialogue suggest that Joseph takes her up on that and sets about equipping her, not only teaching her more about the law but also what looks like some kind of inner-life-focused martial art. And lastly there's the shot below which physicalises Mary in the viewer's eyes, even if not in Joseph's, and seems without precedent in a historical nativity film (as far as I can remember, at least, the only Mary film that shows something even vaguely equivalent is Godard's modernisation Hail Mary (1985).        

The title of the film of course seems like a nod to Italy's most famous and successful Jesus adaptation, Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964) by Pier Paolo Pasolini. There wasn't anything immediately obvious from the trailer that seemed like a nod to Pasolini's film, aside from perhaps a certain fixity of the camera, but it will be interesting to see what else emerges if/when I ever get to see the final film. The other film that comes to mind is Giovanni Columbu’s Sardinian Jesus film Su Re (The King, 2012). 

The more fantastical elements of the trailer certainly seem like a significant departure from both Pasolini's and Columbu's approaches to the subject, although perhaps not out of keeping with some of his other work such as Il Decamerone (1970). I suppose one key indicator of this is the brief appearance of an angel (below), shot in side profile. Pasolini's angel was played by a young woman (Rossana di Rocco) who wore a simple white dress, but here the angel is played by a young man who has wings. This is a particularly interesting detail (to me, at least) because di Rocco did appear in a later Pasolini film dressed as an gel with wings, but here the character was a human dressing up as an angel. There's a sense that for Pasolini angel's wings were theatrical 

I don't want to speculate too much about the trailer. As most of the film is not there and some shots in trailers are sometimes absent from the final cut of the movie. There have been a number of reviews of the film. I won't go into them all, but a couple of things that caught my attention were as follows:

1. At one point in Sky Italia's own review they say "Tra riferimenti a Enki e Enlil, dei della mitologia mesopotamica" (between references to Enki and Enlil gods from the Mesopotamian myth). This caught my attention because I've been writing about those same myths in my work looking at Noah (Darren Aronofsky, 2014)

2.  Lucia Tedesco at Lost in Cinema also mentions that not only is the film shot in Sardinia but also that bits of the dialogue are in Sardinian as well. There are also significant spoilers in her review. She has an generally positive review of the film, as does Hynerd's (Eleonora Matta)

3. Alessio Accardo at Close-up Italia mentions director of photography Simone D'arcangelo and his love of  Andrei Tarkovsky, particularly Andrei Rublev. Despite the film that this film is in colour (as opposed to Rublev's black and white) I can certainly see the connection with some of Tarkovsky's other films.

I have no idea how I will get to see this film at the moment. I guess I'm hoping it will get a DVD release in time for Christmas, or at least be released to streaming.

Sansone (Samson, 1961)

I'm writing on, reading about and teaching on Italian cinema at the moment and have a session on the 1950s peplum films in a few weeks, so I thought it was time I watched Gianfranco Parolini's Sansone (Samson, 1961) as I've never seen it before. It was a film that I had looked into a little when I was compiling my book, but couldn't remember all the specifics of why I decided to include I grandi condottieri (Samson and Gideon, 1965). It was practically the only film to cover the story of Gideon and that was all I remembered.

Turns out that another big factor is that, despite the title, Parolini's Samson has nothing, really, to do with the biblical strongman, aside from the characters' mythical super-strength. As I mentioned in my list of films "about" Samson many of the Italian-produced Samson films from this era "have very little to do with the Book of Judges". 

Indeed these peplum films all play pretty fast and loose with the original stories of their heroes, even to the extent that the names of the title characters changed from country to country. For example, the strongman hero of Giovanni's Pastrone's Cabiria (1914) – Maciste – was then made the star of many of his own films,[1] such as Maciste nella valle dei re (1960) and Zorro contro Maciste (1963), but these titles were changed in English language regions to Son of Samson and Samson and the Slave Queen respectively.

In this case, the title in English regions was a straight translation (Samson) but in France it was released as Samson contre Hercule – Samson against Hercules. That would clue most people in to the fact that this is very much a new story spinning off the mega success of Le fatiche d'Ercole (Hercules) three years earlier in 1958, the film which is usually credited with sparking the peplum trend in Italian filmmaking. Hercules does not feature in the Bible. Interestingly, in both English and Italian this character is called Hermes (these days renown as a popular mail delivery service) but not generally regarded as a legendary strong"man" who might be passed off as Hercules (as he was in Spain as well as France). Ironically one of the traits if Hercules in these films is his association with pulling huge chains. Here though, it's Samson (played by Brad Harris, who starred in Il vecchio testamento (1963)) who gets that particular task (see below).

So in fact the film has nothing really to do with the biblical story. There's no Delilah, lion-wrestling, woman from Timnah, honey riddle or jawbone of an ass, or even a mention of God or the Israelites, just a super-strength hero running around in little more than his underpants. 

Plot-wise the film is fairly conventional, fitting neatly into the broad plot summary given by Robert A. Rushing in his book on the peplum "Descended from Hercules" 

A cruel, unjust, and foreign ruler has usurped the throne and oppressed the people. There can be minimal variations in this setup – for example, the unjust ruler may not be foreign but instead may be manipulated by foreign agents; he may be the proper, just ruler, but under a magic spell (cast by a foreign agent); or the unjust ruler may be an evil, seductive (often redheaded) queen – but the basic structure is always the same. Hercules must depose this cruel oppressor and free the people by restoring the legitimate ruler to the throne. The strongman is almost always a disinterested outsider with minimal or no ties to the throne in question; any suggestion that he could be a political threat or represent the forces of instability and anarchy is completely absent.[2]

Here there is a seductive queen, Romilda (Mara Berni) who is being manipulated by Serge Gainsbourg's "weasel-like" Warkalla who as Barry Atkinson goes on to point out never really convinces you that he "could boss whole legions of hard-bitten soldiers around.[3] Samson and Hermes (peplum regular Sergio Ciani aka Alan Steel) team up along with two of Samson's sidekicks and after seeing off scores of soldiers many, many times, manage to return the kingdom of Sulom to its rightful (boy) king.

There are a few good moments. Samson's tug of war across a fire-pit with a whole troop of soldiers (pictured above) sticks in the memory. As does a scene where the spiked walls on Samson's cell gradually close in on him (powered by a group of soldiers working a slave-powered mill - similar to that Victor Mature pushes at the end of DeMille's 1949 take on Samson and Delilah). Simultaneously, the mechanism also stretches out Samson's female friend Janine (Luisella Boni). It's tempting to think this scene may have inspired the walls closing in scene from the original Star Wars (1977), but that seems a stretch even if it's impossible to to think of that scene when you see this one.

Speaking of Janine, there's very little chemistry between she and Samson, or between him and either of the other two significant women in the film, even though he has scenes alone with all three of them. Indeed the only real chemistry seem to be between Harris and Steel. Otherwise it's all fairly lacking in interest. The scenery and cinematography look good though.

Incidentally, I kept going back and forth about whether to watch this one in the Italian dub or the English one (pepla rarely use live sound and often actors recorded their lines in the own language. There is no "original" version so to speak), and eventually went for the English which paid off. Although Harris gets surprisingly few close-ups or even mid-shots, he does get a sizeable chunk of the dialogue and I didn't find the dubbing of the other characters as troubling as it is sometimes.

So this isn't required watching for Bible film enthusiasts, but it's a reasonable example of Italian peplum even if it's hardly the sub-genre's finest.

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1 - Wikipedia currently lists 29 Maciste films (including Cabiria) in the silent era and a further 25 during the 1960s as well as a couple by Jesús Franco in 1973.

2 - Rushing, Robert A. (2016) Descended from Hercules: biopolitics and the muscled male body on screen,  Indiana University Press, pp.13-4.

3 - Atkinson, Barry (2018) Heroes Never Die: The Italian Peplum Phenomenon 1950-1967, London: Midnight Marquee Press. p.133 & p.134.

Giudetta e Oloferne [Head of a Tyrant], (Fernando Cerchio, 1959)

Not sure why it's taken me so long to watch and review this one before. I've written quite a lot about Judith films and this is, I think, the longest cinematic adaptation of the deuterocanonical book. And while it's known as Head of A Tyrant in the English speaking world, it's an Italian peplum film shot just after the genre exploded with the release of Le Fatiche di Ercole (Hercules, Pietro Francisci, 1958).

Judith is played by French actor Isabelle Corey who had starred in both Bob le Flambleur and ...And God Created Woman within a few months of one another in 1956. Opposite her Oloferne is played by Massimo Girotti who was still almost a decade away from his most famous performance as the dad in Pasolini's Teorema (Theorem, 1968) screaming into the deserted landscapes of Mount Etna. 

It's unusual for a peplum film to rest quite so heavily on its performances, and Corey and Girotto do a good enough job of portraying the tensions both of them feel. On the one hand they feel inextricably pulled towards the other, but she is torn between her love of him and the love of her people, he on the other hand knows she might be trouble but chooses to let her into his heart regardless. 

The plot deviates a little from the story in the Book of Judith. The Assyrians come seeking to make the Israelites surrender. I like the way the town elders aren't really sure why they're being attacked. That seems to fit with the over-the-topness of Nebuchadnezzar's reaction in the text. Despite the reasonableness of the appeal for surrender,some refuse to accept their gods and there are a few who fire a few arrows towards Holophernes which creates conflict.The Bethulians are ordered to give up the would-be assassins or else they will be destroyed. But rather than besieging the town the Assyrians seem to move in. There's no camping at any rate. One other deviation is that Judith's servant, while an active character in the film, does not accompany Judith there.

The portrayal of Judith is interesting. In the book she's a beautiful widow and both elements seem to have some bearing on the story. I don't recall if anyone mentions that she is a widow. Instead there's much more emphasis on her being a daughter and sister than on being a widow. Her youthful attractiveness is only emphasised when she ingratiates herself into Holophernes' inner court by performing a sexy Salomé-esque dance. 

 

Of course the most famous film version of this story is the 1914 one by D.W. Griffith and this is a very different beast. obviously this adaptation is in colour and with sound, not to mention that for modern audiences the quality of the available print is is far greater here. Yet something else feels very different aside from all that. It's campier, for sure. The shortness of the soldiers skirts confirm that. But perhaps it's because director Fernando Cerchio trusts his material a little more, as if knowing that the possibility of violence creates a more engaging experience than the before and after battle scenes in Griffith's film.

Cerchio puts that colour to good use, particularly the greens and reds in the interiors which complements the costumes. It reflects both the opposition between Judith and Holophernes, but also their similarities, and that a little of each is found in the other. Yet the gaudiness of these tones, particularly in combination, are also unsettling, putting us ill at ease. There's a slight In a Lonely Place vibe here: the chemistry, the tension between conflicting passions, or between head and heart. 

Here, though, things are different. Holophernes decides time is up for Judith's people. His costume changes to predominantly black as he hopes to force the citizens to surrender the guilty men. Hers is pure red with both the connotations of sexiness and blood. The physical gap between the two widens. Holophernes starts to feel justified in his decision and then he says "Sometimes we have to do things in spite of ourselves that we wish we didn't have to do" and his spell over Judith is broken.

The beheading scene is particularly good. The sword almost calling out to her like Macbeth's dagger via a quick zoom. Her pose (above) as she hesitates just for a moment before striking, almost as if wishing he would wake-up and stop her. One more notable moment remains as Judith emerges from the building, shot from behind, and holds aloft Holophernes' head, motionless. A lesser director might have strung out the final battle scene here, but her it's rather half-hearted. The decisive blow has already been struck.

Il primo Natale (2019)[Once Upon a Time in Bethlehem]

In 2019 I had a chapter published on Nativity films. Last year I had a chapter published on Italian films, which was written and finalised in 2019. So naturally, right at the end of 2019, an Italian film was released about the Nativity which was reported to be Italy's highest grossing home grown film in for 2019. That film was Il primo Natale. It's taken me a couple of years to get hold of it and to find the time to review it, but now seemed like an appropriate time to finally rectify that (although I was originally hoping to post this before Christmas Day).

The film is the brainchild of Italian comedy duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, known as Ficarra and Picone, who wrote and directed the film as well as playing the lead roles of Salvo and Valentino respectively. The two are fairly well known in their native Italy, indeed a docu-series about them called Incastrati will be released on Netflix from 27th January. 

While the Italian title translates as The First Christmas it had a limited release in English-speaking regions under the snazzier title Once Upon a Time in Bethlehem, no doubt tugging its forelock towards Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and, of course, the original Once Upon a Time film Sergio Leone's spaghetti western C'era una volta il West, (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968). 

The film follows the not unfamiliar trope of modern-day people transported back in time to observe/take part in past events, which has formed the backbone of shows like Quantum Leap (1989-93) and Timeless (2016-18), as well as being the plot for various episodes of Doctor Who (1963-), though it's been a feature of moving pictures since at least 1913's An Unsullied Shield. Back in 1967 one such time-travel show Time Tunnel covered the story of Joshua in an episode called The Walls of Jericho so Il Primo Natale is hardly the first time someone thought of doing this with biblical stories. 

Indeed various child-focused animated Bible series have done this as well, including both versions of Superbook (1981 & 2011) and Hannah Barbera's The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible (1985). But the only feature films I can think of that even come close to adopting this approach to the Bible is Wholly Moses! (1980) – where Dudley Moore's character finds a scroll recounting an alternative history of Moses and is then Moore plays a leading character in the story itself – and Year One (2009) where the two cavemen encounter Bronze Age Sodom. Neither film makes an explicit claim of time travel.

Here Salvo is a thief specialising in religious art and Valentino is a Catholic priest. When Salvo steals a valuable baby Jesus figure from Valentino's church, he gives chase and the two are magically transported back to Bethlehem just days before Jesus is due to be born. Figuring that Mary is probably best placed to perform the kind of miracle they need to return home they attempt to try and track her and Joseph down. Naturally this proves less than straightforward and there are cases of mistaken identity; zealot plots; a one-eyed blacksmith; and time spent enjoying Herod's 'hospitality' all providing humorous scenarios. 

Some of these moments work better than others. There's a good scene early on where the pair mistakenly wash their faces with the water their hosts use to wash the dust off their feet. Humour doesn't always translate across language barriers, but this was just one of several moments that I found  myself laughing at, and the comic potential of Ficarra & Picone is evident throughout.

What I find particularly telling is that the pacing and plot of the film work fairly well. Aside from romantic comedies, many comic films rely to heavily on a single joke, struggle to get away from the pacing and story arc length of the TV series from which they derive, or feel too much like a series of sketches stretched out. One of the reasons I think Life of Brian (1979) is Monty Python's most successful film is because it feels like it's a film with a proper plot, narrative, character arcs and structure rather than a series of (admittedly hilarious) sketches. While Il primo Natale is certainly not of that calibre, it's hangs together as a film, though I think it has one too many endings.

Moreover it also manages to be genuinely moving in places. Ficarra and Picone have bags of charm and chemistry and their double act serves the film well and the script manages to avoid being overly cynical or overly sentimental towards its subject matter. It's respectful of Mary, Joseph and Jesus while picking apart some of the more questionable traditions that have sprung up around them. Here, for example Joseph is beardless, much to everyone's surprise. Moreover, the film even manages to bring in some contemporary relevance.

In honesty I tend to avoid most modern Christmas films. The comic ones don't fit my sense of humour: The romantic ones seem overly cloying, or manipulative (do not get me started on Love Actually). So while it's not particularly special, it certainly struck a chord with me. I can understand why Italian audiences went for it at the box office and I can well imagine watching it over future Christmas holidays. It's a decent enough, light-hearted consideration of the Nativity which doesn't trample down its subject matter in order to elevate itself. That's a difficult balance to strike so whilst it's not exactly a Christmas miracle, I hope it finds a wider audience.

Das Neue Evangelium (The New Gospel, 2020)

© Fruitmarket_Langfilm_IIPM_Armin Smailovic

"I couldn't do a Jesus film here as Pasolini did" explains director Milo Rau, partway through The New Gospel "without including these real social problems we have and go back to the Gospel and go back to the social revolution for which Jesus stands for in his time." Charged with reworking Pier Paolo Pasolini's Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964) as part of Matera's stint as the European City of Culture in 2019, Rau initially headed to the ancient southern Italian town imagining a more conventional take on Pasolini's famous adaptation, but things changed when he encountered the improvised migrant settlements around the outskirts of the city. 

The economic migrants and asylum seekers that stay there were living in severe poverty, often working on the surrounding farms for around four euros a day in stiffling conditions and returning to improvised homes without water or electricity. Rau decided this was the situation that should be at the heart of his multidisciplinary project which not only included documenting the lives of those living in temporary migrant settlements, and casting them in a Jesus film, but also taking part in non-violent marches and protests that sought to draw attention to the issues.

In the lead role of Jesus, Rau cast African-Italian activist Yvan Sagnet, who was given the Italian Order of Merit in 2016 by Italy's then president Sergio Mattarella. Sagnet first became an activist in 2011 when working as a student labourer he witnessed first hand a colleague passing out due to heat exhaustion. The foreman docked his wages to cover the costs of getting him medical attention. Such practises are not uncommon particularly on tomato and orange farms, which are often mafia run.

What makes Rau's "utopian documentary" so interesting is the way it juxtaposes Matera's apparent serenity with the struggles of these migrants. It was similar levels of rural southern poverty that attracted Pasolini to Matera in the first place. The lack of development that left the city unspoilt was primarily a sign of poverty. In the years since Matera doubled for Jerusalem in Pasolini's Matthew, it has been used subsequently for a string of other Biblical films including King David (1985), The Nativity Story (2006), Young Messiah (2016), Ben-Hur (2016), Mary Magdalene (2018) and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in 2004. But it's Pasolini's film that is very much front and centre here not only in terms of ideology and direct homage but also artistic form. Pasolini described himself as a "pasticheur" cobbling together disparate source material drawn from both "high" and "low" culture.¹

The film continues this tradition, but with a new twist for the 21st century. Careful shot-for-shot reproductions of scenes from Pasolini's 1964 film sit alongside documentary-style making-of footage  that recall his location scouting films such as Sopralluoghi in Palestina (1965) and Appunti per un'Orestiade africana (1970). And in weaving these two elements together Rau recalls Pasolini's tragi-comedic short from La ricotta (1962). It blurs the boundary between documentary and fiction taking "making-of" type footage and blending it back into the mix. In one shot straight out of Pasolini's film Jesus has his head bowed and eyes closed as if having breathed his last. But then teh director says "cut" and Sagnet open his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief as the camera keeps rolling beyond the end of the scene.

This juxtaposition of contrasting images kicks in early in the film between the first and second proper scenes. One minute of Rau and Sagnet chat as they survey the beauty of Matera at sunset, the peaceful old city bathed in dusky light. Suddenly there's a cut to a roving daytime shot within one of the temporary settlement on the outskirts of the ancient city. 

While it's the kind of contrast that Pasolini would have loved, the cross-references go far deeper than this. Rau is joined on set by the star of Il vangelo  Enrique Irazoqui, now in his mid 70s and a freeman of Matera, a status he very much appear to enjoy (alongside his role in international chess). Irazoqui fulfils several roles not only does he act as an ambassador for the film within Matera (a fan expresses their admiration for him at one point and he swiftly takes the opportunity to encourage them to come to the shooting later in the day), but also he acts as a coach to Sagnet as well as appearing in the film as John the Baptist - handing over the mantle to his cinematic successor. Moreover Irazoqui also features in the film as his younger self. Two excerpts from the 1964 film are shown firstly as Irazoqui, Rau and some of the other crew watch it from within a tiny cinema, and then later as the film is shown in the open air to a group of the migrants. 

Rau's New Gospel also incorporates various sections of music from the original - a reminder of how transformative that music is - though interestingly it's the older, classical pieces that Rau retains. The more modern songs from Il vangelo's soundtrack are replaced by other more contemporary songs again an interesting blend of folk and more contemporary African music. 

These direct references are complemented by more oblique ones Sagnet (out of character) arrives at a fig orchard only to find this time fig trees have been destroyed by hail and rain, rather than by Jesus' curse. And of course Pasolini's original is repeatedly recalled in views of the city (both in precisely matching compositions and 'just' in the background) and in discussions about the project they are undertaking, including that opening scene where Rau and Sagnet discuss Matera's cinematic pedigree. 

The two also discuss Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) in this scene, and as with Pasolini's film, numerous verbal and visual references to The Passion follow. Also starring is Maia Morgenstern the actor who played Jesus' mother in Gibson's film. Here she reprises her role re-enacting identical shots, most notably during the crucifixion, but also at times evoking images of Pasolini's mother Susanna in the same role. The other scene that recalls Gibson's film is Judas' suicide where already troubled local children hound him and chase him far from the city.

In The Passion of the Christ that sequence was one of the most troublingly antisemitic parts of the film. Here the question of race cuts in a different direction. Firstly, the children's faces do not distort (whereas in Gibson's film this perpetuated the children of the devil trope). Secondly, whereas in The Passion the issue of race centred on the depiction of those playing Jewish characters, here the suggestion is the persecution these children dish out is racially motivated. In isolation that could also be read as antisemitic, but the difference is the way the film consistently centres itself on the modern parallels. The film's terrain indicates the children here meant to be Italian not Jewish. 

There's a similar unease during the scene with Jesus and the crowd before Pilate. Again this is one of the problematic elements in The Passion and here the question of race is at the fore as someone in the crowd racially abuses Jesus for being black. That could be read as indicating that the crowd here was loyal to Rome (is there always more of a sense of this in Italian Jesus films than in those of Hollywood I wonder?), but it could also be read as drawing a sharp divide between the proto-Christians and the Jewish people. Again the way the film persistently invades the historic footage with its modern context throws the focus heavily onto modern interpretations, but, in honesty I'm not entirely comfortable in either scene. But then I suspect I'm not meant to be.

But perhaps the film's most disturbing scene occurs during an audition for the guards. In what feels like the film's longest shot a seemingly mild-mannered practising Catholic removes his shirt, picks up a whip and beats a plastic chair to within an inch of its life, all the while unleashing a tirade of racial abuse. The film gives little indication as to whether the man is improvising or if these are lines he has been given. Something is unmasked in that moment, but is it an unrecognised acting talent, or an indication of of the strength of racist feelings that exist towards African migrants. The options are so stark that is feels a little reckless to leave them without comment or clarification.

In a sense, this is just one of many examples of self-perception and reality being out of step. In addition to this actor, and Matera itself (with rich tourists flocking seemingly unaware of the poverty hidden around the city's fringes) we could add the city's mayor. He chooses the role of Simon of Cyrene and is shown pontificating about how a his official role is about servanthood.² Yet he also represents the town's authorities who are not only failing to act to alleviate the migrants suffering and exploitation, but also exacerbating it. Viable accommodation for the migrants remains empty for years. Meanwhile the mayor's police destroy even the meagre temporary accommodation some migrants had. Having visited one of the improvised migrant settlements searching for people to join his march into the city, Sagnet returns later to find the police have bulldozed it. "Foxes have dens..but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head".

The film highlights the illegality of some of this activity n(paying below minimum wage for example) and is at pains to point how rules in place to protect migrants and farm workers are either not being applied or actively broken. This is why the first words of Jesus spoken in the film are from Matt 5:17 - "I have not come to break the law but to fulfil it". This seems to be the heart of much of the activism of Sagnet and the others. The rules are in place to protect them. Often what is happening is either neglectful or illegal. 

The film does manage to end on a positive note, a resurrection of sorts I suppose, as the church manage to provide some space for accommodation and Sagnet is able to celebrate the creation of a mafia-free brand of tomato sauce, but it's set against a backdrop of tragic stories: acquaintances and family members lost at sea, racism facing those who survive, and system that either unwillingly or deliberately works to prevents the many migrants entering the country from thriving. For all its celebration of Italian culture and )religiously inspired?) activism, this is not a film that dishes out easy answers.  

==============

1 - Stack, Oswald (1969) Pasolini on Pasolini. London, Thames and Hudson/British Film Institute. p.28

2 - When the scene does arrive there is an interesting role reversal here. Ever since Sidney Poitier played Simon of Cyrene in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) he has often been portrayed by black actors, usually assisting a white Jesus.

Here are some interesting links which I don't have time to embed in the above text just now.

The Guardian Review

Peter Chattaway's preview

Casting call & details from Matera

New York Times: A director asks...

New York Times: Director Turns an Immigrant

Variety Venice Film Festival review

Official Website - Photos, clips, presspack

Producer/Distributer summary

Online streaming 1-4th April 2021

Black Jesus (1968)Seduto alla sua destra/Out of the Darkness

This week marked the 60th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Congo's independence from Belgium. Belgium's relationship with the Congo has been back in the headlines in recent weeks after recent Black Lives Matter protests resulted in the toppling of statues of former king, Leopold II, who was responsible for 10 millions deaths in the former colony in the late Victorian era. On Wednesday the current monarch, Leopold's descendant King Philippe expressed regret for "painful episodes" and the "injuries of the past".

Congo's transition to independence is the subject of one of the more explicit Christ figure films, Black Jesus (1968) by Italian director Valerio Zurlini. The title, which was added for the film's American release several years after it originally debuted at Cannes (Kinnard and Davis, 167), puts a strong interpretative slant on the film which was less forceful in the original Italian title Seduto alla sua destra (Sitting at the right hand). However, the original English title Out of Darkness combined with its setting in DRC during Belgian colonialism and its theme of the savage nature of supposedly civilised Europeans closely align it to Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella "The Heart of Darkness".

Moreover, like other Italian productions of the era, the film was original intended as just one part of a four-segment composite Vangelo '70. The three other segments saw Carlo Lizzani's take on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Bernardo Bertolucci's adaptation of the barren fig tree and Pier Paolo Pasolini's La sequenza del fiore di carta (The Sequence of the Paper Flower) featuring a man so lost in his bliss that he is deaf to God's calls to respond to the misfortune around him. When Zurlini's material proved to be too long it was recut into a film in its own right, while the original project replaced Zurlini's material with shorter films by Jean-Luc Godard and Marco Bellocchio and was released as Amore e rabbia (Love and Anger, 1969).

Both the biblical nature of the original project and the film's evolving title give a heavy indication of the allegorical element of the film, but the plot itself is a fictionalised retelling of the death of DRC's first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba came to power following his victory in DRC's 1960s elections and the subsequent granting of its independence on the 30th June. Just ten days later Belgium sent in troops to protect its citizens (who were still resident in the country) and, at the start of September, Lumumba was dismissed by DRC's new president. A military coup followed on the 14th September 1960 and shortly after Lumumba was confined to his home. Two months later he left his home to tour the villages in a bid to regain power but was arrested after four days. In Feb 1961 the military government announced his escape and three days later reported he had been killed by villagers, but even at the time this was viewed as a cover up.

While Zurlini's film named its lead, played by athlete-turned-actor Woody Strode, "Lalubi" the resemblances are unmistakable, even in an era when Lumumba's reputation was still in flux. Originally released just seven years after the events portrayed, the change of name allowed a little room for manoeuvre. As is typical of  Zurlini's work he eliminated "all unnecessary elements, including aspects of the historical and spatial context" (Brunetta, 237). 

The film opens zooming in on a poster offering a rewards for Lalubi's capture accompanied by the sounds of machine gun, There's a cut to crowds listening intently to Lalubi at night. The script (by Zurlini and Franco Brusati) cleverly combines Lumumba's words with Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and commissioning his followers ("Destiny has chosen the meek to defeat the strong", "Whoever saves food, let him divide it, whoever has plenty, let him give to those who have lost everything"). Various shots of Lalubi rallying in a series of remote locations are intercut with scenes of white soldiers scouring Congolese villages as the reward money offered by the wanted poster rapidly increases. Remote sounds on the soundtrack give way to the sound of violent machine guns, human cries and crackling fires as the soldiers tighten the net around Lalubi. Eventually a Judas figure discloses his master's location to a Colonel in the Belgian army. Up to this point, Lalubi's face has been hidden from us. Now it is shown in close-up, the start of a sequence of three such shots overlaying Lalubi's face first with that of his eventual executioner (as he steps into the darkness), and then by one of Oreste who at this point is unknown to us.

That final shot in the sequence ends the extended prologue, and moves to the location where most of its action will take place, inside an improvise army base where Lalubi's interrogation and torture will take place. From the start of the film the claustrophobic inside world is contrasted with the apparent freedom of the wide open space outside. There's repeated use of doorways, where the high contrast between the bright sun outside and the silhouettes of those inside signify characters moving from light into darkness. We first encounter Lalubi being forced down a set of steps, as if descending into hell. The shot is taken from the angle of Oreste - a fellow prisoner whose torture prefigures that which Lalubi will receive and who quickly forms a strong bond with Lalubi. Whilst the torture scenes, the most horrific violence is left off camera, conveyed instead by the subjects horrific screams. This is particularly harrowing in the case of Lalubi's screams later in the film which echo through the makeshift prison, terrifying Oreste, whose reactions match our own.

Indeed Oreste stands in for the audience. Like the majority of the intended audience he is a white Italian and like Lalubi his role is also composite. Historically he corresponds to one of  Lumumba's two colleagues who were also taken into custody, but he also corresponds to one of the two thieves executed at the same time as Jesus. The precise reason he is in prison is unclear but he is drawn to Lalubi/Jesus from the start and rapidly becomes a caring and protective figure for the would be spiritual/political messiah. Later in the film a second "bad thief" is also imprisoned with Lalubi and Oreste. Oreste's name, however also recalls the Greek Hero Orestes and perhaps Aeschylus' trilogy on the subject which contrasts revenge with justice and which Zurlini's friend Pasolini was looking to adapt in an African context.

The structure of this main section of Black Jesus is fairly simple. Oreste is tortured. Lalubi is brought down an interviewed by the Colonel. Oreste and Lalubi are placed in the same cell and strike a bond with one another. Lalubi is tortured and returned to his cell, Oreste tries to comfort and look after his now battered friend.

Each of these five scenes is masterfully executed, from the distressed, bleached white crumbling plaster on the walls and enticing diagonal compositions to the dialogue which impresses even in the English language dub. Oreste's interrogation features plenty of low angles and fast editing in contrast to the relatively civilised discussion between Lalubi and the Colonel who offers to release Lalubi if only he will sign a declaration rejecting those who fight to defend him and his cause. 

This scene, in particular, crackles. Strode does not particularly resemble Lumumba, but he makes for a striking Christ-figure, strong yet polite, sharp-witted and erudite but physically tough. He exudes a calm that never compromises his passion or clarity of focus. His opponent in this scene makes for a world weary Pontius Pilate. In one sense Lalubi is utterly in his power and you don't need to have much knowledge of European oppression in central African countries to know how things are going to turn out. Yet in another sense lacks any power whatsoever over his prisoner, and he knows it. Having seen his halfhearted attempts to bribe Lalubi with his freedom fall flat, he attempts to outwit him. "When white men abandon these countries what happens? I'll tell you. They shed enough blood to overflow the rivers of the Congo" the Colonel argues. "If Africa is like that Colonel, either you never taught us anything, or it would have been better if you hadn't" comes Lalubi's dismantling reply.

The real strength in the portrayal of the Colonel is the way it decodes the typical portrayal of Pontius Pilate. Despite various sources describing Pilate as a vicious tyrant, he always seems to come out as a compromised everyman. He's weak, but under tremendous pressure. Here the Colonel is the same. An easy figure for the audience to relate to. But the reality is that he is a monster, The colonial racism and white supremacy in the quote above. The willingness to have his prisoner tortured even though he knows it will change nothing. When a senior African figure - presumably modelled on the leader of the military coup and future president Joseph Mobutu - orders him to have Lalubi killed he offers little resistance and passes on the order. He's the kind of man who is happy to have a cosy chat with a victim before getting someone else to do his dirty work for him. 

Yet for most of this interchange it is only the violence of Lalubi's supporters which is debated. The Colonel blames Lalubi for the deaths of Belgian soldiers, When the prime minister replies "I'm not a man of war and I hate violence", he counters "it ought to be consoling for their mothers to find out that this is the action of men who are 'peace loving'". Lalubi's reply, however cuts to the heart of the issue highlighting these soldiers complicity in oppressing those native to the Congo: "You can tell their mothers their sons died here and not in Belgium."   

It is here where the film's presentation of Lalubi as an intermediary between Jesus and Lumumba is at its starkest. On the one hand it includes the film's strongest association between its hero and the historical figure of Lumumba. The Colonel quotes Lalubi's words "We're not your monkeys any longer". While these words are widely held to be a rebuke Lumumba delivered to Belgium's then ruler King Baudouin on Congolese Independence Day, there's little evidence he actually said it (Baugh 92-93). The film references this ambiguity, and the broader mythology that built up around Lumumba, by not only having the Colonel say it rather than Lalubi, but also by having Lalubi debunk various aspects of the mythology that is building up around him. Given that this has increased significantly in the years since his death, particularly since the start of the century, the film is almost prophetic in the way it highlights the widening gap between popular perception and historical reality. That such a divide is often claimed between the historical character of Jesus and the 'Christ of faith' seems unlikely to be coincidence. The film implicitly questions the reliability of the Gospels as a source of truth about Jesus. 

Not dissimilarly at one point the Colonel asks if he is a "witch doctor" based on Lalubi's intuitive feelings about his captor, but Lalubi denies it. There's very little indication of the miraculous or supernatural in Black Jesus and when it does arise it is either directly contradicted, as here, or open to interpretation. Perhaps most striking in this respect is the film's epilogue. Having not only murdered Lalubi, but also the two other prisoners who witness his demise, the soldiers drive on, only to have their path blocked by a small boy dressed in a pristine white sheet. Following their logic to its grim conclusion they fire a machine gun at him as he turns to flee, but he remains unharmed. The soldiers stop shooting and watch him disappear into the background, though whether it is because they "have been transformed by the transcendent mystery of life beyond death" as Baugh claims (110) or simply because the effort to track him down, combined with the a realisation of the immorality of doing so, seems unlikely to be worthwhile.

Certainly there is a hint of the angelic about this figure. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that Dornford-May's more well-known African Jesus film Jezile (Son of Man, 2006) also portrays angels as small boys similarly attired. The way he runs into the vanishing point clouded by smoke only enhances that interpretation, but perhaps he to is (partially?) responsible for the truth about Lalubi/Lumumba eventually coming to light, or the symbol of hope for the future for the newly liberated nation. Incidentally this does not appear to be the only influence on Son of Man. The shaved head of that film's Jezile, the shots of murdered villagers by government officials and, most tellingly, the shot of a Pieta composition taking place in the back of a truck all seem to reference Zurlini's film.

Despite undoubted good intentions, both films also share slightly problematic depictions of sub-Saharan Africa. While both films could be described as presenting an African Jesus both are the product of white, European directors. In Black Jesus it seems significant that despite the known interference and political pressure from Belgium and the US, the character at the top of the power-structure is the African Mobutu figure, who is presented as utterly ruthless and entirely dismissive of the Colonel's qualms. While the Colonel corresponds with the Pilate of popular and artistic imaginations, it is the Mobutu figure who represents the historical Pilate. Lalubi may counter the Colonel's statement that "when white men abandon these countries...They shed enough blood to overflow the rivers of the Congo" but he does not entirely dismantle it and the later ruthlessness of the senior African figure also seems to support the problematic trope that still exists today that in the absence of white rule, Africans turn to bloodshed.

Similarly whilst the setting of Jezile is never made explicit, numerous factors suggest South Africa, yet it is a South Africa where white colonialism seems entirely absent. West describes the film as "one set in a post-liberation South Africa, with the dream of the 'new' South Africa and its 'rainbow nation' in tatters...one more example of Afro-pessimism" (427). Both films portray an Africa that once given over to black rule has become mired in corruption, chaos and bloodshed, rather than one enjoying the benefits of its freedom and liberation. 

Furthermore Kinnard and David cite an uncredited reviewer from the Chicago Sun-Times (it sounds like it is probably Roger Ebert) who is concerned about its "dangerous lessons" that "black people have a beautiful nobility...that comes from being oppressed" and the film's suggestion that they "can only maintain this nobility if they remain forever passive" (167-8). Undoubtedly Strode's is a suffering saviour and Lalubi's words in the prologue though his scenes with the Colonel allow him the chance to voice his ethos and mission, in stark contrast to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004). While there is some validity to these criticisms, it's also worth recalling the way his friend Pasolini was challenged about his stereotypical views of the continent by those he interviewed filming his documentary Appunti per un'Orestiade africana (Notes toward an African Orestes) released two years later in 1970. 

Despite such concerns overall this is a positive depiction of a subject that remains controversial, that of a Jesus with dark-skinned. Zurlini skilfully emphasises the links between Lalubi and Jesus by his compositions and symbolism which echo so much traditional iconography without slavishly rehashing overt and clichéd poses from famous religious paintings. The precise links between other works are difficult to pinpoint. Nods to Morandi and Mahler are present, but the cinematography and compositions also seem to echo much of the 1960s (white) Jesus films of Ray, Pasolini and Stevens. Moreover it lives on in the later work of Zeffirelli, Dornford-May and LaMarre,

What is most interesting about the film is the way Lalubi is presented as an intermediary between Lumumba and Jesus. It raises "what-if" type questions without providing easy answers. Might things have been different for Lumumba if he had more closely resembled Zurlini's Prince of Peace? Today Lumumba is celebrated as a symbolic figure and for his oratory, but perhaps if he had succeeded in drawing diverse groups together his leadership may have stood a better chance. At the other side of the Lumumba-Lalubi-Jesus spectrum, the comparison highlights the political element of Jesus' life, which saw him to killed on political grounds (as "King" of the Jews) because he was seen as a political threat. The strength of Strode's performance, and the film in general is that it manages to bring these different elements together in a way that can evoke both a political and a religious optimism while also reminding us that such change rarely happens without determination, compassion and sacrifice.

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- Baugh, L. (2011). "The African Face of Jesus in Film: Part One: Valerio Zurlini's Black Jesus." Gregorianum, 92(1), 89-114. Retrieved June 30, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/23582561

- Brunetta, Gian Piero (2003) The History of Italian Cinema: A Guide to Italian Film from its Origins to the Twenty-First Century. Trans. Jeremy Parzen.  Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.

- Giordano, Rosario (2020) "The Masks of the Savage: Lumumba and the Independence of the Congo" in Matthias De Groof (ed.) Lumumba in the Arts, Leuven: Leuven University Press. pp.192-206.

- Kinnard, Roy, and Tim Davis (1992) Divine Images: A History of Jesus on the Screen, New York: Citadel–Carol Publishing Group.

- West, Gerald O. (2016) The Stolen Bible: From Tool of Imperialism to African Icon, Boston: Brill