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The Last Temptation of Christ

Monday, Aug 13, 2007

When it was released in the late summer of 1988, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ faced a firestorm of criticism from conservative groups across the spectrum of Christianity.  “There’s a sex scene between Christ and Mary Magdeline!” they cried.  “It’s vulgarity on a level only Hollywood could aspire to!”  Controversy aside, The Last Temptation was certainly unlike any film about Christ that had come before.  Like its source material (the 1951 novel of the same name penned by Nikos Kazantzakis), the film attempted to do something which had rarely (if ever) been done previously: examine wholly that often forgotten human side of Jesus Christ. 

The Christ to whom we are first introduced has a long way to go before becoming the savior of mankind.  Constructing crosses which the Romans will use to execute Jewish political prisoners, Jesus is tormented every waking moment by voices and visions.  Labeled a pariah and a collaborator by his community, Christ eventually finds himself without friends and with a death warrant on his head (the Zealots wish to make an example of him for aiding the Roman’s executions of Jewish dissidents).  Now completely alone but for the voices in his head, Jesus heads out into the desert to find his calling.  He happens upon a monastery, where he finally begins to understand his role as “a fisher of men.”  When Judas, one of the Zealots, finds Christ in the desert, this would-be assassin is quickly converted into Jesus’ first apostle and his closest friend.

From here, the story follows more closely the works of The New Testament.  It’s not until The Crucifixion itself that the story veers towards the less familiar (as Christ is presented with his “Last Temptation”).  Though these final forty-five minutes of the film are its most controversial, they’re by no means gratuitous, and do more to highlight Christ’s divinity than any other interpretation of his life put to film (that I have seen). 

Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Christ is as moving as it is unexpected

Martin Scorsese has produced a true masterwork in The Last Temptation.  Aided by a spectacular cast and a talented cinematographer (Michael Ballhaus), he manages to combine elements from Gnosticism, The Bible, and Kazantzakis’ work into a complete envisioning of Christ’s life like no other. 

The DVD I viewed was the 2000 Criterion release.  Although the extras were enlightening (particularly Scorsese’s self-shot production diary and the short documentary on Peter Gabriel’s groundbreaking soundtrack), the image quality of the film itself suffers a bit due to a low bit rate and the lower-grade MPEG encoding of seven years ago.  It’s not awful by any means, but a modern transfer and the bonus materials being moved to a separate disc would be much appreciated.  Although the film was remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 for this release, I regret to say that I would have preferred the original stereo mix—dynamic range is a it tad too great given the subject matter, and the few times which the surrounds did come into play seemed to do more harm than good.  Still, this Criterion release is leaps and bounds above what other studios were releasing on the format at the time, and I’m fairly confident that we’ll see a re-release at some point in the future (if not to DVD, perhaps to one of the next gen formats).  All in all, this is a film which everyone owes it to themselves to see.  The devout will more fully appreciate the sacrifice made by Christ at Golgotha; others can simply enjoy it as the story of a great sacrifice and the struggle and introspection it took to get there.
Till Next Time—

The Good Ed

• Directed by Martin Scorsese
• Starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, and Barbara Hershey
• 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen
• Newly remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
• 163 minutes