Athiests! Agnostics! It's time for you to believe!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
WTG, Rufus. Dumbass to whole new level.

What do you want from me? It's a legitimate act of God, after all -- just ask his insurance company.

There's no pleasing some people, I guess.

[Henrik]

[Chemical Ollie]

What's so controversial about this movie that the Great One himself had to interfere? Why didn't he send lightning against Ian Gillan (Jesus in the first Jesus Christ Superstar recording) or Willem Dafoe (Jesus in The last temptation of Christ movie)?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
What's so controversial about this movie that the Great One himself had to interfere? Why didn't he send lightning against Ian Gillan (Jesus in the first Jesus Christ Superstar recording) or Willem Dafoe (Jesus in The last temptation of Christ movie)?

Because The Last Temptation of Christ is a truly great work of religious art, and Jesus Christ Superstar featured future porn-star/porn-director Paul Thomas as one of the apostles.

Clearly, God has good taste and a sense of humor.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Because The Last Temptation of Christ is a truly great work of religious art, and Jesus Christ Superstar featured future porn-star/porn-director Paul Thomas as one of the apostles.

Clearly, God has good taste and a sense of humor.

If so, God must like Judas, who was the hero of both those works. JCS pictures Judas as a tool in God's hands, while "Last Temptation" pictures Judas as a leader even stronger than Jesus (If I recall right. I haven't seen the movie in 13 years). Some people also say that "Last Temptation" was clearly inspired by JCS.

[Bereta_Eder]

The Last Temptation of Christ is the film version of the book my Nikos Kazantzakis written many decades ago.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


If so, God must like Judas, who was the hero of both those works. JCS pictures Judas as a tool in God's hands, while "Last Temptation" pictures Judas as a leader even stronger than Jesus (If I recall right. I haven't seen the movie in 13 years). Some people also say that "Last Temptation" was clearly inspired by JCS.

More like the other way around; Last Temptation is based on a novel of the same name by the great Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis, who is probably best known for Zorba the Greek but who wrote several novels based on Christ's Passion, including Last Temptation and Christ Recrucified. Anyway, LT was written about 10 years before JCS.

Judas's heroism is hardly a new thing, though. I seem to remember that there was an early Gnostic Christian sect that considered Judas the hero of the New Testament. Che is reading Elaine Pagels; maybe he can fill us in (my copy of The Gnostic Gospels in in storage in the States, alas).

[Bereta_Eder]

Although I have only seen part of the movie on TV and haven't actually read the book so I can't comment on how good the transfer was. What do JCS stand for?

[Chemical Ollie]

Here's me (to the left, back against camera) just about to spit right in the face of Jesus in a setup of JCS. I was one of the evil priests. I really liked playing that part.


On a side note:

The guy to the very right of Jesus is Emil Sigfridsson, who later was a finalist in the first season of Swedish reality show "Fame Factory" and topped the Swedish single chart for weeks. Yesterday, it was announced that he has been selected to participate the Swedish Eurovision song contest.

I was 30 while Emil was still in senior high school and only 19, much more talanted than me but very green and unexperienced. I convinced him that we should pull a little practical joke on Jesus in the very last show. He hesitated both once and twice, but followed my example when I filled my moth with water and spit the whole load right in Jesus' face. One thing we forgot was that Jesus had his extremely vulnerable moscitoe microphone glued to his chin. God intervened so that the water did not harm his mike. He was extremely upset for several days and did not talk to me for several months. Well, at least he gave Emil a leading part on the next theatre project and gave me a free ticket to see the show. Now Emil is a national star and "Jesus" is still a local amateur.

[Jon Miller]

Jesus Christ Superstar

it was alright (very 70s ish though)

Jon Miller

[Rufus T. Firefly]

JCS=Jesus Christ Superstar

I've seen Last Temptation many times and read the book (I love Kazantzakis). The book is too big to be filmed in its entirety, but Scorsese is faithful in the parts he chose to film and to the spririt of the text as a whole. Some of his imagery makes the story feel more Catholic than Orthodox in its origins, but you'll have that with Scorsese; otherwise it's spot on.

edit: Actually -- and I can't believe I forgot this -- the one big liberty Scorsese took was with accents. He gave Judas a broad Brooklyn-Jewish accent and Saul/Paul the accent of a Bible Belt preacher, in each case to trace a continuity between the ideas of those characters and present-day groups. He also gave the Romans British accents, because they always had British accents in the Technicolor Biblical films of his youth. (David Bowie as Pontius Pilate is brilliant. Really. It shouldn't work, but it does.)

[Chemical Ollie]

Duh, forgot the pic...

JCS = The musical Jesus Christ Superstar by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber

I did not know about the "Last Temptation" book. Thanks for the info. I'm not interested enough to read it though.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Jesus Christ Superstar

it was alright (very 70s ish though)

Jon Miller

OK. I think everyone knows this one. Acronyms can be confusing sometimes. It was the catapult to a domestic career for a couple of Greek actors, too bad they didn't remain outside. I don't remember who they were but I remember they were base class (sic).

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
JCS=Jesus Christ Superstar

I've seen Last Temptation many times and read the book (I love Kazantzakis). The book is too big to be filmed in its entirety, but Scorsese is faithful in the parts he chose to film and to the spririt of the text as a whole. Some of his imagery makes the story feel more Catholic than Orthodox in its origins, but you'll have that with Scorsese; otherwise it's spot on.

OK. I know Zorba the Greek did huge injustice to the book, which I've read and it literally makes you feel blended with the earth, that kind of feeling, makes you feel humane, earthly somehow and very strong. But I suppose that would be near impossible to do on film. It has to be read. Kazantzakis is quite famous here but I prefer newer authors. Like Soti Triantafilou for example, "Saturday nights at the edge of the city" is brilliant, if you ever come across a translated version.

[Shi Huangdi]

How do you know the lightning wasn't a sign of God's favor? After all, he wasn't hurt either time.