The making of Jesus

Christian Century, June 6, 2001 by John Dart

In his book Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years, W. Barnes Tatum of Greensboro College in North Carolina was kind to the two-hour version of Jesus directed by Peter Sykes and John Kirsh.

"In spite of a certain pageant-like quality, Jesus also reflects a creative use of the medium of film," said Tatum. He notes that the raising of a widow's deceased son appears as a flashback, told by a visitor to the imprisoned John the Baptist. The Good Samaritan parable is imagined by a young girl as she listens to Jesus tell the story. And many of Jesus' teachings, Tatum observed, "are prompted by objects at hand"--a sack of seed, a lamp on the wall and a passing camel.

The film "avoids the implications that all Jews--past or present--bear the responsibility for Jesus' crucifixion," said Tatum, citing four instances where sensitivity was used. Acknowledging the film's attempt to be literarily faithful to the Gospel of Luke, Tatum said nevertheless that some episodes were excluded or reduced in scope.

The 1979 Jesus shares a commendable trait of Jesus films in recent years, opined Peter T. Chattaway in a sweeping analysis in the March/April 2000 Books & Culture. "From the silent era to Zeffirelli, the Jesus of mainstream films was, depending on the director, paternalistic, austere, or just a little too detached," he wrote. More recent Jesus films are down-to-earth, Chattaway said. They "have underscored the humanity of Jesus without compromising his divinity or even, in some cases, the exact wording of the text," he said, citing Heyman's production in particular. --J. D.