[Ron Reed]

I've been thinking of how to engage with scripture in a fresh way that will hold my attention: it's a long time since I've stuck with any sort of conventional Bible study or Bible reading program, but I really want to make scripture a regular part of my life again.

Came up with the idea of working my way through various Jesus movies in some detail, tracking down the scriptural sources for the various scenes, thinking about the various screenwriter / director / actor choices and how they relate to the scriptural sources - and how the various gospel accounts lend a variety of perspectives to the various stories. Part devotional Bible study, part New Testament quasi-scholarship, part film appreciation, part geeky list-making behaviour. Seems like a mix that might hold my attention.

Also occurred to me that I'm more likely to succeed in my desire to persist with the project if there's some sort of shared aspect to the thing. Called up a buddy of mine, we cooked up the idea of taking this on together, perhaps with a small group of others who might want to join us, meeting on some sort of regular basis (maybe every two weeks?) to do sort of a combination bible study / book club / film conversation group. So we came up with names of a few mutual friends, and I emailed them an invitation to join us.

Going to meet every second Friday morning, 7:30-9:30AM, startin January 14. We'll start off with the 1979 JESUS film that stars Brian Deacon, we'll look at maybe the first hour of it, maybe less? The idea is to really dig into the thing scene by scene, as a doorway into Bible study, so we don't want to bite off too big a chunk. For a while we'll be kind of feeling our way, but the goal isn't to tackle an entire movie each session. We'll work our way through it scene by scene, dig in deep when there's something that's grabbed somebody's particular interest, see how far we get. We won't necessarily watch every scene together, just the ones we specifically want to. We'll kind of play it by ear.

We picked this particular film because copies are readily available, and it seems like a good "baseline" place to start. I'd love to follow it up with a Jesus movie that's, I don't know, more mainstream or artistically challenging or unorthodox or something. I'm thinking Pasolini's THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, or JESUS OF MONTREAL, or THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Then there are the not-exactly-gospel quasi-Jesus movies like JOSHUA or LIFE OF BRIAN (?). Early silent films, fifties and sixties Bible epics. I'm eager to get hold of SON OF MAN from Chattaway. Here are some possibilities for further along down the line;
BARABBAS (1962, Richard Fleischer)
THE BIG FISHERMAN (1959, Frank Borzage)
BLESS THE CHILD (2000, Chuck Russell) "The story of Jesus set in modern time using a little girl to play the Christ figure"
FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS (1913, Sidney Olcott)
GODSPELL (1973, David Greene)
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW (1964, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
GOSPEL ROAD (1973, Robert Elfstrom) Johnny Cash's pseudo-documentary on the life of Jesus
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965, George Stevens)
HAIL MARY (1985, Jean-Luc Godard)
INTOLERANCE (1916, D.W. Griffith)
JESUS (1979, d. Peter Sykes & John Kirsh, Brian Deacon as Jesus) "The Genesis Project"
JESUS (1999, Roger Young, Jeremy Sisto as Jesus)
JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR (1973, Norman Jewison)
JESUS OF MONTREAL (1989, Denys Arcand)
JESUS OF NAZARETH (1977, Franco Zeffirelli)
JOSHUA (2002, Jon Purdy)
THE JUDAS PROJECT (1990, James H. Barden)
THE KING OF KINGS (Cecil B. DeMille, 1927)
KING OF KINGS (1961, Nicholas Ray)
THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988, Martin Scorsese)
THE MIRACLE MAKER (2000, Derek W. Hayes & Stanislav Sokolov)
MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979, Terry Jones)
THE PASSION PLAY OF OVERAMMERGAU (1898, Henry C. Vincent)
SON OF MAN (1969, Gareth Davies)

Sort of a New Years resolution project, I guess. But I think it'll stick, since it's tied in with some other guys - like a book club or a writers' group or whatever. I'm psyched!

[Peter T Chattaway]

Ron wrote:
: . . . I emailed them an invitation to join us.

[ sniff ] [ sniff ] I feel so excluded.

: We picked this particular film because copies are readily available, and it seems
: like a good "baseline" place to start. I'd love to follow it up with a Jesus movie
: that's, I don't know, more mainstream or artistically challenging or unorthodox or
: something. I'm thinking Pasolini's THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, or
: JESUS OF MONTREAL, or THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.

Artistically challenging or unorthodox or something, sure. But mainstream, those?

: I'm eager to get hold of SON OF MAN from Chattaway.

Aha! A bargaining chip!

: THE BIG FISHERMAN (1959, Frank Borzage)

Is this the Disney film with Howard Keel as St. Peter? I would love to see that, but I don't know if it's ever been commercially available on vide.

: BLESS THE CHILD (2000, Chuck Russell)

I saw this one with Allen Des Noyers, of all people. (I say "of all people" because I've only met him outside of concert settings a couple of times, so what are the odds I'd have seen this or any other movie under discussion with him?) This film marks one of the few occasions when I have known that I hated a movie from the moment I walked out of the theatre. Alas, my honeybun happens to like it, at least somewhat, and she likes tormenting me with the fact that she likes it.

If I didn't have to dash, I would offer links to the various threads on some of these films, but alas, time does not permit.

: THE PASSION PLAY OF OVERAMMERGAU (1898, Henry C. Vincent)

And if you ever find THIS on video, let me know!

[Ron Reed]

The library where I used to live had a copy of Oberammergau on video; it's available. (I don't know about OVERAMMERGAU.)

Perhaps that should be UBERAMMERGAU.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Alan Thomas wrote:
: The library where I used to live had a copy of Oberammergau on video; it's
: available.

Really!? Neither the IMDB nor Amazon.com have a video or DVD listing for this. Are you sure this was the 1898 silent film under discussion (which was filmed in New York), and not some video based on the actual productions in Oberammergau itself?

If so, what was the library? I wanna see if I can track this down.

[MattPage]

Hey great idea Ron. I'm running a lent course on this for all the churches in my area, but i'm planning to post my notes etc up here anyway (see existing thread). Perhaps if you did too, we could have a bit of "cross pollination"

Anyhow, from the sound of what you want to do I'd get hold of Savior on the Silver Screen. Of all the Jesus film books (Tatum, Kinnard, Middleton, Baugh etc), I think this one will be most useful. Firstly because it seems to have grown out of studying Jesus films as part of a course, secondly because it has an appendix which lists the actual verses in the order they are used for each film (this is very useful at all times) and also cos it has a number of questions for each chapter, both before viewing and after viewing the films. The biggest downside from your POV is that it doesn't cover Jesus (1979). Only Tatum does any significant analysis on this film.

Personally though I'd skip Jesus 1979 though. Although all films interpret, there isn't really much of interest to get from it. The scipt is pratically word for word (obviously), the look of Jesus is familiar but we all know its wrong, and the camera work is fairly conservative (and that's before you get onto how bad the hair is). But that's just my opinion and a problem with an otherwise useful book. (which I'm re-reading as prep for my course).

: Passion Play of Obergammu
As far as I was aware the earliest Jesus film we have that is complete is the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (190x) , so I suspect the film Alan is refering to is something else. I would love to see PPOO if it does exist in ALan's Library though. Any chance of you finding out Alan? I could be wrong after all. FWIW there are two picture from it in Kinnard and Davis, one of which I reproduced for my Passion Preview article.

I've not seen either The Big Fisherman or Bless the Child.

Hope that helps

Matt

[Peter T Chattaway]

(This is the probably the best thread for this...)

Oh wow. I had heard rumours that W. Barnes Tatum was working on an expanded edition of Jesus at the Movies (which I reviewed here and, sort of, here), but I had no idea it was already out! The Amazon page for the book says it came out in 1997, but that clearly refers only to the first edition; when you click on Amazon's "Search Inside" button, you find that the searchable pages are from a "revised and expanded" edition that is copyrighted 2004!

And glory be, not only does Tatum add a chapter on Mel Gibson's film -- he also adds a chapter on Life of Brian! (And what's this? My name appears in the index -- apparently I'm cited on page 224. Must get a copy.)

[MattPage]

Thanks for the heads up.

(i wonder if you're quoted in the Passion chapter or the Life of Brian one)

Matt