Amazingly, we don't seem to have a thread dedicated to The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1902-05) on the current message board, so here is a link to the thread we had two message boards ago, back when the film was packaged together with From the Manger to the Cross (1912) on this DVD; I also commented on both films in the 'jesus point-of-view shots' thread.

Today I got a review copy of a new DVD, called The Passion and the Power of Christ, which also features the 1905 film, in addition to The Power of the Resurrection, an hour-long film starring Richard Kiley as St. Peter. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, really, but I clicked on one chapter just to see how it looked, and was dismayed to see that a logo bearing the title of the DVD appeared in the lower right corner of the screen for a few seconds near the beginning of the chapter; that kind of thing really irks me. Apart from that, and the fact that the old title cards with the Pathé rooster trademark have been replaced with similarly-coloured rooster-free title screens, I couldn't see any obvious differences visually between the two discs; however, the new DVD gives the film a musical makeover, with piano and synth and flute, I think (I didn't listen to it very long), whereas the older DVD has a more period-specific silent-era organ. One other difference I noticed is that the 1905 film has a running time of 42:38 on the new disc, but a running time of 44:18 on the earlier disc -- I doubt the change in title cards alone could account for this, but I haven't checked to see where, exactly, the difference might lie.

Forgive me if this seems obsessive, but.

I just checked the timing of the chapter breaks on the two DVDs -- the 2003 disc has six chapters (or seven if you count the "end credits"), and the 2004 disc has twelve -- and it is intriguing to see where they do and don't agree.

One thing I just noticed is that, while the film is called The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ on the DVD package (and in the opening credits for the 2004 disc's version of the film, minus the words "The" and "Jesus"), the opening credits for the 2003 disc's version give the title as Passion and Death... That's an interesting distinction.

Anyhoo, below are the chapters and the times at which the title cards for the sequences at the start of the various chapters appear. I am putting the 2003 disc in the left column and the 2004 disc in the right, and bold indicates when the title card in question marks the beginning of a chapter on that particular DVD. The third column indicates how big a gap there is between the starting times for those sequences on the respective discs. Hopefully that all makes sense.

This is NOT an exhaustive list of all the title cards in this film; I have only included the ones that mark the beginning of a DVD chapter on the 2003 and/or 2004 discs.

Oh, and I should probably mention that the first nine seconds of the 2003 disc consist of a note saying which film archive the print was taken from. No such data is included on the 2004 disc.

00:09 - 00:00 - 0:09 -- Main Title
02:39 - 02:26 - 0:13 -- The Wonderful Star
06:50 - 06:29 - 0:21 -- The Massacre of the Innocents
13:53 - 13:21 - 0:32 -- Jesus and the Doctors
14:40 - 14:06 - 0:34 -- Baptizing Christ
15:23 - 14:49 - 0:34 -- The Wedding Feast
16:47 - 16:11 - 0:36 -- Mary Magdalene at the Foot of Jesus
17:54 - 17:17 - 0:37 -- Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
18:57 - 18:20 - 0:37 -- Raising of the Daughter of Jairus
23:26 - 22:50 - 0:36 -- The Transfiguration
26:17 - 25:23 - 0:54 -- The Last Supper
27:20 - 26:19 - 1:01 -- Jesus on the Mount of Olives - The Kiss of Judas
31:31 - 30:21 - 1:10 -- The Scourging; The Crowning with Thorns
34:13 - 32:57 - 1:16 -- Jesus Falls under the Weight of the Cross
41:12 - 39:44 - 1:28 -- The Resurrection
44:05 - 42:38 - 1:27 -- The End

Interestingly, NEITHER of these discs has a chapter break at the Crucifixion itself -- to get to it, you must first go to the chapter that begins with the scourging on one disc, or the chapter that begins with Jesus falling in the streets on the other disc.

SDG wrote:
: On our disc, the word "Christ" is misspelled as (IIRC) "Crist" in the main menu.
: Our little proofreader Sarah noticed that.

Oh, yeah, that jumped out at me, too, when I first got my copy of the 2003 disc. But the DVD menu and the film are two different things.

Thanks for posting that Peter (it probably won't surprise you that I'm interested). I started watching this the other day again actually.

FWIW I try and keep a sceen guide to all the Jesus films - I find it useful when trying to do Yancey-esque comparisons. Keep meaning to finish compiling it onto one document but never sure how best to do it.

Matt

Watched From the Manger to the Cross in two parts last night and as the second part was being watched in the middle of a sleepless night I turned the sound off completely. Surprisingly I enjoyed the film much more without the overbearing organ playing, it adds something much more spiritual to the whole thing.

Matt