As secular as Hollywood is, the entertainment industry recognizes the dramatic impact, and box office lure, of Jesus' tale. TIME scanned a century of Messiah movies.
A big year for Jesus musicals, 1973 also saw the emergence in the Bible belt of a family production: Gospel Road, produced in Israel by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. The Man in Black, who had recently embraced Christ, ambles through the Holy Land while telling a story of Jesus’ life and sacrifice. As Cash intones the words, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased,” it’s easy to imagine that God must have a Southern accent. The pauper-budgeted simplicity and good intentions of Gospel Road overwhelm the weirdness of a movie in which the director (blue-eyed, blond-haired Robert Elfstrom) plays Jesus and the star’s wife is Mary Magdalene.
Cash, who also wrote the script with Larry Murray, sings eight fine Christian songs, written by himself, John Denver, Larry Gatlin, Kris Kristofferson, Joe South and other top country singer-composers. In the movie’s climactic Passion section, Jesus is lashed, kicked and spat on a few clumsy times, then totes his cross up a deserted city street. He dies in close-up, and the camera pulls back to reveal a modern American city (L.A.? Nashville?) — a strange but potent payoff, indicating that the Savior died not only for the sins committed up to His time but for the ones we are still committing.
What It’s a Wonderful Life is to Christmas, and Yankee Doodle Dandy to Independence Day, this 6hr. 26min. Franco Zeffirelli miniseries is to Easter: definitive TV entertainment for a holiday, or holy day. Anthony Burgess’ script is the fullest standard text, from which more extravagant versions like Pasolini’s, Martin Scorsese’s and Mel Gibson’s are encouraged to meander freely. In Robert Powell, Zeffirelli found the Jesus of a million dining-room icons: agate-blue eyes, cheeks that didn’t need to be sucked in for that dishy ascetic look, a strength to match the facial sensitivity. Supporting him are stars of varying aptness: Laurence Olivier rolling his eyes as Nicodemus, Rod Steiger spuming as Pilate. Olivia Hussey (Juliet in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet) plays Jesus’ mother and the much older Anne Bancroft plays Magdalene; the casting director must have mixed up the two Marys.
In the scourging scene, the lashes snap and sting; the soldiers wind up for their work like Olympic discus throwers. There’s no earthquake at Jesus’ death, only rain. Zeffirelli suggests that the response to a Savior’s death would be the tears of angels, not the rumblings of subterranean spirits.
Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show “Family Feud” has died. He was 79.
As we prepare for the Game of Thrones finale, we recognize Joffrey and nine other baddies who showed us that terrible, horrible things can come in small packages
