Jésus de Nazareth (1942)

Having posted a week or two ago about the earliest remaining Jesus film I thought this would be as good a time as any to review a film I've been wanting to cover for some time, the earliest Mexican Jesus film Jésus de Nazareth (1942)

The film was made in the aftermath of Mexico's Cristerio War - a Catholic uprising against the anti-Catholic restrictions brought in President Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-1928). Whilst the war ended in 1929, the year after Calles left office, the restrictions on public expressions of faith were not really relaxed until the late 1930s. In 1940 a professed Catholic President Manuel Ávila Camacho came to power and called for filmmakers to deal with religious subjects in their work (Bermea). The film's director José Díaz Morales had worked as screenwriter and director in Spain before fleeing the civil war and emigrating to Mexico (Perez).

Read through this lens, the film's selection of material and portrayal of the religious and political establishments Jesus faces is fascinating. For a start the film omits the stories of Jesus' birth and resurrection. The film both starts and ends accompanied by the tune of the Hallelujah chorus, which supplies a religiosity when the script does not dare. Jesus arrives as a man - initially seen only as a poor reflection on the water rather than a sold figure - in the presence of John the Baptist and when the "voice from Heaven" is heard affirming Jesus after his baptism the camera is in close up such that it's impossible to judge if this is a public pronouncement heard by everyone, or just a voice in Jesus' head. Similarly the film's final shot, following straight after the crucifixion is a medium shot of Jesus. Whilst this Jesus is alive and certainly not the dust-covered peasant who has been wandering round the countryside, it's unclear if this more pristine Jesus is a resurrected Jesus, an ascended Jesus, or just Jesus as portrayed by the church.

Equally ambiguous is the portrayal of the miracles. There are but two, but then this is a relatively short film. It's 85 minutes include several minutes of introduction by an official church figure leaving just 80 minutes for Jesus birth, ministry and death. These two, the healing of a blind man and the raising of Lazarus reflect the film's preference for John's gospel (which is the only one to include the raising of Lazarus and also contains healing of a blind man amongst its few signs). Even more significant, perhaps, is a moment when Jesus, surrounded by the lame and the blind turns his attention instead to the woman caught in adultery. As he does so the disciples move in so that Jesus is physically separated from the sick in order to deal with the issue of injustice before him.

The films portrayal of the political and religious figures is also interesting. Initially Jesus' ministry is not particularly public  there are lots of interiors or scenes in quiet village squares, but only when Jesus moves to Jerusalem and his polemics become more large scale do the authorities become uncomfortable. Even today in Mexico outdoor worship is only permitted in exceptional circumstances and with governmental permission. At first it is the Jewish religious authorities that are concerned by him - and there is a certain anti-clericalism about them. Only when they have already tried Jesus and found him guilty do the secular Roman authorities get involved.

The portrayal of the Jewish leaders is, sadly, fairly anti-Semitic. In addition to them being blamed for Jesus' death, Caiaphas the chief priest is also depicted with a hat resembling a devil-like pair of horns. This matches the similarly troubling portrayal of Judas, visually resembling stereotypical negative images of Jewish people than any of Jesus' other disciples, most notably as he rubs his hands in glee at the prospect of selling his master off for 30 pieces of silver. The scene where he objects to a woman anointing Jesus also shows him voicing his objection not publicly as in the text, but in a whisper to a Pharisee - again linking his betrayal with his greed.

However, that scene is one of a number that have a positive role for women. Indeed whilst the film only contains three miracles, it does display a strong preference for the episodes from the gospels that involving female characters. This is notable even from the credits where Adriana Lamar gets top billing as Mary Magdalene, even ahead of the Argentine actor José Cibrián who was playing the role of Jesus. Lamar's Magdalene does not feature particularly prominently, but it is notable that she is a wealthy woman and significantly not the woman caught in adultery. When she witnesses Jesus letting the little children come to him she is converted and, as with DeMille's film fifteen years earlier Mary's conversion results in her immediately covering herself up.

In addition to the scenes involving Magdalene, there is a lengthy scene of the woman at the Samaritan well, as well as separate roles for Mary and Martha, Veronica, an unnamed courtesan, and the woman caught in adultery. Furthermore, whilst most of the stations on the road to the cross are omitted, Jesus does stop to deliver the warning to the woman of Jerusalem from Luke 23 and his mother and Magdalene are shown prominently at his crucifixion.

What none of this captures is the beauty of the compositions, the startling black and white imagery and the film's quietly stripped down sincerity. The woman at the well scene is particularly striking with its graceful establishing shot and its combination of close-ups and a variety of shots as the conversation develops. And the film's numerous close-ups are all the more engaging thanks to  Cibrián sensitive but restrained performance. He is not the classically good looking hero that has typified in so many of the American Jesus' that have followed. Instead there's compassion and a deep mournfulness in the eyes of this introverted Jesus. The clearing of the temple scene is another gem: an opening tracking shot that captures four or five brief stories in a wordless thirty seconds; a patient pacing that focuses on the sounds of the animals rather than the human activity; and the moment that Cibrián's Jesus goes from tenderly stroking a tethered lamb to transforming the rope that bound him into a whip to scatter its abusers.

In a way much of Morales' film draws on DeMille but it also points the way towards Pasolini. And whilst the revolutionary edge of that film is a little more restrained here it's quietness and restraint make for a more thoughtful approach to the subject than so many that would follow in its wake.
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Peréz, Aurelio (2012) "El Evangelio según el cine" at zocalo.com.mx. Available online
http://www.zocalo.com.mx/new_site/articulo/el-evangelio-segun-el-cine

Jesús, Nuestro Señor (1971)

Probably an entire book could be written about Jesus films from Mexico. The country's Catholic roots and relative poverty have meant their gospel adaptations have held a distinctly different flavour from the excess and Protestantism of their North American counterparts. Jesús de Nazareth (1942), María Magdalena (1946),  El Mártir del Calvario (1952) and El Processo de Cristo (1965) all have their distinctions, but it's perhaps the 1971 film Jesús, Nuestro Señor (Jesus Our Lord) that is of most interest today.

A good deal of that is due to the choice of Claudio Brook as Jesus. Brook made his name in a string of films withLuis Buñuel. He had what many consider the title role in The Exterminating Angel (1962) and the lead role as something of a Christ figure in Simon del Deserto (Simon of the Desert,1965). Four years later, Buñuel had left Mexico, and Brook joined him in Europe to work on La Voie Lactée (The Milky Way), to many the director's most strongly anti-religious work. Whilst that time the Jesus role went to Bernard Verley, Brook played a bishop.

Whilst Jesús, Nuestro Señor is a far more reverential work than Simon and La Voie Lactée (it still contains a couple of sequences which, if not quite as surreal as Buñuel's work, certainly seems unusual compared to most English language Jesus films.

Two moments catch the eye in particular. When John the Baptist is executed, his head is brought on and laid before Herod with it's eyes open. Herod tries to evade it's stare. Eventually he even gets off his throne to walk out of the head's direct gaze, only to find it rotates slightly in order to follow him pacing increasingly anxiously back and forth.

The other is one of those parts of the Bible that is usually considered a bit too much like something from a horror movie to be included in most Jesus films. According to Matthew 27:52-53, at the moment of Jesus' death, the tombs were opened and the saints came back to life. The metaphor sits rather awkwardly  alongside an earthquake and the tearing of the temple curtain as if wanting to drop a hint about the resurrection without giving it away. Here Jesus has already raised Lazarus, Jairus' daughter and the Widow of Nain's son, and the newly raised bodies arise in similar fashion, and start walking about, still bound in their grave-clothes.

But the differences between Nuestro Señor and Hollywood offerings from the same period go far deeper than just these odd moments. There's clearly a gulf in budgets, which leads to the occasional ill-fitting beard and significantly smaller crowd scenes. This has a particular difference in the trial scene in Pilate's house. Their smaller numbers, and the way they are vociferously lead by the priests, belie any idea that this crowd is in someway representative of the Jewish nation as a whole. The space is crowded, but it's really only a handful of people who are in league with the establishment. Later the priests cruelly laugh at Jesus even after he's been flogged. Some will find that more troubling; others will see such a reaction to the suffering of one of their countryman as further evidence of their detachment from their people.

There's also some interesting use of the camera, including the type of shots that mainstream Hollywood might have considered itself above. Occasionally the films zooms into a scene and then out again before focusing elsewhere. The shots draw attention to themselves, not least because they zoom in quickly, and sometimes unevenly, resisting moving at a dignified pace. There are also shots from low angles (see above), emphasising Jesus' power and various interesting high shots, including the "God shot" that captures that begins the dance of the seven veils.

Comparing and contrasting the film's visuals and colour palette with its American rivals is also an interesting exercise. There are marked differences from the brightly coloured clothing the characters wear, through to the school play style costume an angel wears in for a shot of the nativity. Yet at the same time there are visual similarities such as the contrast of deep blue skies and Jesus' bright red robes, so reminiscent of King of Kings (1961). The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) began focusing on an invented fresco of Max von Sydow as Jesus.

In contrast, Nuestro Señor starts with a series of famous paintings based on the life of Jesus, such as Filippo Lippi's "Adoration Of The Child" and El Greco's "Disrobing of Christ". Comparing the DVD and YouTube versions of these images to the originals, it's immediately obvious that the colours are now muted down to a sepia hue. It's unclear, though, to what the extent this is due to the quality of the print and the extent to which it's a choice by the filmmakers to make contrasting images more visually similar. In any case the bright, and by modern standards gaudy, colours that are prominent throughout the rest of the film, also recall various High Renaissance era paintings by Raphael and Michelangelo.

The differences between this film and the classic Hollywood style also extend to its sound. The film's main theme, whilst still essentially orchestral, seems to lean more heavily on brass instruments, but adds in a number of less familiar instruments. We also hear the voice of Jesus inside the heads of those accusing the woman caught in adultery. This is an interesting development allowing the audience to experience different perspectives on Jesus in a short space of time. The use of these different perspectives would find a fuller experience a couple of years later with Jesus Christ, Superstar (1973). The film's aesthetics, then, are not wrong, or inferior, though they are limited by budget: they are just different from the more stately approach of the classic Hollywood epic. It makes for an interesting contrast.

It's notable, too, the prominence the film gives to woman. In particular Mary, whom Jesus has a lengthy conversation with early on, practically the film's only invented scene. But also a wealthy looking Mary Magdalene; Herodias and her daughter; the widow of Nain; the woman caught in adultery; Pontius Pilate's wife Jairus' daughter; and Mary and Martha are given significant screen time. Because the film pieces together a series of scenes from the gospels, with relatively little embellishment, in a manner reminiscent of early silent Jesus films. The selection of scenes, then, speaks volumes, and it's notable that scenes featuring women, and those raised from the dead are particularly prominent.

Brook carried on working until his death in 1995, mainly featuring in Mexican productions, though a role in Licence to Kill (1989) was a notable exception. His work on Cronos (1993) with Guillermo del Toro, means he is probably the only actor to have starred in films by both of Mexican cinema's leading lights. For his part, the director of Nuestro Señor's, Miguel Zacarías, went on to release a further two films based on the Gospels:  Jesús, el niño Dios (Jesus the Child of God), was released in the run up to Christmas that same year with its sequel Jesús, María y José (Jesus, Mary and Joseph, 1972) arriving in cinemas just a few months later.

Mexican Jesus Films

I've been doing a bit of hunting on the internet and turned up a stack of Jesus films I wasn't really conscious of, all of which are from Mexico. Firstly there is Jesús, Nuestro Señor (Our Mr Jesus?) which Amazon lists as 1969, but the IMDB dates as 1971. It's available at Amazon.

A number of these films are only concerned with Jesus's childhood [Jesus, Maria y Jose (1972), or Jesus el Niño Dios (Jesus, the God Boy? - 1971), Un Nino Llamado Jesus (A Boy Named Jesus - 1987) or with Jesus and Mary Magdalene (María Magdalena (1946)). Jesus,El Nino De Dios, Jesus,Maria Y Jose and Jesus,Nuestro Senor, are actually a trilogy of films by Miguel Zacarias.

There is
El Proceso de Cristo (The Process of Christ? - 1965) a black and white film which doesn't appear to be available to buy, but there is a write up of it, with a couple of pictures in Spanish (translation by Google)

Then there was also a 1942 film Jesús de Nazareth, which is also unavailable, but only musters a vote of 5.3 at the IMDB

Finally there is El Mártir del Calvario (The Martyr of Calvary - 1952), which is currently described on the IMDB as the "The most arrogant Jesus ever!".

Being from Mexico I imagine most of these films are from a Catholic persuasion. Has anyone seen any of them? Most of what I know of them comes from an Amazon user known there by the name All Sufficiency. Thanks for your work AS!