Film Review: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

(source: tmdb.org)

There are some questions that even the people with most basic knowledge of cinema history could answer quite easily. One of those is “Which film created the most controversies in past few decades?”. The author of this review had it answered while visiting video store in his native city, which ultimately turned in almost Orwellian experience. The store in question was quite popular and prided itself of having very large number of different titles in its catalogue, including many rather obscure films. The film I asked had been in the catalogue few year earlier. In the meantime, certain political developments, like the increased influence of Catholic Church on all aspects of life within my country, took place. When I asked the film to be rented, I was told that the film wasn’t available and the clerk later even passionately claimed that it hadn’t been in catalogue ever, implicitly suggesting that it would be insulting to suggest that the video store had such problematic title on its shelves. The apparently memory-holed film was The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988 religious drama directed by Martin Scorsese.

The film is based on the eponymous novel by Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, a book that created as much controversy as the novel due to its subject and content that speculated about human nature of Jesus Christ. The plot of the film, set in 1st Century Palestine, begins with Jesus (played by Willem Dafoe) as carpenter in the city of Nazareth, seemingly ordinary man who was baffled since childhood by voices and visions that he isn’t sure whether they come from God or Satan. In the meantime, he earns his living by making crosses that are used by Roman rulers of Palestine to execute Jewish rebels. This makes him a target of assassination by his friend Judas Iscariot (played by Harvey Keitel) who decides not only to spare his life, but becomes suspecting that Jesus is actually Messiah that would lead the war of liberation against Romans. Jesus is, however, full of doubts and very reluctantly accepts his role after testing himself in the desert. When he returns, he saves Mary Magdalene (played by Barbara Hershey), prostitute and his old acquaintance, from being stoned to death and this gradually evolves into his preaching message of love which would bring him dedicated group of followers, including Judas. His ministry, which challenged the established order in Jerusalem, ends when he is arrested, condemned to death and put to a cross where the mysterious girl describing herself as guardian angel (played by Juliette Caton) would face him with his last temptation.

Although disclaimer at the beginning describes the film as a work of fiction rather than actual interpretation of Gospel, many Christians around the world found the film to be blasphemous and insulting. This resulted in numerous protests, boycotts, bans in various countries as well as number of terrorist attacks on cinemas in France. Main point of contention was in novel and film, while recognising traditional Christian view of Jesus as both divine and human, trying to emphasise the latter and not only in terms of physical weakness (displayed in rather graphic in bloody crucifixion scene, although quite subdued compared to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ) but also his spiritual frailty. Jesus, as depicted in this film and played by Willem Dafoe, is full of doubt, guilt and insecurity. The most controversial part of the content appears in the last third of the film when Jesus, like the protagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life is given the tour of alternative universe, the one in which he didn’t make his sacrifice and, instead of being Messiah, found happiness as ordinary man, husband and father. That included actual sex scene featuring Jesus and Mary Magdalene which would have been rather tame and inoffensive in any other film, but here it became something quite unacceptable for many followers on one of the world’s greatest religions.

Whether this scene was truly necessary and whether Scorsese and the rest of film makers could have saved themselves from trouble might be a matter of long debate. What is undisputed is that this represented great passion project for Scorsese, a film maker who had contemplated career of Catholic priest and whose films often features themes of guilt and other religion-related issues. His film in a way represent fusion of different strands of Christianity – while Scorsese was Catholic, the author of the original novel had been raised as Orthodox, and Paul Schrader, author of the script, had strong Calvinist background (which was most notably reflected in Hardcore). Made with relatively low budget on Morroccan locations, The Last Temptation of Christ represented quite a challenge for Scorsese, until that time unaccustomed for films made outside American urban settings. Thankfully, Scorsese enjoyed co-operation of famed cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who has used a lot of talent to make desert scenery and rather unimpressive sets look worthy of grand biblical story. Another great talent was musician Peter Gabriel whose score, based on African and various strands of world music, helps a lot with atmosphere and universalist message of the film. Gabriel’s score represents one of the most memorable pieces of 1980s film music.

The greatest asset of the film is, however, the cast, most notably Willem Dafoe in the title role. Although some might question his casting on the basis of looks (Sergio Leone famously said that Dafoe’s face was face of a murderer rather than Our Lord), Dafoe delivers very strong performance and does his best to portray person torn between his human nature and divine destiny. Dafoe makes viewers empathise with Christ and the scenes in which his character briefly enjoys himself during wedding in Cana are well-used opportunity to Dafoe show much bigger range delivering lighter content in otherwise very serious and solemn film. The rest of the cast, sadly, isn’t that impressive. Harvey Keitel is solid, but not particularly remarkable in the revisionist version of Judas, while Barbara Hershey works much harder in the more complex role of Mary Magdalene whose character evolves from cynical prostitute into devoted follower and loving wife; Hershey was later nominated for Golden Globe for Supporting Actress. David Bowie appears in interesting cameo as Pontius Pilate, played as cynical and mostly disinterested bureaucrat. The strongest performance in supporting role is delivered by Harry Dean Stanton who plays another revisionist character, this time Saul/Paul, who argues that it isn’t that important whether the story of Jesus is true or not as much as that people accept it as such and base their lives on it.

The Last Temptation of Christ is, at least for those willing to ignore religious controversies, very good film, but not without some technical flaws. The main problem is in pace, with many of the scenes lasting too long or being repetitive, especially in the early part. Same problem, to a lesser degree, can be seen near the end. Scorsese at times indulges too much in efforts to create “different” version of biblical stories by using too many Moroccan extras whose looks at times create too much contrast with non-Moroccan main cast. Like so many films that became famous due to controversies, The Last Temptation of Christ isn’t that impressive without them, but viewers who like works of grand directors like Scorsese probably won’t mind sitting two and half hours watching it.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)