DVD Review: Quo Vadis?

Warner Home Video
Run time: 174 mins
Rating: Not Rated
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Region: Region 1
Audio: English-DD Mono
French-DD Mono
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Japanese
Number of discs: 2
Extras: Commentary, Trailers, Featurette,
ASIN: B00005JN8Z
When the post-war film studios realised that their future lay in giving their audiences the kind of visual stunning experience that they couldn't get from their televisions, Warner Brothers' first major effort was Quo Vadis?. Henryk Sienkiewicz's Roman-Christian novel had already spawned two large scale silent epics - the first of which was said to inspire D.W. Griffith's ground-breaking Intolerance. The "new" version would be even more impressive. On-location filming and 30,000 extras offering up the kind of spectacle that would pull people away from their TVs and into the cinema.

So it's kind of ironic to be reviewing a DVD release that seeks to bring that original spectacle and theatrical experience of watching Quo Vadis? into our living rooms. Warner Home Video's new 2-disc release promises a "new ultra-resolution digital transfer" and a restored soundtrack. And for anyone who is happy with their existing DVD or VHS release, there's a selection of extra features to make the new package a little more enticing. I'll start by reviewing the extras, before offering a few comments on the quality of the transfer at the end.
Commentary by F.X. Feeney
Film commentaries are something of a mixed bag. Whilst the best produce a far greater appreciation of a particular film's depth, the worst veer into extreme tedium, or worse still, ego-centric back slapping. Thankfully this is a very much an example of the former. I'm unfamiliar with Feeney's previous work, but his efforts here are far more interesting than his billing as a "film historian" suggests. Feeney has clearly done his homework and manages to pepper his commentary with an intriguing mix of tidbits regarding the movie's creation, through to fascinating interpretations of the film's use of cinematic language. It's this diversity that makes the commentary such a success. Often a lone commentator comes across as somewhat one-dimensional, but Feeney successfully changes gears from talking about the novel, to the issues surrounding the film's long pre-production to analysing the final product. At 174 minutes it hardly surprising that Feeney dries up a little in the second half, which may also be due to his love for the film's climax getting the better of him. I don't think I've ever listened to a DVD commentary twice, but, in this case I think it may well be a possibility.

Trailers
Both the theatrical trailer and the original teaser trailer are included. It's perhaps a testimony of the extent to which Ben Hur subsequently overshadowed Quo Vadis? that there are no later TV trailers as there are with other epic films from this era. The teaser trailer only shows one shot from the film - one of Marcus's army marching into the centre of Rome. As you'd expect there's a bit more in the longer theatrical trailer which shows a couple of long shots but mainly occupies its time by introducing all the main characters and boasting about the movie's "colossal" size. And, as if to force the point home, this version of the trailer runs for over five minutes.Featurette - In the Beginning: Quo Vadis and the Genesis of the Biblical Epic
A lot of DVDs these days tend to break up their documentary content into a number of shorter featurettes, each covering a specific area. It makes it seems like potential purchasers are getting more for their money. So it's nice to see a longer documentary here which eschews such an approach. That said it does appear that this may have been on the cards at one point as in places the documentary feels a little segmented. It start with a look at the background to Sienkiewicz's novel and quickly moves on to look at the two silent film versions of the story from 1913 and 1925. There's some brief footage from both films which is nice to see, but also leaves you wanting more. Given the recent releases of Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments - both of which included their 1920s predecessors as extra features - it would have been nice to see these included as well.

The documentary then looks at the pre-WWII plans for making the film. Whilst Robert Taylor was originally lined up to play Marcus Vinicius, it soon began to look like Gregory Peck would play the Roman commander. Peck was the preferred choice of the director who was originally meant to be making the film - John Huston. But when Peck was forced to drop out, Huston left the picture too. But despite all these setbacks, the project carried on. Mervyn Le Roy was drafted in to direct and Taylor was returned to the role 15 years after it had originally been discussed.

We then move on to hear about various aspects of the production itself: the performance of the leads, the design of sets and costumes, Miklós Rózsa score and so on. This is perhaps the most interesting part if the featurette, and the interview with the son of matte artist Peter Ellenshaw was particularly fascinating.

The final segment of the documentary looks at its marketing, audience reception, and its influence on later biblical epics, the claims here are perhaps a little too grand. Whilst Quo Vadis? was indeed a landmark epic, and certainly influential on the Jesus Cameo films that followed in its footsteps, it was DeMille who really kickstarted the epic craze of the fifties with his 1949 Samson and Delilah, and his second stab at The Ten Commandments. But that said, the tendency for the 50s epics to comment on (the then) modern day America does owe something of a debt to Quo Vadis?, which, the documentary points out, is made fairly explicit throughout the film, most notably at the end.Transfer Quality
Having only previously seen Quo Vadis? on VHS, I personally was impressed by the picture quality, but then, I'm not an expert on such matters and was only watching it on a standard television set. But it appears not everyone shares my opinion and several of the experts (DVD Times, DVD Talk and DVD Review) are fairly critical. However, even having read their criticisms I'm not sure I can see what they see. Perhaps it's one of those half empty/half full things. The aspect ratio is 4:3 as the original film was (it would not be until The Robe two years later that widescreen was introduced) and there are no criticisms about the overly zealous cropping and so on.

Overall
Whilst some have a few quibbles with the quality of the transfer, overall this seems to me to be a strong release. Feeney's commentary is excellent and the featurette is well paced and interesting. Whilst I've not been able to compare this release with the earlier one-disc version, I've been led to believe that the picture quality is a significant improvement, and it's certainly a major improvement to the VHS version. Having said all that, the Blu-Ray edition of this disc is due to come out next year, and, according to DVD Beaver it offers a significant improvement again in picture quality, and manages to fit the film and all of the same extras onto a single disc.

Quo Vadis? (1913)

At the time, Enrico Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913) was called "The most ambitious dramatic work ever seen in cinema" (New York Times). Today it remains overshadowed by it's 1951 Hollywood remake, a product of Hollywood, though that too was shot in Rome, in the Cinecittà studios. Both films and the 1902 (Pathé) original were based on Henryk Sienkiewicz's (Polish) novel, itself dating only as far back as 1890.

The film's creation, produced by the Rome-based company Cines, marks the coming together of a number of interconnected trends. Even at this early stage in cinema history there had been numerous adaptations of 19th century epic novels pitting Romans against early Christians from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834, adapted in 1908 and again in 1913) to Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" (1880, first adapted in 1907). Then, in terms of Italian output, the epic film was very much emerging. If Arturo Ambrosio and Luigi Maggi's 1908 Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, an adaptation of Bulwer-Lytton's novel, can be seen as the first true epic film then just a year after the release of Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913) was it's silent era high point - Giovanni Pastrone's still impressive Cabiria. Watch those three films back to back and suddenly much of the credit given to Griffith's Intolerance seems a little misplaced.

But the enduring impact and impressiveness of Quo Vadis? and Cabiria masks the level of turmoil that was present in the Italian industry at the time. Despite the acclaim for Quo Vadis? Cines hit a downward spiral plagued by poor business decisions and a failure to conquer America and was sold off just a year or two later (Tomadjoglou 108). By the time Christus was released in 1916, it was very much a different company.

The popularity of the epic film was itself part of a broader movement in Italian filmmaking around this time. Naturally there was a strong emphasis on Roman history. From Carthage (Cabiria) and Spartacus (1913's Spartaco), to the loose Shakespearean adaptations Anthony and Cleopatra (Guazzoni, 1913) and Julius Caesar (Guazzoni, 1914), through to Constantine (In hoc signo vinces, 1913), but the subjects covered were far broader, taking in subjects as diverse as Greek myths (L'Odissea,1911), the Crusades (Guazzoni's La Gerusalemme liberta, 1911) and Napolean (Guazzoni's Pro patria mori, 1912). Naturally there were no shortage of biblical titles either. Again Guazzoni was at the fore with Guiseppe ebreo (Joseph the Hebrew, 1991), I Maccabei (1911) and Quo Vadis?, but consider also Milano films' 1910 San Paolo, Luigi Maggi's Giuda (Judas, 1911), and Cines' Christus (1916).

Having said all that, please don't gain the impression from my rather overenthusiastic listing that the Italian film industry of the early 1910s was dominated by such offerings. In fact "historical films did not make up the majority of Italian production but, rather, were considered the flagship product, geared both to the domestic and foreign markets." (Muscio 163) This ties in well with what we know of the American industry at the same time. Many saw the cinema as disreputable so companies like Vitagraph sought to provide a higher quality of output. Historical films, based upon reputable sources like the Bible and Shakespeare were a much favoured route. I guess we could debate - comparing the way cinema is regarded in comparison to other art forms today - whether or not Vitagraph and the Italian film exporters like Cines' George Kleine were successful or not, but perhaps another time.

Nevertheless, the artistry and quality of the Italian films was what set them apart from competition abroad. According to Muscio's research "the most common traits of historical films pertained to the quality of the mise-èn-scene, which included the visual blocking of the masses, the richness of the scenographic details, frame composition, the quality of the lighting, and the use of landscape" (166).

In Italy the historical films were also considered an important medium for those looking "for literary kinships and a strong link with traditional culture" who were typically "wanting to educate the masses by popularizing the classics" (Muscio 166). In this we perhaps find the roots of Roberto Rossellini's later historical works, which were made with very much the same intention. But at home they filled a further role. The unification of Italy had only been completed forty years previously and was still a source of tension in some quarters. Historical epics had a "capacity to glorify history as a nostalgic escape from post-Unification disenchantment and the mounting social unrest of the present" (Muscio 168).

The film itself runs to around 100 minutes, far better paced than the 1951 remake which drags in places. Visually it's typified by the use of tinting and/or toning in almost every scene, and this technique is used to great effect, particularly as Rome burns. My favourite, though might be the way the colours change as the orgy scene progresses. Initially pink, is switches to a more sultry red as things hot up a bit. By the time we reach the last throws of the event the next morning, the colour has changed again to a pale sickly green.

As implied above the sets are certainly impressive as is the size of the various crowds which fill so many scenes, but the fire scenes and those in the Colosseum particularly stand out. It's also noticeable how well Guazzoni uses the available space and the film's depth of field. In the Colosseum scene an unfortunate group of Christians wait in the deep background for a pride of lions who emerge at the front of the shot and prowl terrifyingly towards them

The film opens by introducing us to each character in turn as one shots are alternated with intertitles giving us the names of each character and their actor in turn. Vincinius' arrival in the city is somewhat muted, as his attempted courtship of Lyggia is kept short. Less than nine minutes passes before she is arrested and then dragged to Nero's orgy. Once there, Vincinius' attempt to seduce Lyggia is far more uncomfortable viewing than the 1951 version. Things start off pleasant enough, but it seems like it might have ended in rape had not Ursus stepped in to whisk Lyggia away.

It's a surprise then when Lyggia so quickly decides to marry him, and he decides to convert. The two head off to find Peter in the first of many scenes in the catacombs. Peter is seemingly much more involved with the everyday goings on in the Christian community. He is far more hands on and less remote than Finlay Currie's take in the 1951 version. Later we also meet Paul and then, of course, Jesus. Peter's vision on the Appian way occurs right at the end of the film. By this point Nero has already burned Rome, blamed the Christians and murdered them in the amphitheatre by various grisly means. The Roman "games" scene features a Ben-Hur style chariot race (not found in the novel).

Jesus' appearance is shot using double exposure, a ghostly figure with hair that reaches down to his chest. Peter barely gets back to Rome before the legions have revolted and Galba has been declared emperor. Nero flees but dies shortly afterwards and an intertitle declares that "from the rain of strife and blood sprang a new life: the life of Christianity, in the sign of love and peace". The film's closing image, featuring a green tint, is Jesus stood in front of a glowing cross in the background, being worshipped by his followers. 

For Bible films fans there are appearances by Peter, Paul and Jesus, quite possibly the first production to do so. It seems unlikely the original adaptation would have had time to include the Paul scenes, and whilst one of the early films about Paul might have included both the apostle's brushes with Peter and a lifelike vision of Jesus on the Damascus road it's hard to imagine they had the running time either.

For everyone else, Quo Vadis? is rightly celebrated as a landmark film.It may not have a claim to fame for a historic first, but it's impressive sets, crowds, use of colour and set it above the films that were being made across the Atlantic and in neighbouring France.

=========
Muscio, Giuliana (2013) "In Hoc Signo Vinces: Historical Films", in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 161-70

Tomadjoglou, Kimberly (2013) "Rome's Premiere Film Studio: Società Italiana Cines", in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 161-70

Quo Vadis (1951)

Revisiting Quo Vadis (1951) after all this time I feel I should somehow have more enthusiasm for it - it was nominated for eight Oscars™, after all. How many Bible movies can boast that? Yet for all it's fabulous colours and spectacular crowd scenes; despite Miklós Rózsa much lauded score; and despite, even, Peter Ustinov's memorable take on Nero, I find myself strangely unmoved by it. I don't want to spend too much time on that - as ever I'd rather dwell on the positives and the aspects of it that do catch my attention - but, I guess, the central love story seems to lack the necessary drama or gravitas to pull everything off. Robert Taylor's Marcus Vinicius is far from the first hero to start off a film as a jerk only to reform his ways, but somehow I can't buy into the idea that forcibly removing a woman from their home and throwing them into the middle of one of Nero's orgies would ever fan the flames of love in a fair maiden's heart. Perhaps it's just the lack of action scenes, but watching it again with the kids, I'm a little embarrassed at how, well, boring it is.

Which isn't to say that there's not a few interesting things to discuss as well. For one thing, it wasn't until I re-watched this that it became apparent just how specifically the Coen Borthers parody this film in particular in Hail Caesar (2016). The opening shots of the Coens' film-within-the-film is practically a shot for shot homage to the opening of Quo Vadis. View these two short clips from the two films back to back and you will see what I mean. This is also film with the overly long trumpets which was parodied so mercilessly in Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979).

It's all too easy looking back on it almost seventy years later to only recall those films to affectionately mock it, but, of course it had huge impact at the time. Not only did it top the 1951 box with over $20M in worldwide income, it also inspired films like The Robe (1953) and a handful of other Roman-Christian epics that were to follow.

Yet as much as later films have reused, recycled and reinvented aspects of it, the film itself drew on works that went before it. Firstly there are the earlier adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1896 novel. There were three silent versions of the film made in 1901, 1912 and 1924. The 1912 film (available to view online) is arguably the most famous - some credit it with being the first true epic. If nothing else it's this one, directed by Enrico Guazzoni, I feel most guilty about for not having seen. That might be something I put right shortly.

But as much as Mervyn Le Roy's 1951 retelling derives from both Sienkiewicz's novel and the various early adaptations, it also is influenced to some degree by another film. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross (1932) clearly draws a great deal from "Quo Vadis", not least it's plot, though presumably changes just enough to avoid a lawsuit. There's Nero and Poppaea and a Roman soldier who falls in love with a Christian girl. Despite the furore caused by the film it performed reasonably well, but more significantly it provided a bit of a template for how a proper adaption of the novel could be handled. Replace Charles Laughton with Peter Ustinov to play a similarly self-obsessed camp Nero, tone down the orgy a bit and hope the spectacle grabs the audience's attention. DeMille's film forms the bridge between the novel, the 1912 film and LeRoy's remake.

Having said that I'm not sure how to read the portrayal of Nero and, to a lesser extent Patricia Laffan's Poppaea. Ustinov plays Nero as a vain toddler without anyone to keep him in check. Leo Genn's Petronius peddles a fine line in providing sharp answers that cut both ways, only Nero cannot even conceive of the possibility that what sounds like praise might in fact be an insult. Ustinov was nominated for an Oscar™ (as was Genn) but lost out to Karl Malden's turn in A Streetcar Named Desire. His performance is memorably, but mainly for its over-the-topness. Of course, Nero was over the top, but Ustinov channels Laughton as much as anything. More to the point, despite his toned down sexuality, these days it just feels a little bit transphobic. Ultimately it also overshadow's Laffan's Poppaea a bit too much, at least to the extent that I would have liked to see a bit more of her character (who is, after all rather more instrumental in how events transpire between Deborah Kerr's Lygia and Marcus Vinicius). That said I also suspect that this would also have had it's problems.

Having come this far and only just mentioned Deborah Kerr, I feel I owe her the last word. I don't really know where this ranks amongst her films, but in the orgy scene she is particularly outstanding. As Marcus makes his arrogantly ham-fisted attempts to seduce her she bristles at the very prospect. On the one hand she remains calm and prim and proper. On another level she is clearly appalled and horrified at what is happening to her. And on perhaps another, part of the disgust she feels is because she is attracted to Marcus despite her misgivings. The film doesn't really make as much of her as it could. Marcus's story arc consists of his conversion; Petronius' his rebellion; but for Lygia (and I suppose, Paul and Peter) there's little to no story arc. As Christian's their characters have already reached their goal and the film, unlike, say Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) gives little consideration to the possibily of regression (or even progression) following a conversion experience.

Despite my intentions, I seem to have ended on a negative note. Undoubtedly, there are things to admire about Quo Vadis. If you havent already seen it, you really should, but, perhaps only once.

Index of Other New Testament Films

Here are are links for my blog posts, articles and film reviews hosted elsewhere, and any other particularly usful information. At the top of the page there is a grey bar which contains Blogger's "search" function. Please use this if you want an exhaustive list of posts that mention a particular film, putting the name of that film in quote marks.

General discussion of New Testament Films
The Jerusalem Council in Acts and Galatians
The Versions of The Last Days of Pompeii

(1902) Quo Vadis

(1907) Ben Hur
Blog post

(1912) Quo Vadis

(1925) Quo Vadis

(1925) Ben Hur
Blog post

(1932) The Sign of the Cross

(1935) Last Days of Pompeii
Blog post 1,

(1951) Quo Vadis

(1953) The Robe

(1953) Salome

(1955) The Prodigal
Blog post 1,

(1958) The Living Bible: The Acts of the Apostles
Episodes 1 and 2
Episodes 3 and 4
Blog post 1

(1959) Ben Hur

(1961) Barabbas

(1969) Atti Degli Apostoli (Acts of the Apostles)
Blog post 1, Blog post 2

(1981) Peter and Paul
Blog post 1

(1988) A.D.
Blog post 1

(1997) Visual Bible: Acts
Blog post 1

(2000) Paul the Apostle
Blog post 1

(2000) Close to Jesus:
- Joseph of Nazareth - Review, Scene Guide, Blog post
- Mary Magdalene - review
- Thomas
- Judas

(2002) The Apocalypse
My review

(2004) Paul the Emissary
Blog post 1

(2006) The Inquiry
Blog post 1, Blog post 2,

(2007) Friends and Heroes
Review, Blog post 1, Blog post 2, Blog post 3,

(2008) Rabbi Paul: The Movie
Blog post

(2008) Myriam, Mother of the Christ

Blog post 1

Last updated 1st April 2007

Quo Vadis Coming to DVD

Peter Chattaway has the news that 1951's Quo Vadis is finally getting a DVD release. The film, which is the most famous of at least 8 different adaptations of Henry Siekiewicz's novel, is due for release to DVD in November, with a Blu-Ray edition due in time for Easter 2009.

In addition to being the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release, Quo Vadis is famous for Peter Ustinov's startling performance as Nero, and for giving film débuts to two of cinema's most iconic stars - Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren.

A press release from Warner Home Video promises a new documentary on the making of the film and a commentary by filmmaker/writer F.X. Feeney. I'll post more details as I get them.

Italian Jesus Films - a List

(Traduzione Italiana sotto)
I'm doing a bit of research into Italian films about Jesus at the moment, so found myself compiling a list. The below is restricted to films which feature Jesus (as an adult or a baby), are at least partially set in the time of the gospels, and at least part of the funding is Italian. I'm grateful to Hervé Dumont's "L'antiquité au cinéma" for many of the titles I did now know about before, as well as the folks at the Peplum Paradise Facebook page for adding a few as well.

I've inevitably missed a few out, so please do let me know in the comments. In particular I've struggled to find anything more recent than 2012, which seems highly unlikely to be accurate, but bizarrely it's harder to keep track of these than older titles. Square brackets are either a translation or an English Language release title, directors names in standard brackets.

Io sono fa i ricerce di Gesu nel cinema italiano et questo e un list comprehensivo. Questi filme feature Gesu (come un adulto o bambino) e accadano nel tempo dei gospels e sono stati fatti con alcuni soldi italiano. Grazie per Hervé Dumont's "L'antiquité au cinéma" per molti titli che non ho saputo e i gente di Peplum Paradise Facebook page.

Credo che dimentico alcuni titli. Se trova alcuni, dimme nei commenti, per favore, recente i filmi da 2012 in particulario. (E piu difficile trovare questi titili).

-Passione di Gesù (Luigi Topi and Ezio Cristofari, 1900)
-Vita, passione, morte et resurrezione di Gesù Cristo (1908)
-Redenta [Redeemed, Episode of Sacra Bibbia](1909)
-La Samaritaine (Henri Desfontaines, 1910)
-Giuda [Judas](Luigi Maggi, 1911)
-Erodidae (Oreste Mentasti, 1912)
-Satan/Il dramma dell’umanità (Luigi Maggi, 1912)
-Quo Vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913)
-Christus (Comte Giulio Antomoro,Ignazio Lupi,Enrico Guazzoni, 1916)*
-Maria di Magdala (Aldo MolinarI, 1918)
-Redenzione (Carmine Gallone & Godofredo Mateldi, 1919)
-Giuda [aka L'ultima cena] (Mari Febo, 1919)
-Mater Dei [Mother of God](Don Emilio Cordero, 1950)
-Il Figlio dell'uomo [Shadow on the Hill](Virgilio Sabel, 1954)
-La spada e la croce [Mary Magdalene](Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, Antonio Petrucci, 1958)
-Erode il grande [Herod the Great](Viktor Tourjansky as Arnaldo Genoino, 1959)
-Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961)
-Mistero della Natività, Passione e Resurrezione di Nostro Signore (Gian Roberto Cavalli, Ghilka, Muzzi Matteuzzi, 1961)
-La Ricotta/RoGoPaG (Pier Paolo Pasolini et al., 1962)
-Ponzio Pilato (G.P. Callegari,Irving Rapper, 1962)
-Processo a Gesù (Sandro Bolchi,1963)
-Il vangelo secondo Matteo [Gospel According to Matthew](Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1962)
-Il Mistero della Natività (Orazio Costa Giovangigli, 1966)
-Processo a Gesù (Gianfranco Bettetini, 1968)
-Il Messia (Roberto Rossellini, 1975)
-Povero Cristo (Pier Carpi, 1975)
-Jesus of Nazareth (Franco Zeffirelli, 1977)
-Il ladrone [The Thief](Pasquale Festa Campanile, 1979)
-Cammina, Cammina [Keep Walking](Ermanno Olmi, 1982)
-Quo Vadis? (Franco Rossi, 1984)
-A.D. (Stuart Cooper, 1985)
-Secondo Ponzio Pilato (Luigi Magni, 1987) 
-A Child Called Jesus (Franco Rossi, 1988)
-Il bacio di Giuda (Paolo Benvenuti, 1989)
-Un amore a Betlemme / Per amore, solo per amore (Giovanni Veronesi, 1993)
-Il ventre di Maria (Memè Perlini, 1993)
-I Giardini dell’Eden /The Garden of Eden (Alessandro D’Alatri, 1998)
-Jesus (Roger Young, 1999)
-Joseph of Nazareth (Raffaele Mertes, 2000)
-Mary Magdalene (Roger Young, 2001)
-Thomas (Roger Young, 2001)
-Judas (Raffaele Mertes , 2001)
-Maria, figlia del suo figlio [Mary: Daughter of Her Son] (Fabrizio Costa, 2000)
-Gesù – Un regno senza confine (Jung Soo Yong, 2003)
-San Pietro / St. Peter (Giulio Base, 2005)
-La sacra famiglia [Holy Family](Raffaele Mertes, 2006)
-Jesus. A Kingdom Without Frontiers (Orlando Corradi, 2006)
-La stella dei re [Star of Kings](Fabio Jephcott, 2007)
-7 km da Gerusalemme (Claudio Malaponti, 2007)
-Io sono con te [Let it Be](Guido Chiesa, 2010)
-Su Re [The King](Giovanni Columbu,2012)
-Maria di Nazaret (Giacomo Campiotti, 2012)
-7 Miracles (Rodrigo Cerqueira, Marco Spagnoli, 2018)

*Not to be confused with Giuseppe De Liguoro's 1914 film Christus or La sfinga dello Ionio which is not a Jesus film. I investigate the distinction between the two here.

Superstar (1999)

No, this post is not about a version of Jesus Christ, Superstar featuring Will Ferrell in the lead role. Instead, it's about a 1999 comedy in which Ferrell co-stars alongside Molly Shannon. Ferrell's main role is as Catholic high school heart throb Sky, who is the object of desire for Shannon's character, Mary Katherine Gallagher. Mary is desperately seeking her first kiss, and has decided that the only way to attain it is to become a superstar. However, like many teens she's a little awkward, both physically and socially, and so has to settle for watching Sky go out with her nemesis Evian (apparently the prettiest girl in the school).

About half an hour into the film Mary drifts off to sleep and is visited by Jesus. There's an obvious similarity, then, between this and films like Johnny Got His Gun which I reviewed last week. Here, however, there's an added twist: Jesus is also played by Ferrell. Mary's somewhat confused by this, but 'Jesus' explains to her that their conversation is all in her head:

Mary Katherine Gallagher: Oh my God!
Jesus: Oh my Me! How are you?
Mary Katherine Gallagher: It's going OK. Are you the Lord?
Jesus: Well, to you I am. See, technically, you're, like, in this REM sleep state, and I'm a mixture of your mind's images of God, some past authority figures, uh, Skye, and your dad. Basically, your subconscious came up with me to help you deal. Dig?

In contrast to Johnny Got His Gun, the explicit denial that this is in any way the 'real Jesus', combined with the humorous nature of the film, mean that this film cannot be read as offering serious commentary on the historical Jesus. It does, however, draw attention to the way in which our subconscious image of Jesus is informed by various sources, which often have little to do with the Bible, or historical probability. It also comments on the social construct of Jesus. Increasingly in our society Jesus has become a hip, new-age type figure. Toothless and benign, he's seen as a man of peace who taught people to love. What's amusing about this film is the way it uses that characterisation to send up the guiding star figure movie cliché that is so prevalent in films such as this. Interestingly, it could be argued that this cliché actually originated in films such as Quo Vadis?, where the original 'guiding star figure' was a vision of Jesus himself. Indeed one scene from the film appears to parody (perhaps unintentionally) the pivotal scene in Quo Vadis?.

It's also interesting that both Superstar and the earlier Jesus cameo films both present Jesus as somehow unreachable and put barriers between the viewer and Jesus. The 50s epics, did this by avoiding showing his face, either filming from a distance, from behind, or just showing his hand etc. In fact The Robe actually uses the cross as a physical barrier in front of Jesus's face. Barriers such as these came out of a spirit of piety, but nevertheless made Jesus more remote.

Superstar, on the other hand, shows its Jesus face on and close up, but makes the point, that this is not the real Jesus. Thus Jesus remains as remote as he was in the earlier films, only this time the barrier is uncertainty about our ability to encounter anything of Jesus apart from our own experiences. It's not, by any means, a cynical portrayal, but it is very much the product of post-modernist understanding on the attainability of truth or otherwise.One final point here is that the figure of Jesus is also represented in this film by statues of him which appear in the background in various scenes.The other thought that occurred to me in watching Superstar is how clearly it demonstrates the importance of the choice of actor to play Jesus. At the time of the film's release Ferrell had already featured in two of the Austin Powers films having made his name on Saturday Night Live. In fact Superstar started life as an SNL skit, so, at least amongst the shows fans he brought numerous character associations with him to the role.

Ferrell has subsequently gone on to find huge success in a range of performance from gross-out college comedies (Wedding Crashers to his role in the more thoughtful Woody Allen film Melinda, Melinda. Despite those roles coming after his performance in Superstar, they continue to inform and alter the film's meaning, albeit perhaps marginally. Viewers who watch Superstar after they have seen Elf or Anchorman cannot help but read this film through those previous performances, in a way that someone unfamiliar with his body of work could not. It's a good example of how stars are no longer able to provide a blank canvas to those they continue to work with. Their face brings to their new roles connotations associated with their previous work.

Overall the Jesus character appears four times in the film (although it depends quite how you count it), and Ferrell's portrayal of Jesus was included in Entertainment Weekly's 12 favourite TV and Movie Jesuses.

The Young Messiah (2016)

Back in the first few months that I was writing this blog I wrote two pieces about a potential adaptation of Anne Rice's novel "Christ the Lord". I must admit that in the meantime I've never quite been quite interested enough to read the actual book, but it's certainly pleasing to finally sit down to see a film that you've been following for so long. That said the same could have been said about the Star Wars prequels and look how that turned out.

In some ways the premise is also not so dissimilar. It takes an iconic character we know well due to their adult life and attempts to fill in the gap. Rice had an advantage over George Lucas in that she also had a few fragments of birth stories to work with, but there's a sense in which the audience's investment in the character is both a help (in selling tickets) and a hindrance (in terms of their heightened expectations).

Young Messiah, then, starts in Egypt several years after Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the rest of their never-fully-defined wider family have fled from Herod. The family seem to have settled well overall but Jesus is beginning to discover some of the things that make him different in ways that don't necessarily help his family to lead a largely anonymous existence. Plus he's being tracked and taunted by a mysterious Brad Pitt look-a-like who appears to be one part devil, one part 80s heavy-metal guitarist. It's hard to know which aspect is more terrifying.

The devil manages to incite the crowd against Jesus' family such that, as is often still the case for asylum seekers today, even though they have done nothing wrong they still get blamed and in this case feel they have to leave their home again. Plus Nazareth is calling them home (which sounds a little bit like it might have been the title of one of the Pitt-Devil band's biggest hits). Unfortunately just as the family arrive home Herod's son is beginning to inherit his father's paranoia, such that he's sending out soldiers out to try and track down the youngster who so threatened his father. Clearly he wants to tidy up any such loose ends.

Such plot, then, means that the story necessarily takes place around the quiet byways and backwaters of first century Galilee, Judea and beyond, rather than in amongst the cities and crowds. This means that whilst the film retains many aspects of the Biblical Epic, its size and scope means that overall it lacks the genre's typically "fantastic excess". (Wood 169) That is not to say that it is entirely devoid of spectacle; in one scene Satan appears to Jesus and shows him a burning Jerusalem and later scenes take place in the temple, amongst impressive sets and a mass of extras. And the film also retains many of the other aesthetic characteristics of the genre such as "the typical locations, characters, and sounds" (Grace 13).

What is particularly interesting about the film however is the way it maps out a new space within the genre's terrain. Traditionally the Old Testament Epic and the Jesus film have been accompanied by a third type of film - the Roman-Christian Epic - epics which visually and thematically fit within the scope of the Biblical Epic, but whose content is only tangentially biblical. The majority of these films, such as Ben-Hur (1925, 1959, 2016), Quo Vadis? (1913, 1924, 1951, 2001) and The Robe (1953) were based not so much on the Bible itself, but on works of fiction in which either minor biblical characters were given a greatly expanded role, or a major biblical character appeared only fleetingly. They also tended to be set in the time around or after Jesus's death.

Like these Roman-Christian epics Young Messiah occurs around the fringes of the biblical narratives, however the events it depicts occur in an earlier time period between Jesus' birth and his appearance, aged twelve, in Jerusalem. Like them it is also based on a fictional work, Anne Rice's "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt". Like them it also contains a prominent member of the "(e)arthly powers" (Sean Bean's centurion Severus) through whose eyes we witness the events and who eventually comes to faith. (Babington & Evans 202) Yet whilst Severus is Roman, the power figure in this story is not a Roman, but Herod, who describes himself here as "Jewish". And Bean's climatic epiphany is not a conversion to Christianity, but more of a moment of revelation and reflection on his past. Whilst it would clearly count as a moment of divine intervention, it clearly goes even further than the "ecumenical blandness" which Babington & Evans find so typical of the Roman-Christian film. (p.8)

Essentially, then, this is a fourth type of Biblical Epic, distinct from the Roman-Christian epic by being neither 'Roman' in the fullest sense nor technically 'Christian', (since it had not yet come into existence), even if both undeniably form a critical part of the film's historical backdrop. Furthermore whereas the Roman-Christian Epics relied on a blend of the promise erotic sexual content in the background and romantic love in the foreground here Young Messiah is essentially sexless. Severus is not converted due to his attraction to a Christian woman as in Quo Vadis? but by his encounter with Jesus - something more typical of the Jesus film. And the implication is that the film's leading lady - Mary, Jesus' mother - has remained a virgin even through her married life.

One key element of the traditional Biblical Epic that is retained is the sense of camp, although the two main camp elements are both more influenced by The Passion of the Christ (Gibson 2004) than the earlier epics. Like Gibson's film Herod is depicted as a camp figure, albeit more subtly than in that film. With his love of soft furnishings, and his court of sycophantic misfits, he flounces barefoot round his throne room treating women with disdain but starring longingly at Sean Bean. In one notable scene he confronts Severus whilst using a female dancer as a proxy for his conflicted feelings about him. Not dissimilarly, the film also depicts Satan as a queer/androgynous figure, though in contrast to Gibson's use of a woman with angular features and a short "masculine" haircut, here Satan is played by a man with long curly blond locks, large dark eyes and soft features.

Sadly the film's development of the Biblical Epic genre is probably the most interesting thing about it. The holy family's travails from Alexandria to Nazareth to Jerusalem makes little narrative sense yet never really captures the reflection and personal growth aspect of the road movie - a genre it otherwise sits within at least as comfortably as it does the Biblical Epic. Ultimately the plot is driven by Mary and Joseph's unwillingness to tell Jesus the basic facts about his life that apparently everyone else seems to know. A long and dangerous trip takes place simply because the otherwise sympathetic and caring Mary and Joseph can't cope with not being able to give Jesus all the answers. When Mary sits down to tell Jesus about his conception, she starts with the words "Listen well because I'm only going to tell this story once" which will cause most viewers to wonder why an apparently caring mother would refuse to repeat such an important and inspiring story. (I say "most viewers" because those in the UK may be distracted by the presumably unintentional citation from 'Allo 'Allo.)

Bean's more metaphorical, internal, journey is no more satisfying. Our first encounter with him is as a tough Roman soldier who occasionally spares the life of a child. His ultimate decision not to kill Jesus (I'm assuming anyone reading this already knows that Jesus makes it through to the end of the film) and the revelation he may have acted accordingly in Bethlehem, show that, in fact, he has always been that kind of person.

It's left, then, to Jesus to bring the film to some sort of vaguely reasonable conclusion and his final voice-over is perhaps the film's most satisfying moment. Trying to work out the reason God has sent him, he concludes "I think I'm here just to be alive. To see it, hear it, feel it, all of it. Even when it hurts. Someday you will tell me why else I'm here. I don't know when, but you will." It's an interesting way to capture some of the critical aspects of the incarnation without getting down into the details. Perhaps this is just "ecumenical blandness" again, but as Mary and Joseph eventually come to realise, sometimes not having a solid answer is OK.

==========================
Babington, Bruce, and Peter William Evans. (1993), Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Grace, Pamela. (2009) The Religious Film: Christianity and the Hagiopic, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Lindsay, Richard A. (2015), Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day, Santa Barbara, California/Denver, Colorado: Praeger.
Wood, Michael. ([1975] 1989) America in the Movies, New York: Columbia University Press

The Prodigal (1955)

This post is my entry to the Sword and Sandal Blogathon hosted by @DebbieVee of the Moon in Gemini blog

In 1955 would-be makers of epic films faced a dilemma. On the one hand biblical films had suddenly become popular and the studios, desperate to cash in, were trying to make all they could out of the new trend. The new, wider, screens called for more eye-catching images and post-war, the public was ready to move on from film noir's cheap sets and low budgets.

Yet on the other hand, the depiction of Jesus, the Bible's biggest "star", was very much frowned upon. You could show one or two of his limbs (as The Robe and Salome had done two years previously) or have him speak through a boy and a blinding light (as in 1951's Quo Vadis?), but such approaches were rapidly running out of road.

MGM's solution to this dilemma was that instead of trying to tell a story around the margins of Jesus' life, was to focus instead on a story that Jesus told - the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus was, after all, famed as a story teller and this would enable MGM to appeal to the market for biblical stories without even needing to show Jesus himself.

It wasn't the first time the parable had been adapted for the silver screen. Silent portrayals of the story went as far back as Ferdinand Zecca's 1902 version for Pathé and four more adaptations would follow in the next ten years. The parable's short, punchy style was ideally suited to the shorter running times and the imagery of money being wasted on parties and of a loving father running down the road to embrace a wayward son worked well for an art form that was still finding its feet with dialogue.

But as films got longer it presumably became harder to stretch the material out to cover the relevant length and a sub-genre was, to all intents and purposes, lost. As almost forty five years passed, with those early, French, silents seemingly forgotten, MGM must have been pleased with their novel solution. Not only did they spend roughly the same budget as 20th Century Fox spent on The Robe, their advertising for the film boasted how it was "The Biggest Picture Ever Filmed in Hollywood" and how it cost "A fortune to produce!"¹

Without the possibility of Jesus as a leading man, MGM opted to boost the movie's star power by giving the headline role to its own star, Lana Turner. The move was not without precedent. Two years earlier Columbia had used another star of film noir, Rita Hayworth, to front Salome; similarly taking advantage of the way the genre/change of cultural context enabled them to display their leading ladies in more revealing costumes without the characters losing respectability. However, whereas Hayworth was backed up by Charles Laughton and Stewart Granger, Turner was cast opposite Louis Calhern and the relatively unknown Edmund Purdom. Furthermore, as the prodigal son of the title, it was Purdom who had the greater screen time and around whom the story was based.

Purdom plays Micah, a Jewish son living in Joppa, who, in the very first scene, clashes with a prominent member of Damascus's pagan religious hierarchy by liberating one of his slaves (James Mitchell's Asham). Returning to Joppa shortly afterwards he instantly falls for Astarte's high priestess, Samarra (Turner). Micah returns home determined to "have" Samarra for himself and persuades his reluctant father to give him a quarter of his wealth.

Whilst this first part of the story drops in a couple of references from the Bible ("For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb...her feet go down to death" Prov 5:3 and, rather more crassly, "I'm hungry enough to devour a whole fatted calf") it also makes critical changes to the story. Micah's rescue of Asham, for example, establishes his exceptional, high sense of morality if also illustrating his carefree attitude to money. Micah is unlikely to prove his respectful enough to make his father ashamed of him. True enough whilst his father is unhappy initially, he quickly accepts his son's decision and reassures him that he'll love him "no matter what". Nevertheless the loss of much of Micah's part of the fortune is due to him being exploited by one of the money lenders from Damascus, the high priest of Baal (Louise Calhern) and perhaps even his new found love.

The effect of all this is does rather cheapen the grace which is the heart and soul of the original story. The son is transformed from one seemingly beyond redemption in the original parable, to someone who is basically a good, if naïaut;ve, person who simply happens to hold some different opinions to his father. It's hard to find anything here that would cause a significant rift between father and son, and indeed there isn't.

From there on things take a turn towards what some see as the ridiculous and others as untrammelled entertainment. It gradually become apparent that Micah is the stereotypical, slightly spoilt, rich, boy; arrogant yet unaware of how he's upsetting people, and clearly having more money than sense. If his behaviour in the opening scene quickly gets his audience on side, such support dissipates scene by scene as the movie progresses, not helped by Purdom's lack of warmth, charisma or chemistry with Turner.

Incensed by how he has been treated Micah begins to lead a rebellion, but its beset by the kind of problems which increasingly feel like the kind of thing that only a rather desperate screenwriter could come up with. So in relatively short succession we get a sacrificial victim willingly diving into a fire pit, a series of people throwing knives which somehow stick awkwardly into their victim's necks, Micah's mute slave being magically restored to life, an play performed by characters wearing bizarre animal headed costumes and a man wrestling with an actual vulture.

The last of those moments certainly deserves to be more famous and not as the surprising missing link between DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) and Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). I struggle to think of more than one or two films where someone tussles with an avian opponent, let alone where he had to choke a full-sized feathered assassin to death using a recently discarded bone. Director Richard Thorpe had been fired by both Esther Williams and the producers of The Wizard of Oz for being unimaginative. One can only imagine that, stung by the criticism, he determined never to guilty of that particular cinematic crime again.

By the man-vs.-bird's standards, the finale seems rather tame, though it's undoubtedly over the top in its own way. Micah decides to overthrow the leaders of the religions of Baal and Astarte and musters a group of Damascene rebels to help him in his task. They storm Samarra's temple, and throw rocks at her until she dives headlong into the sacrificial fire pit.

Were it not for its over-the-topness it might have been a more shocking moment. Fifties epics had their fill of stories where a Judeo-Christian women meets, and eventually converts, a pagan man (usually Roman) to her faith. Here the roles are reversed and yet whilst Micah manages to get Samarra to compromise her own faith enough to sleep with him, it is not enough to convert to his Judaism.

Why did the filmmakers decide not to give Samarra the redemption the rest of the film points towards? Is it just that Micah's own compromised faith is not strong enough to transform her belief? Or might it be that because his faith was Jewish (i.e. not fully Christian) that they decided it was not powerful enough to convert her? Maybe it was that as a sexually impure women they judged her beyond redemption despite the (presumably) sexually experienced male leads of Quo Vadis? and The Robe being reached by the sexual purity of the women they loved? Whatever their reason it rather mutes Micah's overthrow of the oppressive Baalan/Astartean regime and sees him return to his father with his tail between his legs despite what would be, in other biblical epics, a significant victory.

In some ways this is probably just as well - after all, had Micah ridden home triumphant on the back of the grateful Damascans the "father I have sinned against you and against God" speech might have sounded a little hollow. Yet ultimately the film has two endings, neither of which is really particularly satisfactory: the victory in Damascus is shorn of the triumph over adversity that seeing Samarra rescued (and on the film's terms, converted) would have provided; the shocking forgiveness and redemption of the biblical ending is stunted by the lack of a truly wayward son. Ultimately his father's unconditional acceptance ends up being merely more or less normal behaviour rather than an outrageous and unexpected act of forgiveness by an ever-loving father.

Growing up in a church home I knew about the prodigal years before I knew what being prodigal actually was. Even today its rare to hear the word in a context unrelated to Jesus' story. And it's hard to escape the feeling that a director like DeMille might have made rather more entertaining and satisfying film out of his lead's infamous prodigality and subsequent repentance than Thorpe does here. Perhaps The Prodigal's biggest failure is that it took the "Son" out of the film's title, but the "Prodigal" out of the actual movie.

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1 - Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1955) vol 199, April 2, 1955 p.2. Accessed on 9th July 2016 at https://ia801306.us.archive.org
/13/items/motionpictureher199quig/motionpictureher199quig.pdf

Which Bible Films Celebrate a Significant Anniversary in 2024?

This should really have been a start of the year post, but I'm thinking about possible screenings I could introduce or films reaching significant milestones this year that might be good to write about / talk about at festivals / discuss on podcasts etc. so I thought it would be good to create a (non-exhaustive) list of the main ones.

100 years (1924) 

Die Sklavenkönigin (The Moon of Israel, Michael Curtiz)
Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio & Georg Jacoby)

75 years (1949)

Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille)

70 years (1954)

Day of Triumph (John T. Coyle & Irving Pichel)
Demetrius and the Gladiators (Delmer Daves)
The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville)

60 years (1964)

Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Saul e David (Marcello Baldi)

50 years (1974)

Moses the Lawgiver (Gianfranco De Bosio)
The Story of Jacob and Joseph (Michael Cacoyannis)

40 years (1984)

Samson and Delilah (Lee Philips)
Second Time Lucky (Michael Anderson)

35 years (1989)

Jésus de Montréal (Denys Arcand)
Visons of Ecstasy (Nigel Wingrove)

30 years (1994)

Al-mohager (The Emigrant, Youssef Chahine)
Genesis: Creation and Flood (Ermanno Olmi)
Jacob (Peter Hall)

25 years (1999)

La Genèse (Genesis, Cheick Oumar Sissoko)
Jesus (Roger Young)
Mary, Mother of Jesus (Kevin Connor)
Noah's Ark (John Irvin)

20 years (2004)

The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson)
Shanti Sandesham (P Chandrasekhar Reddy)
Judas (Charles Robert Carner)

10 years (2014)
Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott)
Noah (Daren Aronofsky) 
The Red Tent (Roger Young) 
Son of God (Christopher Spencer)
The Savior (Robert Savo)

I guess there are three that really stand out for me at least. Firstly, the 60th anniversary of Pasolini's Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964). It's a film that has interested me for a long time and one I've written about both here and in print many times, particularly last year when I contributed a (extra-long) chapter on it for Ken Morefield's book "Film as an Expression of Spirituality: The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films".

Then there's the 75 year mark for Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) a film which really kick-started the 1950s revival of classical era historical movies in general and of biblical films in particular.

The other is the 20 year anniversary of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004). The milestone is much smaller, but the film still looms relatively large in the collective mind and has been quite significant in its impact it's had on what has come to be called "faith-based" films. The experience of that film being released was formative for me -- I learnt so much from the debates and the scholarship that surrounded the movie.

Anyway, if you're a cinema/church planning on screening any of these films; a festival organiser wanting someone to discuss them; an editor looking for an article on them; or a podcaster who'd like a knowledgeable guest to chat about them, then it would be great to hear from you.

Lastly, there are obviously a bunch of films I've missed off (some due to debatable dates, but are there any major ones I've not included?). 

Giuditta e Oloferne (1906/1908)

The BFI Archive print of the film starts with an introduction

"The Italian film. From 1908 to 1914 Italy played an important role in film history with her classico-historical spectacles. The success of Quo Vadis (1911) as well as of the French Queen Elizabeth definitely established the long film and brought cinema new esteem"

I'm not sure at what stage these notes were added, but they go on to show some elements of analysis. "Insistence on architecture and gesticulation were constants".

The film begins with people challenging the priests to do something about the siege - children are dying. Judith arrives with her entourage and is dressed very much like a suffragette. It would be a mistake to assume this is a deliberate association on behalf of the filmmakers. Italian women didn't gain the vote until 1946 and it's more likely that the style of dress I associate with the suffragette movement is merely typical of pre-war European fashion. Nevertheless given the story's political angle and it's radically divergent portrayal of a woman, it's an association that I suspect many other viewers would make.

Certainly the expensive looking dress and the entourage emphasise that Judith is relatively wealthy and in high standing in her community. It's while Judith is doing her make-up at home that the angel appears to her with a sword to signify the deed she is being commissioned to carry out. There's no angel in the text of course so this addition strengthens the idea that this was God's idea.

Judith and her handmaiden leave the camp and are quickly captured by some Assyrian soldiers. They bring the pair into the court and Holofernes is instantly smitten. Having been making merry with his court and cavorting with some scantily clad servant girls, he sends out the whole court upon Judith's arrival. Holofernes starts to seduce Judith. Judith stands but the angel appears again and orders her down. This again indicates Judith's mission is God-ordained circumventing any questions about the morality of her actions.

The next scene takes place in the adjoining room where once again Holofernes has company (including some blacked-up servants), only this time Judith drinks. He then takes her to his bedroom where she continues to resist his sexual advances. Eventually Holofernes passes out but Judith is reluctant to kill him. Suddenly the angel appears again, specifically gesturing that she should cut off his head and so eventually she does, drawing the curtain around Holofernes' bed before popping his severed head into a bag and leaving.

The final scene (pictured above) depicts Judith returning home and pulling out Holofernes' head before the assembled people to show their victory. The people of Bethulia bow.

The repeated addition of the angel, even urging her to kill Holofernes is strongly interpretative, and is particularly interesting for those who like me are intrigued by the way Christian art often distorts the biblical text in order to rationalise such awkwardly violent acts seemingly at God's command. For protestants this story is not so problemmatic as they give the "apocrypha" much less authority, but what's interesting is that similar tactics are used throughout the history of filmmaking for stories from the universally accepted canon.


The plot summary provided by the organisers of the "Ancient World in Silent Cinema II" event gave the film the following synopsis:

Giuditta e Oloferne [Judith and Holopherne] (Italy, Mario Caserini, 1908) 6 mins. The Israelites, besieged in Bethulia, bemoan their fate. In Judith's palace, an angel appears and instructs her to help. Judith is led into the tent of the Assyrian leader Holophernes. He, much taken, orders everyone out including his protesting concubine. Judith is reluctant but, after the reappearance of the angle, submits to his embrace. Holophernes feats with his concubine and court. Judith enters and feigns pleasure. He leaads her to bed, but falls drunkenly asleep. The angel urges the reluctant Judith to kill him. Judith returns to the Israelites and shows them his head.

The BFI also summarise it on their website:

HISTORICAL. Apocryphal story of Judith who saves the Israelites by seducing and beheading the Assyrian leader Holofernes. "THE ITALIAN FILM. From 1908 to 1914 Italy... JUDITH AND HOLOPHERNES Produced by Cines-Roma. Biblical...insistence on architecture and gesticulation" (101) JUDITH AND HOLOPHERNE. Wolf logo. CINES (102) The Israelite people, soldiers and priests, besieged in Bethulia, bemoan their fate. Black slaves enter down steps followed by Judith, attendants and fanbearers wearing tights. All kneel (171). In Judith's palace: columns and curtains: the attendants bedeck Judith. They exit. A female angel appears, instructs Judith, vanishes, reappears and exits. Judith summons her handmaid and they leave (242). Four Assyrians with spears, bows and arrows in a rocky place: Judith and maid enter, show alarm and are led off held by their wrists (261). Holophernes holds court in a tent with his concubine, other women, guards, fanwavers and black slaves. Judith and maid are led in. Holophernes, much taken, orders everyone out including the protesting concubine. Alone, he takes Judith to the couch. She is reluctant but, after a word from the angel, submits to his embrace (318). In a circular tent, Holophernes feasts with his concubine and court. Judith enters, shows disgust but feigns pleasure. They embrace, drink and exit (390). In the previous tent the crowd enters. Holophernes drives them all out with a sword, embraces Judith, leads her to the bed, and falls drunkenly asleep. She observes him, laughs, picks up sword, hesitates. The angel urges her. She picks up sword again and, back to camera, uses it, turns holding head and sword, drops both, closes bed curtains, emerges wrapping the head in a cloth and exits (479). The Israelites are still wailing. Judith and her maid arrive with the bundle. Judith climbs steps and shows the head. All kneel (528ft). Note: Intertitles missing. First 101ft are a modern introduction. Length without this is 417ft. Also held: (205243A 425 ft, no titles, slightly better print) and 608423A (Joye Collection no.1907, 376ft, opening title and Cines logo but no intertitles, incomplete- ends when Judith leaves with her trophy).

Holofernes in Film

Given the fairly one dimensional portrayal of Holofernes in the book of Judith, it's perhaps little surprise that he has rarely been fleshed out in film. The earliest silent films about Judith - Giuditta e Oloferne (1906) and Gaumont's Judith et Holopherne (1909) - portray him simply as a lust-driven tyrant; a piece of meat biding its time before slaughter.

Things begin to change in D.W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia (1913). Physically all three portrayals of Holofernes are very similar - a well-built, dark-haired man with a heavy, black beard who lounges on a couch whilst scantily-clad servant girls fawn in attendance. But some of the subtleties of the biblical account (for example his relative fairness in Judith 11:1-4) are also portrayed, not least because this is the first film to explain the events from Holofernes' point of view as well as Judith's. The film's intertitles explain that Judith finds him "noble", but more significantly that he ""had thoughts only for Judith - and he gave no heed unto the Dance of the Fishers by the artful women". Holofernes' thoughts are also shown visually during the dance. Griffith uses an iris to put the spotlight on Holofernes and cast the rest of the action into darkness, demonstrating his isolation from them and his single focus on Judith.

Holofernes appeared in one more silent film - the Italian Giuditta e Oloferne (1928) - but then over thirty years passed before his next significant appearance in 1959 in another Italian production of the same name. The film was released elsewhere in the world under a variety of titles, including Judith das Schwert der Rache in Germany and Head of a Tyrant in the English speaking world. The film went still further in softening Holofernes' image. Whilst initially he is depicted as ruthless and debauched he falls for Judith and demonstrates tenderness. The transition is marked in a scene where Holofernes snaps "I should have killed you with the others", before gently holding her head and kissing her. Indeed in many ways the film is a variation on the Roman-Christian epics of the early fifties such as Quo Vadis where a good Christian transforms the heart of a Roman commander, only with a radically different twist at the end.

A swathe of made for TV movies followed in the sixties, from the USA (1960), Argentina (1961), West Germany (1965 & 1966) and France (1969) with two European films reaching cinemas in 1979/1980 from Spain (Judith) and the former Yugoslavia (Judita), but the story has largely passed out of fashion despite its rich source material (packed with irony, humour, wordplay and suspense) and the seemingly obvious appeal for modern audiences (sex, power, violence, politics).

One recent film, Quebecois filmmaker Eric Chaussé's 2007 short Judith has offered an interesting adaptation of the story. By limiting the action solely to Holofernes' sleeping quarters Chaussé strips him of the trappings of imperial power (servants, grand armour, luxurious furnishings) humanising him and making him more vulnerable. The actor (pictured) is also young, with softer features and seemingly more gentle. Shorn of his power Holofernes appears almost as a victim, even the way Judith climbs upon him implies her dominance, subverting the image of the would be rapist of Judith 12:12. The final shot is of Holofernes' execution, which is filmed from directly behind his head, an almost point of view shot which places the audience in sympathy with the Assyrian general. Chaussé's cinematography is utterly reminiscent of Caravaggio and Gentileshchi's paintings and gives the scene a fittingly dark, intimate and erotically-charged atmosphere.

Johnny Got His Gun

Films in the Jesus Cameo performance sub-genre tend to fall into one of two categories. On the one hand they are films set in or around first century Palestine or Rome, and the words / actions of Jesus are shown as a significant moment in a character's story. Films such as Quo Vadis, The Robe, Ben-Hur and even Life of Brian fall into this category. The other grouping is more set in modern times where Jesus appears in dreams or visions. Again this usually occurs at at critical point in the film, but the films themselves are a little more diverse ranging from Bad Lieutenant to Superstar featuring Will Ferrell as Jesus.

Johnny Got His Gun is perhaps one of the stranger entries in the latter category. Joe Bonham ¹ is a soldier horrifically injured in the First World War. His doctors consider him all but dead, but viewers are party to his inner monologue and therefore realise just how concious and active his mind remains. As he lies shut away in various army hospital beds the audience has a unique position. Joe is unable to see and hear and so is oblivious to what is happening in the room he is in. The various doctors, nurses and army officials are likewise oblivious to Joe's thoughts and dreams as he is also unable to speak. We, however, witness both and so the central tension of the film is the journey towards these two sides finally communicating. It's also an interesting testimony to the ability of cinema to give us different angles on things; to witness one story from two perspectives simultaneously, and to portray fantasy as if it were reality.

The "action" such that it is, alternates between Joe's two states of consciousness. When he is fully concious the camera is present and in the room with the medical staff while Joe's inner monologue is brought to the foreground. In between times he drifts out of consciousness and we experience his dreams. Joe dreams are a disorientating combination of his past (the night he spent with his girlfriend before he left for war, his father's funeral incidents from his childhood, the moment he was injured) and his fantasy which encompasses such bizarre episodes as a futuristic military supplies salesman, a rat crawling on him, his parents running a freak sideshow on which he stars, and the two sequences where he talks with Jesus.The first Jesus sequence arrives around the half hour mark, and stars Donald Sutherland as a gambling, drinking, train-driving Christ. Joe, Jesus and a group of others play cards in a waiting room. Jesus flashes a couple of fancy tricks, but is bemused by his inability to hit 21 from 12. As the conversation becomes more serious it becomes apparent that Joe's colleagues all have an imminent date with death. Jesus is vaguely compassionate yet he nevertheless ushers them towards the train that is taking them towards that end, and the section's closing shot is of Jesus yelling out of the cabin window as he drives the train to his destination at full speed.

A short while later Jesus appears in a totally different sequence, and here the image of Jesus the film presents is far more troubling. The preceding sequence ends with a tormented Joe desperate to work out the difference between reality and fantasy, particularly as he is unable to see, hear, touch or say a thing. Suddenly Joe and Jesus are alone in his carpenter's shop and Jesus is trying to offer some advice.

Unfortunately, and for all his good intentions, Jesus's advice is quite useless: he's seemingly unable to grasp quite how desperate Joe's plight is. His only credentials seem to be the fact of his own suffering, which is alluded to in the earlier sequence and symbolised here (by a van driver placing crosses on the back of his vehicle in the background). The implication is that Joe's suffering is beyond even that of Jesus, and it leaves him looking somewhat impotent. Perhaps frustrated by his failure to find a solution, this Jesus becomes increasingly unhelpful ("it would be cruel to pretend that anyone could help you what you need is a miracle"), ultimately becoming downright heartless. "Perhaps it would be better for you to go away now. You're a very unlucky young man and sometimes it rubs off." The dream ends with Jesus even raising questions about his own existence.

Joe: Are you and I really here together or is this just a dream too?
Jesus: It's a dream.
Joe: How do you know?
Jesus: Because I'm a dream.
Joe: I don't believe you.
Jesus: Nobody does. That's why I'm as unreal as every other dream that didn't come true.

It's difficult to work out how seriously we should take the negative image of Jesus that is presented in these dream sequences. Clearly he is not meant to be a representation of the real Jesus, just the product of Joe's troubled and dreaming mind. At the same time it seems fairly likely that the filmmakers are making covert statements about their opinions on Jesus and the religion which has taken his name. The fantasy aspect of this depiction enables the film to say things about Jesus that most films back then couldn't. It raises the point of view that Jesus is unable to relieve some people's torment, and that he is just "as unreal as every other dream that didn't come true".

The interplay between dreams and reality continues elsewhere. Indeed like many dreams vs reality films (The Wizard of Oz, Pleasantville) the "real sequences" are shot in black and white, and it's only once we move into the fantasy world where colour is restored.²

Interestingly, in between the two scenes featuring Jesus we observe the young Joe going to a church service where excerpts are read out from the works of Mary Baker Eddy. The passage in question is:

All is infinite mind and it's infinite manifestation... matter is the unreal and temporal... Spirit is God and man is his image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual...
(abbreviations theirs)

In many ways these words support the film's use of colour. The unreal matter is shot in black and white whereas the dominion of the mind is filmed in glorious colour. Joe himself embodies this (if you'll pardon the pun). Without the usual array of senses to determine what is real and what isn't he is able to experience life on the spiritual plane.

There's one other religious scene of note which also slots into the section between the two Jesus scenes. The pope, the yet to be born Gandhi and a third man stand on a balcony as the pope prays for "all those in the armed forces who sacrifice their young lives in this just and holy war for everlasting peace" implying religion's complicity in the waging of war.

Reading the comments for Johnny Got His Gun on the IMDb, it's surprising just how many people claim this film turned them into pacifists, particularly as it was released around the time that the draft to the Vietnam war was beginning to bite. Whilst this is certainly not a film that glorifies war, it's far from anti-war propaganda. Sadly it's far more polemical about religion. Christianity = bad, gnostic -esque spirituality = good.

Whilst I disagree with the ideas that the first part of the film seeks to explore, it is nevertheless quite interesting to see these ideas explored so imaginatively. Nevertheless, it's the second half of the film, where Joe gradually begins to regain his connection with the world, that is by far the stronger.

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Joe is played by Timothy Bottoms who is now best known for playing George W. Bush in no less than three different productions.
2 - I actually watched this film in two parts, and, by sheer chance, I happened to watch Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror in between the two sittings. Mirror also touched on memories and dreams of the past interwoven with the future in a complex series of flashbacks. Needless to say it made an interesting, if very confusing, combination.