Jesus Of Hollywood

Go tell it on the mountain…

ith the US box-office sensation Jesus Revolution coming to The Whale on Saturday, July 8th, perhaps now’s a good time to take a look at our Lord’s relationship with the silver screen.

With the Bible being, in many people’s eyes, the greatest story ever told, it’s hardly surprising that Hollywood regularly brings it to our screens.

After all, this book has it all – murder, sex, lies, war, plagues, redemption, forgiveness, love, hate, sibling rivalry, pharaohs and the mother of all comebacks.

Best of all, you don’t have to pay royalties to the authors either.

His rise and fall and rise again having been adapted for the screen ever since cinema began, the son of God clearly still has the power to make a ton of money for Hollywood.

A film about Christians, made by Christians purely for Christians, the critics have not been kind to Jesus Revolution, a hippies-finds-religion true-life account of The Jesus Movement that swept through the US in the late ’60s and early ‘70s. Based on the autobiography of Greg Laurie, this is The Passion Of The Crusty, and there’s a certain amount of holier-than-holy whitewashing at play. Our main protagonist, Lonnie Frisbee (played by Jonathan Roomie) is seen parting ways with the evangelical movement he helped start because of his enthusiasm for charismatic theology and faith healing. Only, the true reason for the parting of the ways was actually the founder being outed as gay and then swiftly excommunicated because of his homosexuality. Such ethics cleansing in this sexless, toothless telling of a movement that paved the way for opportunistic Bible-huggers like Reagan and Trump (as well as the Jonestown massacre and those wonderful megachurches), might just be at the very core of its box-office success.

And it’s not the first time an inconvenient truth was pushed aside to play to the cheap seats. Mel Gibson put up the $30,000 budget himself for 2004’s The Passion Of The Christ when no studio was interested, an investment that made a return at the box-office of $611,486,736. Jesus wept.

Which puts Jesus Revolution slightly in the shadow, this $15.8m movie pulling in $52,102,987 at the American box office. Which is about four times more than was hoped for, and the rest of the world has yet to be factored in.

Other big JC hits down through the years include Jesus Christ Superstar, the 1973 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s stage musical, a film so popular that leading man Ted Neeley still tours a production of the original show to this day.

Also out in 1973 was Godspell, another adaptation of another popular stage musical, this one tapping into the same hippy wave of spirituality and one love that permeates Jesus Revolution.

In 1998, former altar boy Martin Scorsese ruffled a few Vatican feathers when The Last Temptation Of Christ suggested that Jesus may have been more human than we thought, having the hots for Mary Magdalene. Be the holy.

There was controversy again in 1979 when Monty Python released The Life Of Brian, seen by many as their finest and funniest film, and viewed as blasphemous by Ireland’s great gate keepers at the time, who blessed themselves before promptly banning it. The fact that opening scenes make a clear distinction between Brian and a certain preacher on the mound didn’t stop the Catholic Church denouncing this box-office smash. Thus making it an even bigger box-office smash.

Among the more reverential films out there is The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), with the towering Max von Sydow leading a very star-heavy cast (John Wayne doesn’t even make the credits), the three hours-plus running time reflecting the seriousness involved here.

And let’s give a shout-out to TV’s Jesus Of Nazareth (1977), a miniseries that proved a major hit at the time, aided and abetted by the presence of such stars as Christopher Plummer, James Earl Jones, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Quinn, Rod Steiger and Anne Bancroft. Even satanists couldn’t resist such a line-up.

So, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised about the mass appeal of Jesus Revolution among the mass-going.

You can find out what the fuss is all about when the film plays The Whale on Saturday, July 8th – tickets here.