Over on the Passion reviews thread, Romi posted a link to a very interesting review in the Guardian that explores how The Passion fits into the horror genre, and at the bottom there is a list of Jesus movies that ends with this interesting reference:

The Cross
(Lance Tracy, 2001)

Art-house film tells the tale of the crucifixion entirely through the eyes of Jesus himself, so the son of God is never actually shown on screen. Larry Salberg provides the voice of Christ.

I don't think I have heard of this one before, but it sounds interesting. Indeed, it reminds me of some comments I made on point-of-view shots in Jesus films in general on the original Passion thread:

There is, however, an incredible benefit to Gibson's flashback structure -- namely the fact that we see so much of the film from Jesus' point of view, and this, in turn, draws us into Jesus' humanity in a way that most films don't. Repeatedly, as Jesus is being dragged around, he will look at something and be reminded of an earlier episode in his life. He sees a guy with carpentry tools, he thinks of his days as a carpenter; he sees the street filled with people shouting at him, he thinks of his Triumphal Entry just a few days before; he sees Golgotha as he steps outside the city, he thinks of the sermon he gave on another mountain in which he told his followers to love their enemies. Much of the flashback material comes straight from the Bible, so Gibson has not been all that inventive with the CONTENT of the drama, but the way in which he has STRUCTURED all this material makes the film unusually, and brilliantly, subjective.

What do I mean by "subjective"? Well, in his book on the controversy surrounding The Last Temptation, Robin Riley says the typical Jesus movie conveys Jesus' divinity through a process of "mystification" whereby Jesus is rendered "objective", etc., and one of the things that films like The Last Temptation (and Roger Young's CBS mini-series Jesus) have tried to do in recent years is to humanize Jesus by "demystifying" him and making their films more "subjective" -- we see his dreams, we hear his thoughts in voice-over, we basically get inside his head the same way we get inside the heads of many other movie characters. Personally, I applaud this, at least in theory, even if I think both of those particular films ultimately failed to do justice to the humanity and divinity of Jesus, albeit for different reasons.

In fact, now that I think of it, I recall that one of my favorite moments of any Jesus film ever is in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth: after Jesus turns over the money tables in the Temple, he comes to a spot where he stops and stares straight up at the ceiling, and we cut to a point-of-view shot of the smoke rising to the heavens; and not only is this a point-of-view shot, but I believe it is the exact same point-of-view shot that Zeffirelli used several hours earlier, when the 12-year-old Jesus goes to the Temple with his father Joseph and stands there holding a lamb on his shoulders. (If it is not the exact same shot, it is at least a very similar one.) I have always found this moment very moving; the boy Jesus is being taught the wondrous ways of the ancestral faith; the adult Jesus has just condemned the practitioners of the faith for their corruption of it; and I have always wondered, at that moment, what is going through Jesus' mind -- disillusionment? loss of innocence? a plea for strength from his heavenly Father? For the most part, Zeffirelli's film falls into the "mystified", "objective" camp, but this one shot -- wow.

And Gibson's film is, on one level, like a whole movie made of that sort of thing. By shooting so much of it from Jesus' point of view, he draws us into Jesus' mind (ditto Mary and John and others who have subjective flashbacks). The flashbacks themselves maintain the "objective" nature of most Jesus movies, but the way these memories are arranged and brought back to Jesus' mind is "subjective", so Gibson strikes a delicate balance between his humanity and divinity there. (Oh, but wait, I just remembered -- even God in Heaven gets a point-of-view shot! There is a striking overhead shot of Golgotha after Jesus dies, which suddenly begins to ripple, and just as you're asking what the heck is going on with this digital effect, you see a tear-drop fall away from the camera, and you realize that you've been looking down from God's point of view -- and he's crying. So "divinity" does NOT always equal "objectivity".

So, it could be very interesting to see where The Cross fits into this pattern. Does anyone know where I might be able to find a copy?

Here's a *.pdf download about the film.

Thanks for the link, Jeff.

Something else that occurs to me is the way Jesus and Mary look at each other through the legs of the table in that one flashback sequence in Mel Gibson's film -- the way those close-up point-of-view shots are edited together is the sort of thing that films often use when they are depicting lovers, looking at each other through a screen (I am reminded of a certain sequence involving a man and woman in Sokurov's Father and Son in particular).

I finally got around to paging through Leo Steinberg's The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion yesterday, and he makes the interesting point that the infant Christ is often shown giving his mother a "chin-chuck" that is usually a gesture of affection between lovers -- and thus these paintings allude to the Catholic view that Mary is Christ's consort. From pages 3 and 5 of the 1996 edition of his book:

At the risk of belaboring what is obvious, I must address myself to the many who still habitually mistake pictorial symbols in Renaissance art for descriptive naturalism. To take one example: At the sight of an infant Christ touching the Virgin's chin, they will admire the charm of a gesture so childlike, playful, affectionate. They are not wrong, but I think they are satisfied with too little. For the seeming artlessness of what I shall call the chin-chuck disguises a ritual form of impressive antiquity. It is first encountered in New Kingdom Egypt as a token of affection or erotic persuasion (Fig. 125). In Archaic Greek painting the gesture is given to wooers, and it occurs more than once in the Iliad to denote supplication (Figs. 126, 127). [1] In Late Antique art, the caress of the chin is allegorized to express the union of Cupid and Psyche, the god of Love espousing teh human soul (Fig 7.). And the gesture proliferates in medieval art into representations both of profane lovers and of the Madonna and Child (Figs. 8, 9, 128). Thus no Christian artist, medieval or Renaissance, would have taken this long-fixed convention for anything but a sign of erotic communion, either carnal or spiritual. By assigning it to the Christ Child, the artist was designating Mary's son as the Heavenly Bridegroom who, having chosen her for his mother, was choosing her for his eternal consort in heaven. The chin-chuck, then, betokens the Infant Spouse (a phrase I take from St. Augustine [2]) -- whether the action appears naturalized on earth, or enskied (Figs. 10-12; Excursus III).

1. Iliad, I, 501-02; VIII, 370-71; X, 454-55.
2. St. Augustine speaks of "His appearance as an Infant Spouse, from his bridal chamber, that is, from the womb of a virgin"; Augustine, Sermon IX, 2 (Ben. 191); Sermons, p. 109. See also Sermon X, 3, pp. 115-16, for the theme of the Infant Spouse, the Virgin's womb as bride chamber, and the Incarnation of the Word "by a marriage which it is impossible to define."

So I wonder if some of this lurks behind Gibson's take on the gospels, which on one hand is very medieval but on the other hand also exhibits the influence of the Renaissance (how many times have we heard him say he wanted the cinematography to resemble a Caravaggio painting?). As I have said before, I was especially impressed, on my second viewing of the film, by the kiss that Jesus gives Mary at the end of that flashback. Am I saying that Gibson is implying something sexual between these two characters? Of course not. But am I saying that Gibson has portrayed these two characters in the same way that many films portray lovers, just as the Renaissance artists incorporated erotic motifs into their depictions of the Madonna and Child? (Hmmm, not unlike how Sokurov portrays the titular characters in Father and Son, come to think of it.) Yes, I think I am.

Peter--

I know and have worked with Lance who was once a close friend of mine. He attends the Los Angeles International Church of Christ.

You can find the movie here, on their website.

I lost touch with him when I left that organization, as members who leave are considered 'fallen away' from Christ and contact with them is highly discouraged by 'the body.' We have occasional, piecemeal contact by happenstance--small world that way.

You can probably contact him through the KNN website if you'd like a hard copy of the film.

Jason Bortz wrote:
: I know and have worked with Lance who was once a close friend of
: mine. He attends the Los Angeles International Church of Christ.

Oh -- is this the mainstream (for lack of a better word) church or the quasi-cultish "Boston Movement" headed by Kip McKean? Sounds like the latter, if it's the sort of group that would cut off contact with you. (One of my first journalism jobs ever was a three-part exposé of the Boston Movement's arrival on Vancouver campuses, way way back in 1993.)

: You can probably contact him through the KNN website if you'd like a
: hard copy of the film.

Thanks for the tip!

QUOTE

I know and have worked with Lance who was once a close friend of mine.

8O

Moments like these just increase my amazement at and appreciation for this discussion board.

Kip stepped down as leader in 2002, but yeah, that's the one. I attended there for 10 months and also have extensive research/study on the Boston movement--another thread entirely.

You can watch the full video of the Cross online, it seems...

QUOTE

Moments like these just increase my amazement at and appreciation for this discussion board.

Heh. He used to live in Seattle, too.

Jason Bortz wrote:
: Kip stepped down as leader in 2002, but yeah, that's the one. I attended
: there for 10 months and also have extensive research/study on the
: Boston movement--another thread entirely.

Agreed -- though it's fascinating that a film endorsed (and perhaps produced?) by this church should catch the attention of the Guardian, of all things.

Lance took one of his films, Forgiven, all the way to the NY Film Festival where it was also recognized. He’s got a good eye—and KNN (Kingdom News Network) values him highly.

Thanks for the tip off Jason.

s'funny just the other day I was thinking how interesting it would be to see a film that does this and there you go!

Matt

Sorry to dredge this old thread up. I've just covered this film, and managed to get an interview with Mr Tracy.

I was amazed by this bit of what he said. I basically asked him about the similarities between his 2001 film and The Passion and he told the following story:I can't believe that the clear influence of Tracy's film on Gibson hasn't been picked up in any of the mountain of passion related material I've read in my time.

Matt