Go Go Go Joe!
We watch The Passion Live and talk about depictions of Jesus in film.
Topics Discussed and/or Spoiled
The Passion Live, Batman Forever, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, Ben Hur, Daredevil, Passion of the Christ, God is Not Dead 2, The Last Temptation of Christ, Jeremy Sisto’s Jesus movie, Thrift Store, Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Man Born to be King, Kings, Of Kings and Prophets, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (pictured above).
Our outro is Debs & Errol’s Falling Quickly
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Wow. That sounds . . . special.
The past couple years I’ve done the cliche Catholic thing and watched “The Passion” as background for whatever I’m doing on Good Friday, and that’s really the best way to watch it. As a movie, it can turn into an unsubtle blood-soaked slog really fast. As a series of stunning images and vignettes to guide your Good Friday meditations, it’s phenomenal. I do wish it were subtler, though. The centurions are mostly sneering, over-the-top, mustache-twirling villains, and while it works well for something like the crowning with thorns, it gets old. My absolute favorite part with them is when they’re nailing Jesus to the cross and one of them is having trouble stretching his arm out to the right spot, and a second one rolls his eyes and says something along the line of, “Idiot, let me show you how to do it right” before matter-of-factly yanking Jesus’ arm so hard he nearly dislocates his shoulder. It’s an awful “banality of evil” moment that works perfectly–this guy has abused prisoners so long that it’s just a boring, clock-punching part of his job that he has to demonstrate to the new guy.
Oh! I remember that. How does the devil and weird devil muppet hold up?
That part never did work for me, but I know other people loved it, so it’s pretty heavy your mileage may vary stuff. Also, in a shocking turn of events, when you rewatch it as a parent pretty much everything with Mary destroys you. The part where Jesus falls carrying the cross and she has the flashback to him falling as a toddler is obviously the worst, but even the flashback to them just kind of hanging out while Jesus makes a table punches you in the feels. When you watch it without kids, the main thing you remember from that scene is “Jesus invented modern chairs? That’s stupid.” As a parent, you watch it thinking “Jesus and his mother are just having a fun afternoon because he’s the Savior but he’s still her son and I CANNOT DEAL.”