Note: Any discussion of this film must neccessary take into some account the religion of the viewer. I have made the decision to become Catholic, but was brought up in a mainline Prostestant background. My experinces and beleifs obviously affect my perception of this film. I have absolutley no idea how a Buddhist or an atheist might perceive it. Now, onto the review.
Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ is probably the most contraversial American film since Birth of a Nation. Thousands protested against the film, both Prostestant and Catholic, Christan and Jew. It was banned by the goverment of some cities, and some theatre owner simply refused to show it. (Spoiler) They, mostly without seeing it, condemened the film for a scene where Jesus fantasizes about having sex with Mary Magdelene. (End spoiler)
I was not offended by the film. As I will discuss below, I don't find the idea of Jesus having sexual desires to be insulting. I disagree with it's theology (although I have no pretense to being a theologian), but I don't find much heretical or evil in the picture.
I would like to think that being the Son of God would entail some happy moments and some moments of holiness and content. The suffering of Jesus is central to Christanity, but Jesus's message was inherently positive and He came to do something good. Scorsese chooses to portray Jesus as a seriously depressed and troubled person. In his life, Jesus must have literarly faced more suffering than any other human in history, and he may not have even known the happy end of his own story, but he preached a message of love. In this film, there is no room for happiness, no real bond of friendship between Jesus and Peter or Mary or anyone else. Every positive aspect of his life is subverted, every negative aspect is enhanced. Surley, the Son of God must have known something of the joy he promised everyone who would follow him.
This problem is excaberated by the unusual choice of casting Willem Dafoe as Jesus. Scorsese has said that he was trying to delibratley avoid a classical Hollywood Biblical epic, and cast his film accordingly. Thus Americans play the Jews and British actors play the Romans and, indeed Satan. But Dafoe is just not right. Dafoe is an actor who specializes in playing freaked out characters- a trait which might have worked in actor with more focus. It's hard to beleive that this guy is capable of having the clarity of listining to God, or indeed, being God.
The casting of the rest of the film is off too. Despite the extreamly impressive art direction and photography, the bizzare casting (Havery Kitel as Judas? Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdelene? David Bowie as Pontius Pilate?) seems to reinforce that fact that we are in another one Scorsese New York street films and not in 1st century Judea.
The dialouge is incredbly obvious and banal- like one of Edwin's movies. Paul Schrader is a good screenwriter, but the subtley he showed in Taxi Driver or the best parts of Affliction is nowhere to be found. Some of the dialouge is not only obvious, but badly written, technically, in terms of sentence structure and grammar. The music doesn't help either. The new agey world score by Peter Gabriel sounds extreamly 1980's, not something you want in a film set in the 0030's.
Too many of the scenes are unessary and boring. A good forty minuets of the film could easily be cut, without anything being missed.
Where the movie does work are in the two temptations sequences. One of problems I have had with the Christ movies is that in the temptation sense (and this goes for the best of them all, George Stevens' The Greatest Story Ever Told) we don't really get the sense the Christ is really tempted, since what Satan says to him in the desert is pretty obviously a bad idea. Scorsese really does show us convincing personal reasons why Jesus might have been tempted, so there is actuall emotion invested in trying to get him to resisted. It also shows that yes, the devil can decieve people, if he wasn't good at lying, how could he be the devil?
If the rest of the film was as good as these sequences, we would really have something great here. But they are to few. The rest of the ideas in the film aren't presented as interestinyl or emotionally, Scorsese tells instead of shows and tells badly.
The Last Temptation of Christ is a more personal experince than most, since we all have our own beleifes. I don't know how helpful this review will be. If you are a Scorsese fan (I like the director, but think he's seriously overated) it's of couse worth seeing. People looking for an interesting religious movie can be more easily directed to The Exorcist or The Passion of St. Joan of Arc. And about half of Christians are probably never going to see the film, because their airheaded priest or minister told them it was evil without seeing it. It's not evil. It's just not very good.
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More spoilers. In response to the (in)famous sex scene, my own personal belefs. What is troubling about implying sexual desire? There is nothing inherently wrong with sex, and indeed, it is a mechnism by which the human race is propagaded. Added to the fact that Jesus is indeed having sex within marridge and with someone he loves I don't see the problem here. Unless of course, you are comptley repressed and puritanical and think that any form of sex at all is bad, and therefor Jesus could never have sex. But I don't think that. Teaching people that all sex is bad just makes them feel guilty for something their body has been programed by millions of years of evolution to do.
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)