Lucifer (2014)

My wife is an artist and quite a few years ago now she went through a phase of painting on circular canvases. It's a concept that goes at least as far back as Hieronymus Bosch's works such as "Christ Crowned with Thorns" and "Table of the Seven Deadly Sins". It seems strange, then, that Gust Van den Berghe's Lucifer is apparently the first film to work within a circular frame.

I say that with certain caveats. Firstly, I can't claim that no-one who has ever turned on a camera has ever ended up with a circularly framed film, but Van den Bergh's picture is hardly a major film and yet it certainly seems to be the biggest film to have made this particular artistic choice. Secondly, many of the very earliest moving images featured something akin to a circular image due to the shapes of the lenses, and perhaps as a result the iris shot was far more common then as it was now.

Indeed at times Lucifer feels a little like a long tribute to the iris shot and the way it focusses the viewers attention on a particular part of the shot. That said at other points, the composition doesn't really work in a way that is vaguely reminiscent of some of the first widescreen films which struggles to adjust to the possibilities of their new frame. The masked screen works, at times, like a porthole - a portal to another world. At it's best it's a little bit like some of those scenes from inside John Malkovich's head in Being John Malkovich.

More significantly, at times the circularity of the shot is about more than masking the corners, but the use of a pioneering new technique which Van den Bergh has called Tondoscope (from the Italian for circular, rotondo) which shoots through an optical circular mirror to capture a 360 degree image (such as that below). This distorts the image but crams in all the detail round the edge of the work, which is strongly reminiscent of some of Bosch's work, indeed the Tondoscope logo is based on one of Bosch's circular paintings - "Seven Deadly Sins".

There's always a question with films which pioneer a new technique as to whether they are able to transcend that technique and still be a good film in their own right. It's not quite so straightforward a question with Lucifer because those Tondoscope images are meant to draw attention to the technique itself and it's historic resonances, but the masked shots do well enough as well. Certainly there are moments when I forgot about the frame and got absorbed with what was happening within it.
The circle also brings with it a sense of perfection and completeness and these are highly suited to the film's subject matter - hardly inconsequential. Lucifer is loosely based on Joost Van Den Vondel's 1654 play about the eponymous anti-hero's fall from heaven. Van Den Vondel's play pre-dates "Paradise Lost" by 13 years and many point out his influence on Milton's work. The story is relocated to an ultra rural, 'modern day', Mexico. This is outside the usual time frames for Lucifer's fall from heaven, but it certainly makes things more interesting. Lucifer at this point is still in free-fall, even the choice of name - Lucifer - suggests that he is part way between the pure archangel of God's court and the devil, the epitome of evil.

Other names also carry similar references. Aside from the main character, the film's leading humans are an elderly couple called Lupita and Emanuel. "Lupita" invites some kind of comparison with the visiting "angel". Emanuel of course means "God with us". Equally prominent is their grand-daughter, Maria, whose name is similarly rich in biblical references.

All this is significant because this idea of Lucifer's morality changing, both with (and perhaps even because of) his interactions with humans is fairly central.Indeed the film is at pains to show Lucifer doing what would ordinarily be considered good acts, even retreading some of Jesus' footsteps. Shortly after his arrival on earth he asks for water from a woman at a well. He rescues a sheep and is shown cradling it in his arms. In one pivotal scene Lucifer takes the feet of the lame Emanuel and begins to wash them.

Not only is this reminiscent of Jesus actions at the Last Supper, but when Lucifer returns to massage the man's feet it soon becomes clear that the man has been healed. But is this about good for goodness's sake, or about the power of the miracle which continues to hold sway in various religious circles? Or is it simply that after centuries of serving God these things come naturally even to the very one who has sworn him as an enemy? I'm reminded of 2 Cor. 11:14 "for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light".

The miracle of course brings the crowds but their initial adoration turns to dissatisfaction when no further miracles are forthcoming. When Lupita and Emanuel throw their celestial guest a party one villager rebukes him. "If you knew what pain meant you would be more merciful". Yet despite some of the villagers' misgivings may be, they're not enough to dissuade one church leader from building a babel-esque tower to reach to heaven to enable "the stranger" to visit more often".

Whether it's because Lucifer is disappointed by the attitudes of the villagers, or because he is unable to resist the temptations such a social event offers him, the party marks the last time we, and the villagers, see this mysterious stranger. The scene culminates in Lucifer plying Maria with an unusual combination of alcohol and heavenly visions, in order to seduce her. As the next day breaks, a clever shot in Tondoscope shows Lucifer sneaking past the still sleeping Maria, creeping out of the door and apparently never to return. He has used his powers for his own selfish and sexual gain and the villagers never see him again. As the film moves into Part II (titled "Sin") Maria's voice cries out desperately over the tannoy "The angel that came has left...Where did you go? Yesterday you were so kind to me...We are waiting for you."

Several of the film's later scenes also picking up this theme of contrasting the supposed purity of the religious impulse with a more realistic view of mis-functioning humanity. Another memorable scene sees a woman on her knees shuffling towards an altar. But rather than this being portrayed as a holy and emotional moment it is rooted in the profane. The shrine the woman edges towards is being vacuumed by a cleaner. As she homes in on the altar she cuts herself by accidentally breaking her bottle of milk which runs over the and and is led away.

Three of Van den Bergh's other images are particularly striking. The first occurs fairly early on in the film. It's night and as Lucifer moves around he walks in front of a fire (see above). For a moment the fire seems almost to stick to him and be following him around, a subtle nod to all those hellfire and damnation tales of Lucifer's ultimate destination. The second shows a tree standing starkly by the side of the lake, evoking the tree of life and/or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the best of the lot focuses on Maria, shortly after her night with Lucifer and right at the film's mid-point. It begins on a close up of the back of her head only for the camera to gently rotate/twist through 180 degrees. At the same time as camera turns Maria slowly leans back until ultimately she is left as if floating at the top of the screen. It's a transcendent shot, made all the more graceful and moving because of the perfectly proportioned circular frame.

[Spoilers]It's at this point that it also starts to become apparent that the use of the name Maria carries greater weight than it first appeared. This Maria is also the human chosen to bear the son of a celestial being. Whilst Emanuel's healing eases the family's suffering in one important sense, Maria's pregnancy places them under further strain ultimately leading to the baliffs turning up to destroy their home at the very moment Maria goes into labour. The first film in Van den Bergh's loose-ish trilogy, 2010's Little Baby Jesus of Flandr, was about three socially outcast Magi encountering the infant Christ. In a sense, then, the trilogy has rather come (if you will pardon the pun) full circle. [End of spoilers].

It's hard to really know what to make of all this, a mixture of the spiritual with the profane. A story about a gullible humanity and a humanised devil. A picture of a spartan way of light that is desperate to connect with the divine and a film that is brave enough to throw all the traditional images up in the air in order to explore their meaning.

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Readers might also enjoy Jay Weissberg's insightful review for Variety, which helped me develop my own thoughts about this film.

The Bible's Buried Secrets: The Real Garden of Eden

Having looked at whether David really existed, and whether God may have had a wife, BBC2's Francesca Stavrakopoulou moves back in time to tackle the question of Adam, Eve and the Garden of Eden.

Or does she? Because at the heart of the final instalment of this series is Stavrakopoulou's hypothesis that the original Eden story had nothing to do with creation but actually referred to the Jerusalem temple and its fall at the hands of the Babylonian Empire.

I must admit that even having studied this passage quite a bit in my younger days this was not a theory I'd heard before. Perhaps because quite so much debate rages as to whether or not the passage should be really literally, or whether it's all disproved by science, that the origins of the story rarely get a look in.

The programme opens with a couple of talking heads, one a fundamentalist, the other a moderate, but we quickly move on to Stavrakopoulou's theory that "Eden was a real place built by human hands".

Travelling to the British Museum she is able to demonstrate, from the stone reliefs that hang on the walls in the museum's ancient near east section, what gardens in that place and time were like. A few other pieces of evidence to show that gardens were a combination of the natural and the human-made.

There's a brief foray into the understanding of Eden in Islam. Eden isn't on earth, it's heaven. Initially this might seem like a bit of a tangent, but the programme uses it to drive home the point that in the ancient near east gardens such as these were seen as places where heaven touched earth, and that the prevalent understanding of Paradise was that of a man made garden.

But not just any old garden Stavrakopoulou tells us, "Eden was a garden built by humans for their god". It was a place on earth where God could come and be. A garden where God could walk around.

If that's starting to sound familiar then the next part of the programme ratchets up the links still further. The only person traditionally allowed access to these gardens was the king. The king was considered to be a mediator between the gods and men, he was allowed into the garden to tend it and this is, of course, the role we find Adam take in Genesis 2. The conclusion? "Adam was originally a king too".

It's at this point that the first other biblical expert is consulted - Nicholas Wyatt of Edinburgh University's School of Divinity. Wyatt looks at Ezekiel 28 casting a fresh light on verses 13-19, which are sometimes applied to Satan rather than a human figure. It's argued that Ezekiel 28:13-14 locates Eden on the holy mount of God, which is understood as Mount Zion, where the Jerusalem temple was located. The links here are a little tenuous and the correct interpretation of this passage lacks any sense of consensus, so it's a shame that the argument here is skipped over rather quickly rather than being buttressed by further evidence.

In similarly brief fashion it's argued that the search of the whereabouts of Eden shouldn't be determined by the location of the River Tigris and the River Euphrates, but the River Gihon. This Stavrakopoulou tells us is in Jerusalem, where the water "bubbles up like a spring". The trouble is that, yet again, there is a wide divergence of views as to where the the Gihon is with numerous locations from Mesopotamia to Ethiopia being cited. I suspect that the way Stavrakopoulou is mapping out her argument is not the same route which lead her to the destination in the first place, which is probably fair enough. This is, after all, a mainstream television programme, on at a peak time. Whilst I would liked to have seen these things fleshed out a little more, there was only an hour available.

Stavrakopoulou's destination turns out, as it happens, to be the ancient Jerusalem Temple. The cherubs marked the outside of both Eden and the temple. 1 Kings describes the horticultural theme in the temple's decoration, evoking thoughts of a garden where heaven might touch earth. Solomon's temple was "both mythical and real".

Of course Stavrakopoulou would debate whether or not the first temple in Jerusalem was, in fact Solomon's, and there's a little blurring of the evidence here. We're told that the original temple was burnt, but it's also implied that it's this temple, rather than the one of the returning exiles and Herod the great, which stands in ruins today. But that's a minor quibble.

It's at this point that some of the scholars from previous episodes re-appear, namely Herbert Niehr, Judith Hadley and Walter Moberly, because the film turns to the question of why the Eden narrative includes a vilified serpent and a woman. Stavrakopoulou ties this into some of the theories discussed in the previous programme. Originally the temple was used for several kinds of worship, and among them, she goes on to say, snake-worship.

Such a proposal sounds controversial, but is, of course, largely based on the Bible. It's not until the reign of Hezekiah that we read of Moses' bronze snake being smashed because the people were worshipping it (2 Kings 18:4). The portrayal of the snake as the villain in the story of the Garden of Eden was a smear campaign to discredit such serpents worshippers.

A similar campaign is also suggested to explain Eve's presence. At various points in the Bible we find wives blamed for their husband's failings (Solomon and Ahab are cited). Perhaps whichever king it was that is being portrayed by the original story (Jehoiachin presumably) was being accused of being unduly influenced by his wife. This casts an interesting light on Eve's initial absence from creation in the second Genesis creation account, but casts a shadow across the treatment of women in the three monotheistic faiths.

So the thrust of Stavrakopoulou's argument seems to be that the story should never have been altered and inserted after Genesis' opening creation account. Rescuing it from this alien context may upset those of monotheistic faith, but it "allows us to engage with the real passions and the anxieties of people from long ago". The documentary concludes on a political note, if Jerusalem is where heaven touched earth and God came down "is it any wonder that no-one wants to give it up?"

Of the three films in the series, I think this was my favourite, perhaps because the theory was sufficiently new to me that I not only found it interesting, but also wasn't able to find as many disagreements as others found. That said, those of us that reject a more literal interpretation of the story, don't feel that connection with its historicity. What the story came to mean is of far more significance that its historical referent, and, to be honest, it's strange that the programme is more captivated by the kernel from which this impressive tree grew, than the plant itself.

However, I suspect that Stavrakopoulou just doesn't see the plant as being particularly impressive. Once or twice she suggests that it's this story that has caused Christianity (and perhaps the other monotheistic faiths) to take a negative view of humanity. Yet rather than the story creating our belief in the fallenness of humankind, its the other way around. The story resonates for us, and presumably whoever it was that ripped it from its supposed historical context, precisely because it reflects the fallenness we see as inherent in humanity.

That's not to deny that there's good in humanity as well. Indeed the coupling of the Eden story with Genesis 1 creates wonderful balance: we are made in the image of God and animated by his spirit, and yet we also bring evil into his world. If Eden is heaven on earth, then its understandable why we yearn for it so, and why the Bible ends with a glorious re-imaging of Eden housing a renewed Jerusalem.

Babel Blog on Satan

Alexander de la Paz of Babel Blog has a piece discussing Satan on Film. It's a subject I covered back in 2003, but it's noticeable that we discuss very different films. One of the things that is interesting about the portrayal of Satan in film is that as well as cropping up in numerous Jesus films (as well as one or two other Bible films), he also pops up in films in which we would never expect to find Jesus, or any other biblical character for that matter.

Alexander looks at Faust, The Seventh Seal, Simon of the Desert, The Omen, Devil's Advocate, Bedazzled (the remake) and The Passion of the Christ. Speaking of Bedazzled one of my favourite depictions of Satan is from the original film starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook as Lucifer as depicted above.

Thanks to The Dunedin School for the tip off.

A Serious Man

I've been very slow off the mark with the Coen brothers' latest film A Serious Man, partly because I missed the pre-release discussion on the film's content, partly because it took an age to arrive in the UK, and then partly because it's taken it even longer to get to Loughborough. However I thought I'd make a few comments on what the film has to say particularly about how it relates to specific parts o the Bible.

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A Serious Man is the Coen's take on the Book of Job. Like Job the lead here – Larry Gopnik is running into calamity after calamity, and like the book, our hero is frustrated by the hopelessly unhelpful advice of three supposed sages. In contrast to Eliphaz, Zophar and Bilhdad – who are largely indistinguishable from oneanother – here the three rabbis are, on one level at least, very different. The first is very young, crammed into a tiny office and thinks the car park is profound. (Take that American Beauty).

The second rabbi is more senior but equally vacuous. He lacks the youngers useful enthusiasm and has little to compensate save a bizarre story of a dentist who found one of his patients had Hebrew scribed into his teeth. Finally there is the elusive Rabbi Marshak. He has the biggest office of all and is protected by an officious secretary just so he can sit an think. Yet when we finally meet him – and it's not Lary but his son who gets the opportunity – he has little else to add to his colleagues trite aphorisms.

But I've skipped ahead of myself a little. The film opens in what is appears to be some part of Eastern Europe. Certainly it feels like a deleted scene from Fiddler on the Roof only with subtitles (which are apparently easier to read if half of them are not chopped off the screen by a lazy and/or incompetent projectionist). This prologue concerns a man who, like Gopnik, has been having troubles of his own. When a man helps him put the wheel back on his cart he invites him back to his house for soup. But when his wife hears the name of their guest she is horrified. The man has been dead several years. This must be a dybbuk (an evil spirit). Determined to prove her husband wrong she stabs their guest in the chest. He takes it very well, and only bleeds a little, but now the couple know that either way they are cursed. Either they allowed a dybbuk into their home, or they have just murdered an innocent man.

Given that this is the Coen's take on the Book of Job, it's fair to assume that this story is as critical to the rest of the film as Job's prologue is to it. Whether this is simply a parable illustrated or an account of Larry's ancestor's never becomes clear. The key, for me, is the way that this story relates to the film's core. Larry suffers and cries out to God, but hears nothing. By contrast, the man in the prologue gets help almost before he asks for it, but his unlikely helper takes his identity with him to his grave. The Coen's picture God saying you ask for my help and expect my intervention, but then when I did help you, you stabbed me in the heart. It's no doubt an mistake to interpret this thoroughly Jewish film in terms of Christian theology, but I find myself powerless to resist - the man who unexpectedly steps in to help is killed by those he came to save.

There is another reading of this opening that has occurred to me as well, that this man is indeed a dybbuk. He then becomes the Satan figure who is roaming the earth at the start of Job. The dybbuk is not angry when he is stabbed by the wife. On the contrary he praises her for her cunning. Satan also seems to have been impacted by humanity's shrewd decision making. So this opening scene could represent the incidents before the book's prologue. After all the Coen's have been so upfront about the fact that this film is based on Job that it would be fair enough to assume that their audience is familiar with the cosmic bet.

Betting rears it's head later in the film in the most unlikely of people, Larry's brother Arthur. Arthur is convinced he has figured out a system of probabilities for predicting the future, and whilst it seems to work at cards it doesn't fare so well in the field of predicting approaching policemen.

I'm not sure whether ultimately Arthur is meant to represent Job's fourth advisor, Elihu, the/another dybbuk, or God himself. In fact to push the allegorical nature of this story too far would be a mistake. My hunch is that he is the Elihu figure. He's less qualified than the three rabbis but his words are occasionally more on the mark. The directors (god-like figures) don't seem to condemn him as harshly as the rabbis, and there is certainly some truth in the scene when he tells Larry about all the good things he has.

Like her literary equivalent, Larry's wife is part of the problem not part of the solution. Perhaps anticipating the sinking nature of the good ship Larry she gets out at the sart of the film. She doesn't quite tell him to ("curse God and) die", but is equally if not more unhelpful than Mrs. Job.

Another thing that intrigues me about the film is it's time period. I've been surprised that nothing I've read about this film comments on the fact that the film is set in APril/May 1967 - just a few short weeks before the six days war in Israel. For a film that has been praised for it's refusal to dumb-down its jewishness, the absence of any direct mention of the impending war cannot just be an oversight. Not when maps of the Holy Land adorn various walls. Yet having made that observation I find it hard to know what to make of it. Is the territory gained in the war a sign of the restoration and blessing we find at the end of Job? That seems unlikely. Is the suffering of Larry being linked to the suffering of Israel or Palestine. Is the absence of God in the film suggesting his absence from that conflict? I honestly don't have a clue, but I'm sure it's of significance.

[Spoilers]
Ultimately the film ends with an impending storm which recalls rather vividly the opening words of the final section of Job (38:1) where God answers Job "out of a storm". Yet whereas this is the point where things begin to turn around for Job - he's humbled, yes, but also vindicated and the beginning of his rewards are just around the corner - it's also the point where things are about to really start going wrong for Larry. His son looks likely to die in the tornado, he himself is about to receive a serious diagnosis, and perhaps fail to get tenure. Is this because he has finally decide that God will not come through for him, and he may as well take the money and solve two problems in one transgression?

And what about the unlikily named Korean student Clive (C[see] and live?). He is also the very opposite of Larry. Larry understands the maths but, by his own admission, doesn't understand the picture of Schrodinger’s Cat. He can't handle the mystery. Clive on the other hand understands the less tangible things in life. He gets Schrodinger’s Cat it's just the maths he can't do.

One of my favourite comments about the book of Job was a joke made by a friend of mine that it's ending seems "a bit Hollywood". It's notable, then, that in what is probably the fullest exploration of Job yet to emerge in American cinema the 'Hollywood ending' is nowhere on the horizon.

MTV on Paradise Lost,

The publicity machine for The Day the Earth Stood Still is starting to get up and running which gives director Scott Derrickson the chance to talk about his next project - an adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost. Even so, the recent piece at the MTV Blog is surprisingly lengthy for a film that's not due out until 2009. The official site contains nothing more than an email address.

I'd recommend reading the whole article, but here are a couple of choice quotes to whet the appetite.

Imagine the most evil creature that ever existed, a villain who commits atrocity after atrocity, who has scarred the world and each and every creature in it, a scoundrel so heinous he makes Heath Ledger's anarchist Joker look like Mother Teresa. Now imagine that you like him.

Director Scott Derrickson says that when you see his upcoming adaptation of "Paradise Lost," the epic 17th-century poem by John Milton about the Fall of Man, you won't be able to help but have sympathy for its bad guy: the devil.

I've not read the original, but I don't think the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose is meaning to be subversive here - he insists it's all in Milton's original work.

In the movie, Satan goes from being a completely good being [an angel] to becoming the most heinous kind of evil, and you really have a hard time knowing exactly where he crossed that line because you were with him," the director said. "What is interesting about that story, in the way Milton laid it out, is that people jump off with him at different points and some never at all. Properly done, it's a story that tells readers a lot about themselves.

"You have to respect that Milton created the first anti-hero with that poem, and certainly this was preserved in the script," Derrickson added. "At what point does love turn to jealousy, jealousy turn into hate and hate into evil?

Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for highlighting the article.

The Anti-Mary in The Passion

I received a number of interesting comments on my podcast on The Passion of the Christ, but there was one in particular that I've been meaning to mention here, as it's not something I've heard talked about elsewhere. Scott Knick made this point:

More interesting to me is the very high Mariology of the film, particularly in light of its passionate acceptance by American conservative Protestants. This movie is almost as much about Mary as it is about Jesus. The provocative image of the female Satan carrying the deformed, leering baby quite clearly positions Satan not as the Antichrist but the anti-Mary. That’s elevating the figure of Mary pretty darned high in the Christian cosmology, something I’ve never seen in a Jesus movie, and yet you never hear a peep about it in most commentary on the film.

It's interesting that whilst both that particular scene, and the film's generally high Mariology (her sensing Jesus through the floor for example) have both been talked about at length that the two have rarely been put together.

There are a few further points I'd like to make here. Firstly, whilst the Satan character is meant to be androgynous, the role is performed by a woman, perhaps also emphasising this point. Secondly, it's interesting that Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a follower of Mary as much, if not more, than she is a disciple of Jesus. Yes, there's the scene where she crawls towards him to touch his feet, but the film gives no indication of any relationship between the two, whereas the two Marys are clearly very close. In a way Mary Magdalene corresponds to the only one of Jesus's followers to remain faithful throughout the film - John. Whilst this is, I suppose, largely based on John's gospel, the link between the two Marys is certainly heightened. Jesus has a disciple, Mary has a disciple. I doubt that's what Gibson intended, but there's perhaps something in it.

Having said all that, it's unclear from scripture who or what the anti-Christ actually is, so equating he/she/it with Satan is certainly not a given. There's a modern tendency to picture Satan as the opposite of God, whereas he is nothing of the sort. So making Satan the anti-Mary rather than the anti-Christ could theoretically be about emphasising the lowliness of Satan's status rather than heightening Mary's. Nevertheless, this is certainly one aspect of the film I'll be watching very closely next time I watch it. I remember a number of shots from Mary's point of view and I'd be interested to see how these compare to those from Jesus's vantage point.

First Paradise Lost, NowThis?

I never quite got around to blogging the news that John Milton's Paradise Lost is being brought to the big screen by Scott Derrickson (Exorcism of Emily Rose). (Is it a Bible film? Having not read it I'm not really sure). There doesn't seem to be a great deal of information about it yet anyway. The official website(?) is very sparse indeed and whilst the IMDb page lists it as a 2007 film, it has no release dates, cast list or images related to the film. Anyone wanting to catch up on the story so far should check out the various posts at FilmChat, in particular the article at New York Times.

The latest of these is Variety's report that Disney has bought the script for another Adam and Eve themed film - All About Adam. Scott Rudin is lined up to produce the film which will follow Adam as he follows Eve to modern-day Gotham "after they have a lovers' quarrel" and "Adam discovers Satan was behind the breakup". I'm not really sure of the advantages of this film being about Adam and Eve, given the bible tells us very little about them and the context is so uniquely other as to surrender their literary significance. Perhaps there will be some form of going back in time grand finale à la Last Temptation of Christ.

Finally, I stumbled out of the cinema (having watched the excellent, if troubling, This is England) on Wednesday and walked straight past a poster advertising Paradise Lost. Surprised that it had crept up on me unnoticed I did a double take, had a closer look, and discovered that this wasn't the Milton project released early, but simply a tacky horror film. Apparently the US film Turistas has been released over here as Paradise Lost. Bizarre. Someone on the IMDb Message Board summed it up nicely: "Milton just died, again".

Lucifer - Movie Star

Whilst the devil never quite seems to get the leading role in a movie, he is certainly a frequently used member of the supporting cast in two particular genres – the horror film and the biblical epic. Leaving the horror genre to those better equipped to comment on it I thought I would make a few comments on the portrayal of Satan in Jesus films. Since the main place that the devil appears in films about Jesus is his temptation in the desert, that will be the main focus.

The earliest silent films didn't really have much room for the temptation scene. The lack of sound meant that dialogue could only be conveyed by using intertitle cards whilst the actors mimed. Wordy episodes like the Sermon on the Mount, or the temptation in the desert didn't really work with these restrictions so such episodes tended to be either ignored, or only dealt with briefly.

The first major American Jesus film to cover this material was Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927). Occurring right at the end of the silent era, DeMille's film started well after Jesus's baptism and temptation, but inserted a temptation into the clearing of the temple scene. Satan takes human form, but his dark attire makes it clear to the audience who he is. He troubles Jesus with a single temptation – to gain the kingdoms of the world by bowing to him. Jesus refuses, and shortly afterwards is able to resist a similar offer from Judas and the mob that accompanies him.

The portrayal of the devil as a human is actually the standard approach for the Jesus biopics. One film that deviated from this norm was Nicholas Ray's King of Kings (1961), here there is no external figure, we simply hear Satan's voice and see Jesus's reaction. Satan's voice, however, is different from that of Jesus. So whilst this film depicts Satan as internal rather than external , he is still distinct from Jesus as such.

In a similar manner to DeMille, Pasolini uses a darkly dressed human figure to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. As this film is portrayal of The Gospel According to St. Matthew the conflict between Jesus and the devil uses first evangelist's dialogu almost word for word. Jesus's time in the desert is brief, dealt with matter of factly before Jesus goes about starting his movement. Jesus's rejection of the devil's temptation to gain power aligns well with Pasolini's marxist agenda.

Arguably the most interesting and thorough portrayal of Satan comes in George Steven's Greatest Story Ever Told. Here Satan is credited as "The Drak Hermit" and played by perennial evil actor Donald Pleasance. As Jesus climbs the crags of the wilderness he encounters the hermit in a cave. The two talk for a while before Satan begins to tempt Jesus. This non-confrontational approach is more beguiling as opposed to the confrontational methods used in other films. Unlike other Jesus films, The Dark Hermit appears later in the film also. At a later stage he tries to encourage the crowd to make Jesus the messiah by giving him a messianic title in their presence. As the story draws to it's climax, the hermit makes two final appearances, near Judas as he contemplates suicide, and stirring up the crowd that condemns Jesus to death.

The seventies films largely ignored the temptation scene and the corresponding mentions of the devil. This was understandable for Jesus Christ Superstar which was essentially a passion play, but it is strange that such a long, detailed look at the life of Jesus such as Jesus of Nazareth should omit this episode as well. Ironically, this was the time when Satan's popularity in the horror genre was really beginning to come into its own.

Away from the increasingly materialist west, the 1978 Indian Jesus film Dayasagar developed the tradition in a new direction. Its Jesus was not a human figure, but a far more mythical looking beast, albeit one of a similar height and shape to an adult man. Aside from his appearance, the encounter with Jesus is fairly standard, but whereas film's such as Ray's could be read as denying the reality of Stan, Dayasagar depicts the spiritual realm as equally real as the physical world, and as fully able to interact with it.

Perhaps the most extensive treatment of the temptation of Jesus is of course Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. Obviously the film's climax is where the devil (portrayed here as a young, innocent looking girl) tempts Jesus to come off the cross and settle for a normal life. But the film also contains a more standard temptation sequence, and part of Jesus's susceptibility to his final temptation arises because the devil appears differently every time Jesus encounters him/her.

The temptation scene itself commences as Jesus draws a circle in the dirt and sits in it waiting for God. The devil appears to tempt him in a number of different forms; as a snake with Magdalene's voice, as a lion who sounds like Judah, and finally as a burst of flame with vocals by Martin Scorsese himself. Later on, Jesus is tempted in the Garden of Gethsemane where he appears as John the disciple. The temptations in this film are markedly different from the gospels, focussing more on Jesus's internal dilemma concerning his identity - the movie's major theme.

A number of more recent films have also examined the temptation Jesus faced in new ways. The animated film The Miracle Maker switched from its standard 3D animation to its more psychological 2D drawing style for this segment of the film. This makes this section more subjective, it also allows for a smooth transition from the desert to the top of the temple, something the gospels never really explain.

The Jesus mini series (1999) combines most of these elements into its version of the temptation. Satan is actually represented by two different human figures. Initially, we see a attractive woman dressed seductively in red. Then she changes into a man who, like Pasolini / DeMille is dressed in black. In contrast to the sexual seduction suggested (although not voiced) of the female Satan, the male Satan tests Jesus in a more intellectual manner. For example, the temptation to turn stones to bread is in order not just to feed himself, but all the starving of the world.

Like Last Temptation Satan also appears in the Garden of Gethsemane, again trying to tempt him away from his destiny, but in the process handing Jesus a convenient opportunity to provide an apologetic for modern day faith. Interestingly neither temptation appears to be as challenging as the one that faces him at the start of the film - to marry Mary of Bethany and settle down with her.

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ also tries to avoid portraying Satan as one particular gender. Whilst Satan is played by an actress, her feminine characteristics are minimised, her hair and eyebrows are shaved off, and she wears a heavy dark robe. The story only concerns the events of the last 24 hours of Jesus's life, so the temptation in the desert story is not a part of the narrative. Nevertheless, Gibson, like Scorsese and Young before him, allows Satan the chance to tempt Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. This androgynous Satan figure is also the only film by this point that does not try to befriend Jesus and cajole him into sin. Furthermore, as Jesus suffers his fate, Satan mocks him by parodying the Madonna and child.

The 2006 South African modernised Jesus film Jezile (Son of Man) brings a new twist to the film. Not only does this film feature the first black Jesus, but also the first black devil. The film portrays a defiant political Jesus promoting for non-violence resistance to the forces which oppress his people. Jesus's defeat of Satan early in the film captures his saying about binding the strong man in order to plunder his goods. As a beaten Satan roles down the hill, Jesus has struck a decisive blow in the spiritual realm which will impact the physical world he seeks to change.

Filmmakers have chosen a variety of ways, then, to portray Satan, but despite this a number of alternative approaches suggest themselves. No film, as far as I am aware has sought to use the voice of the actor playing Jesus to also speak Satan's lines. This move would suggest the reality of the way temptation tends to affect most humans. Additionally, with the exception of Dayasagar, none of these films really explored what Satan, a fallen angel, might actually look like. This suggests there is plenty of scope for creativity in future Jesus films.