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Feb. 13th, 2014 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSuddenly got it into my head to watch the 1973 version of Jesus Christ Superstar. I forgot how much I adore the movie.
It's totally anachronistic. Jesus and his ministry playing out in the already-ruins of ancient Israel. Machine Guns and Postcards being sold in the Temple when he throws the moneylenders out. Pilate looking incredibly regal in his purple toga and olive branch crown, surrounded by Roman solders in purple tanktops, camoflage pants and vietnam era style silver helmets. Judas being chased down by tanks. Even the opening helps the surrealism of it all by having the cast and crew "assemble" the movie as the overture plays, and dissassemble it as the ending rolls: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7hwtt_overture-jesus-christ-superstar_music
The music is awesome. Judas has the best songs, and it's hard not to sing along with him, and Yvonne Elliman really puts her all into it.
But there's another reason I like it. I was brought up "Mexican" Roman Catholic, and for a time, I was very religious. My faith has tempered over the years - I don't consider myself Catholic (or even Christian) aymore, but I have a healthy respect for the Jesus of the gospels. But the mythology was very hard for me to wrap my head around. The mythology felt a little....forced. And over the years and tellings and retellings, I'm sure things got muddied along the way, and showhorned, making it hard for me to believe. But I do have that respect for the words.
The movie goes into a narrative that totally works for me. Jesus is a well meaning minister, and his apostles have created a small but blossoming cult of personality around him. Jesus is trying to use that to create change, good change, but even he notices that their cult of personality is beginning to get out of his control.
The apostles main work is helping the poor, and Judas is realizing the cult of personality is hijacking that mission. He's doing his best to try and get Jesus to see that the mission is in jeopardy, and eventually gives him up to Caiphas to save the overall charity.
There's a lot of little gnostic clues here and there (another ancient branch of proto-Christianity I really like) and one of them is that while many of the apostles are almost starstruck with Jesus, Mary Magdaline is the only one who really "gets" what Jesus is trying to do, but is mostly helpless to stop it.
If there's any complaint I have with the movie, is it feels a bit anti-semetic, mainly because it uses the Gospel of John's Caiphas, who actively worked to get Jesus killed, although it tempers it by saying "Better we kill him, than Rome kill Israel."
Still, I love the movie. It actually did more for me to understand the story of Jesus than the gospels themselves did. And does it to a killer soundtrack.
It's totally anachronistic. Jesus and his ministry playing out in the already-ruins of ancient Israel. Machine Guns and Postcards being sold in the Temple when he throws the moneylenders out. Pilate looking incredibly regal in his purple toga and olive branch crown, surrounded by Roman solders in purple tanktops, camoflage pants and vietnam era style silver helmets. Judas being chased down by tanks. Even the opening helps the surrealism of it all by having the cast and crew "assemble" the movie as the overture plays, and dissassemble it as the ending rolls: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7hwtt_overture-jesus-christ-superstar_music
The music is awesome. Judas has the best songs, and it's hard not to sing along with him, and Yvonne Elliman really puts her all into it.
But there's another reason I like it. I was brought up "Mexican" Roman Catholic, and for a time, I was very religious. My faith has tempered over the years - I don't consider myself Catholic (or even Christian) aymore, but I have a healthy respect for the Jesus of the gospels. But the mythology was very hard for me to wrap my head around. The mythology felt a little....forced. And over the years and tellings and retellings, I'm sure things got muddied along the way, and showhorned, making it hard for me to believe. But I do have that respect for the words.
The movie goes into a narrative that totally works for me. Jesus is a well meaning minister, and his apostles have created a small but blossoming cult of personality around him. Jesus is trying to use that to create change, good change, but even he notices that their cult of personality is beginning to get out of his control.
The apostles main work is helping the poor, and Judas is realizing the cult of personality is hijacking that mission. He's doing his best to try and get Jesus to see that the mission is in jeopardy, and eventually gives him up to Caiphas to save the overall charity.
There's a lot of little gnostic clues here and there (another ancient branch of proto-Christianity I really like) and one of them is that while many of the apostles are almost starstruck with Jesus, Mary Magdaline is the only one who really "gets" what Jesus is trying to do, but is mostly helpless to stop it.
If there's any complaint I have with the movie, is it feels a bit anti-semetic, mainly because it uses the Gospel of John's Caiphas, who actively worked to get Jesus killed, although it tempers it by saying "Better we kill him, than Rome kill Israel."
Still, I love the movie. It actually did more for me to understand the story of Jesus than the gospels themselves did. And does it to a killer soundtrack.
