Day 69: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel, “The Last Temptation of Christ,” is a thought provoking, albeit controversial, take on the biblical journey of Jesus Christ and his inner struggle of being equal parts man and God. While other film depictions of Christ have centered either on his divinity or his sacrifice on the cross, “Last Temptation” takes a different, and at times fictionalized, angle on the tale- discussing more in depth the human part of Christ and the constant anxiety of being without sin, but fully tempted to abandon his ultimate path as the son of God.
In the film, we find Jesus of Nazareth (played with great honesty by Willem Defoe) riddled with a sense that God has a plan for him, but spending his time making crosses for the Roman’s persecution of Jewish revolutionaries. This causes many to consider him a collaborator to the Roman cause and soon a nationalist faction sends Judas Iscariot (Harvey Keitel) to kill him. However, when finally faced with killing his friend, Judas realizes that this son of a carpenter may actually be the Messiah and asks him to lead a new Jewish revolution against the Romans.
Though Jesus has realized God’s ultimate goal for his life, he believes revolution can only come through acts of love, both intriguing and infuriating the people of Israel. Following the story of the Bible, Jesus makes his way from a simple prophet to an activist against the system, always conscious of the temptation, pain, anguish, and uncertainly he feels as a man along the way. Finally, when the time has come, Jesus is put on a cross to be crucified but, in a departure from the known story, a spirit, in the form of a small girl, appears and offers him the choice of dying for God’s cause or living the quiet normal life he has always desired. Faced with this choice, Jesus will have to make the ultimate decision, which will affect not only his life, but the fate of Israel and the whole world.
Not surprisingly, Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” was received much like its very own protagonist- with fear, confusion, and anger. Even at the start of preproduction in 1983, a letter writing campaign began against the film and Paramount Pictures, who was budgeting it at the time, dropped the project, leaving Scorsese without a studio for four more years. Once again funded by Universal and finally in production, the film was released in 1988 and the hate against it grew to a fever pitch as Tim Penland of MasterMedia and Campus Crusade for Christ’s Bill Bright lead a movement declaring that the film depicted “a mentally deranged, lust-driven man who, in a dream sequence, comes down off the cross and has a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene.” So heated was this movement, that they urged Universal to sell them the film’s negative so they could personally destroy it. The clincher? None of the protesters had ever even seen the film.
On the other side of the world, a French Christian fundamentalist group threw molotov cocktails into a movie theater during a screening of the film, injuring nine people and severely burning another four. After the attack, several other theaters around France were hit with graffiti, tear-gas and stink bombs.
Without a doubt, “The Last Temptation of Christ” hit a nerve with the religious of the world and, sadly, they failed to even give it an opportunity to show its genuine attempt to understand the humanity of Jesus. Though the film does take creative licence with the material, it is wise enough to start the film with a disclaimer stating its fictional nature, and, by doing so, it should not have been seen as blasphemous, but rather an experiment in understanding one of the most (if not the most) complex and influential beings in the history of the world.
To learn more about “The Last Temptation of Christ,” check out Criterion’s page here.
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