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.

The Resurrection on FilmPart 3 - Luke's Gospel

This is the third 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 it's onto Luke.

There are three Jesus films that strike me as reflecting something of the ending to Luke's Gospel. Firstly there is the recent Lumo Project version The Gospel of Luke (2016). A few of the relevant scenes from this film can be viewed online. This time the narrator is Richard E. Grant, but it's obvious that much of the footage - at least of the initial resurrection is that we find in their version of Mark (and indeed John).

As I say in my review of Mark there's an interesting tension in this between reflecting the distinct portrait of these events that Mark provides and the purported historical events that stand behind them. But one of the disadvantages of this approach is the footage doesn't always act out clear stage directions from the text, so here there are no men in dazzling clothes and no-one puts their face to the ground.

The Road to Emmaus scene is new though and as with other films has Jesus half covering his face to explain why Cleopas and his companion don't recognise him. This seems to me to be a rather odd approach. If Jesus meant to conceal his identity surely he could have done it more effectively: If he meant to be visible then why not make it more plain and uncover his face?  This halfway house just makes it seem like a key test of faith is the ability to recognise faces in bad light.

The second film to mention when talking about Luke's resurrection is the Genesis Project's extended version of Luke's Gospel, from which the Jesus film (1979) was edited. This also employs the partial face covering tactic on the Road to Emmaus (pictured), but does present the other aspects more or less as directed. I don't really like the soft focus in the upper room scene though.

Lastly, as films go, I tend to think The Miracle Maker (2000), whilst a harmonised Jesus film is a fairly Lucan take on proceedings. That said after the resurrection the script seems to switch to John as the primary source, such that there are a further 3 episodes not found in Luke. However, the shape of the narrative at this point remains Lucan with the discovery by women, Simon seeing Jesus (24:34), the appearance on the Road to Emmaus, and then just a single appearance to the disciples in the upper room. The Johanine inclusions are more flourishes within that broader narrative than the text that defines the text of the narrative.

For whatever reason very few films feature the Road to Emmaus episode, although this has increased in recent years, but this is certainly the first film I think of when this episode comes to mind. Again we get the same tactic with face-covering. The one portrayal of this scene that does something different is the BBC's The Passion (2008) which uses a different actor in various parts of the resurrection episode - certainly a more interesting, and not necessarily a more controversial, way t solve the question of why Jesus was not recognised.

The Resurrection on FilmPart 2 - Mark's Gospel

This is the second 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 Matthew's Gospel and so today it's onto Mark.

As I mentioned in my recent review of the Lumo Project's The Gospel of Mark

The agreed upon text of Mark appears to comes up short at chapter 16 verse 8 (before any sightings of the risen Jesus) and all we're left with is a series of fragments where others have sought to create a new ending. It's a scenario that suggested a series of interesting possibilities cinematically...

Sadly no film has really sought to end their film in quite this way. As I noted in that review, rather than ending the film at Mark 16:8, or even dramatising the different alternate endings (but in a way that is notably different from the rest of the film) we simply get the most popular of the alternate endings presented in the same way as the rest of the film. Whilst it would obviously be too much to ask to see a Wayne's World style ending, perhaps the use of a different narrators voice, or a different actor playing Jesus might have been interesting.

Lumo's version of verses 16:1-8 (which you can view online) does follow the text of these eight verses fairly closely. There's a group of four women rather than three but they arrive at a tomb that is already open and go inside. They don't however meet a young man dressed in white, even if there is a hint that a white glowing object is present in the tomb. Then they run away from the tomb and the scene ends.

The absence of the young man dressed in white is a bit of shame. Those seeking to harmionise the gospels naturally assume he is an angel as we find in Matthew, but that is not actually what Mark's text says, and it's important to remember that Matthew was using Mark as his major source. Both Matthew and Luke tweak Mark's original wording, though in different directions. Incidentally, there have been some attempts to link the young man in the tomb with the other anonymous young man from Gethsemane who is sometimes known as the Naked Fugitive. (He is also absent from the relevant shot in the Lumo Project). Partly it's because these are the only two times that this particular NT Greek word for young man (νεανίσκος) is used in Mark and partly because of further references to a young man in an apocryphal text called the Secret Gospel of Mark. I must admit I find all this idle speculation interesting, but ultimately not very useful and highly tenuous. There's very little to suggest Secret Mark is any kind of credible source. But I digress.

A key question here is what are the options for the ending of Mark? Broadly speaking there are three. The first is that one of the endings we have was actually the original. One response to my Gospel of Mark review was from James Snapp who has argued elsewhere that the textual issues with the main "alternate" with Mark are overstated. I must confess not to be an expert, but note that even the majority of evangelical scholars concede that differences in style/vocab and the absence of this missing piece in some manuscripts is a little problematic. If Snapp is correct however then the Lumo project's ending is practically.

The second option is that the real original ending was somehow lost. Some have suggested that it was probably a key component of the endings we find in Matthew and Luke, perhaps the material that is common to both. From a filmic point of view this is rather unsatisfying. The text cannot be re-created. Even if we could determine that this was actually what happened we don't know if it was burnt by fire, eaten by worms or deliberately suppressed. One could try to recreate it from the endings of Matthew/Luke but even this would be highly speculative. Mark's distinct voice would be lost and any attempt to recreate it would probably reflect the new author's agenda and perspectives more than Mark's.

The third option however is potentially more fruitful. This is the theory that, for whatever reason, Mark intended the gospel to end at verse 8. This was perhaps controversial which is why Matthew and Luke added their own as did the unknown writers who sought to provide a climax that was (according to them) more fitting. But perhaps Mark intended his gospel to end on a question mark, something more mysterious, unknown and open-ended.

The only film that really fits in to this perspective is Roberto Rossellini's Il Messia (1975). Here we get a group of around 8-10 people heading to Jesus' tomb on the Sunday morning. The group is a mixture of men and women (again at least four), but as they approach they are met first by two soldiers running the other way and then by another woman (seemingly Mary Magdalene). This prompts Mary the mother of Jesus to run on ahead. She climbs up to the tomb and on finding it empty falls to her knees and worships (as pictured above), with the rest of the group on the ground below.

Whilst this fits the details of verses 16:1-8 no better (there is still no young man, and Magdalene is not mentioned as reaching the tomb before Jesus' mother in Mark) it does seem, to me, that it accords better with the possibility that Mark intended his gospel to end at this point. As I noted in my review a few years ago this is typical of Rossellini's strategy in his history films:

Jesus has gone, and Mary kneels in worship, but the conclusion is far from solid and there are no appearances of the risen Messiah... It is not denying the miraculous necessarily, but almost placing the viewer in the moment of its occurrence, almost unable to tell yet that something miraculous has happened. Only on reflection do we work out what has happened.

The Resurrection on FilmPart 1 - Matthew's Gospel

For Easter this year I thought I might make a series of short posts looking at each of the Gospels in turn and taking one or maybe two films that have sought to portray the resurrection in a manner that fits with that particular Gospel.

Inherent in that is my fascination with the differences between how the various gospels depict the resurrection. Perhaps no incident that is recorded in all four gospels get such different treatment in each and this, combined with the fact that the resurrection is a hard enough thing to understand in the first place, let alone portray means that the resurrection is arguably the least well covered of the major events in Jesus' life.

Matthew's Gospel has been adapted three times now. The more well known and cinematically revered is Pasolini's Il vangelo secondo Matteo and whilst this nicely captures certain aspects of the Gospel, its probably the one place where Pasolini slips from his sole use of Matthew into an approach that incorporates the other gospels a little more. The words are from Matthew, the flying tombstone is not.

Then there is The Lumo Project's Gospel of Matthew. I've not yet watched this one, but essentially it's acted out footage with the gospel text narrated over the top.

So I'm going to focus on the Visual Bible's Matthew. Far from the greatest silver screen portrayal of Jesus, but (certainly before the Lump Project's adaptation) the truest to Matthew's literal text. The txt itself is relatively short, just 20 verses compared to 66 for chapter 27 and 75 for chapter 26.

Here, things are portrayed with the intention of fidelity. The women go to the tomb and find it empty, although we do not actually see the tomb itself. The reason for this is that the dramatic events that the author describes as prefiguring the moment of resurrection are here described rather than shown (with the exception of the earthquake which is portrayed by a shaky camera and a few rocks falling down). This is probably due to the difficulty in portraying credible angels - nearly all attempts at this are distracting - as well as budgetary constraints. It does however also add to the sense that the narrator is using a metaphor rather than offering a literal description. I don't imagine this is intentional, but I'll let you decide for yourselves on the importance of authorial intent.

We then cut to the women returning from the tomb and meeting Jesus on the road. This is shot from a low angle and Jesus entering the scene from behind the camera. It's a nicely composed moment, which I suppose also catches the sense of not quite being sure who it is we are seeing, at least for a brief moment. It's a shame that it's followed up by a cheesy moment of a slow motion Jesus walking along accompanied by triumphant music. There are no nail marks on Jesus hands though for what it's worth.

That moment clashes particularly noticeably with the next scene where the Pharisees try to bribe the soldiers. There's no real sense that the soldiers have any fear of the consequences of them failing in their duty. Caiaphas however hides his face in shame, presumably at the deception these faithful Jews are now embroiled in. This is actually a complete contrast with the text which doesn't even mention the Pharisees, and lays the blame with the chief priests and the elders.

Finally we come to the Great Commission which takes place atop the same rock as the Sermon on the Mount. For a moment it looks like the filmmakers will resist having Jesus look directly in the camera, but then, seemingly unable to help themselves they close with Jesus smiling reassuringly straight at the audience. Artistically it's weak, but it's not hard to appreciate why the filmmakers chose to do it in such a fashion.

The film ends however with a sort of epilogue: after a long fade to black the camera follows Jesus as he walks towards a lake. He turns for a moment, again looks at the camera and beckons (us) to follow him. He turns on a walks a little further before repeating his "follow me" gesture. The shot freezes mid pose and the credits roll. This ending seems more in keeping with the end of John (21:19's "follow me") than Matthew. Whereas Matthew the gospel gives his audience more of a sending out, here we get Jesus drawing us to himself. Perhaps that's splitting hairs, but then the point of this series is to focus on the little ranges like this that we find.