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!
There's one more Mexican film for you: Reina de Reinas (La Vírgen María) (1948), directed, like María Magdalena, by Miguel Contreras Torres.
ReplyDeleteAs regards the Zacarías trilogy, my understanding is that all three films were filmed during the period 11 December 1969 to 7 February 1970. Jesús, el niño Dios opened on 16 December 1971; Jesus, Nuestro Señor opened on 8 April 1971 and finally Jesús, María y José opened on 23 March 1972. This is a little curious, as the last two appear to have been released in reverse order.
My source for these dates is http://www.unam.mx/filmoteca/filna/acceso/forma1.html
As for Un Nino Llamado Jesus, I'm pretty sure this is a (shortened) Spanish language version of the Italian TV film Un Bambino di nome Gesù (1987) directed by Franco Rossi.
Thanks for the extra info Witless - very useful as ever!
ReplyDeleteMatt
My best English translations of the titles are
ReplyDelete"Jesús, Nuestro Señor" = "Jesus, Our Lord"
"Jesus el Niño Dios" = "Jesus, the God-child."
The others, well don't translate as easy (at least with my broken Spanish).
Thanks Josh - my previous effort was based on Google Languages
ReplyDeleteToday they are showing Jesús, María y José in Univision. It is very poorly made and a bore. It covers the childhood of Jesus, with emphasis on (non-canonical) miracles. The actors speak using the "vosotros" form. Claudio,a Roman soldier, follows the Holy Family into the desert to kill Jesus, but experiences some kind of conversion.
ReplyDeleteThis movie's a bomb!
Thanks for your comments. I've not yet seen this film, so it's good to have someone else's input.
ReplyDeleteMatt
EL PROCESO DE CRISTO can be viewed on YouTube broken into 12 parts at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vH5FCO7XKM
ReplyDeleteIt also appears to be available for rental from Blockbuster at http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/movieDetails/324488
All_Sufficiency
Thanks for that AS. I noticed that a while back and I've been meaning to post it but never quite got around to it.
ReplyDeleteMatt
El Mártir del Calvario is available on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. El Processo is as well I believe.
ReplyDeleteMatt