Jesus Christ Superstar?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Monica4316
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
LilyM said:
I can give one or two that don’t run true to the biblical Jesus. The most obvious ones come from Gethsemane.

‘If I die what would be my reward?’ … ‘Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?’

These aren’t right. The biblical Jesus on the contrary warned against expecting to be rewarded for one’s good deeds, and against expecting to be noticed for one’s noble actions.
Click to expand...
But if I die
See the saga through and do the things you ask of me –
Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me,
Nail me to their tree

…]

Why I should die
Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?
Would the things I’ve said and done matter any more?

…]

If I die what will be my reward?

Seen within the larger context, the opera’s Jesus is asking what reason is there for Him to die - something that He is now apparently fearful of (“I’m not as sure as when we started / Then I was inspired, now I’m sad and tired”) - as the other lyrics imply:

Why should I die? Oh, why should I die?
Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?
Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain
Show me there’s a reason for your wanting me to die
You’re far too keen on where and how but not so hot on why

“Would the things I’ve said and done matter any more?” hearkens back to the Last Supper:

This is my blood you drink, this is my body you eat
If you would remember me when you eat and drink . . .
I must be mad thinking I’ll be remembered - yes I must be out of my head!
Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothing ten minutes after I’m dead!
One of you denies me, one of you betrays me

But you’re right. A few of the lyrics are off - both in the theological sense and the artistic sense (sometimes the lyrics seem to struggle to cram words into the tune for the sake of rhyme - I mean, “you’ve gone and cut Him dead”?? :p)
 
patrick457 said:
Obviously you’re not going to find haloes on their heads! 😃

Can you please give a concrete example? 🙂
Click to expand...
Sure, I meant the example that Lily gave, and also when Jesus was yelling at the lepers to leave Him alone… I just can’t imagine Jesus doing this, - I’m sure there were times when He retreated into solitude to pray to the Father, but I’ve read in a Catholic book that He was always glad to heal the sick.

In addition, the Jesus in the movie just seemed entirely human… I know that it’s impossible to show His divinity well because the actors portraying Him are always human, but I think the Passion of the Christ at least did this better. In the Passion, you kind of get the sense that He is more than only a man. But in this movie, He is kind of temperamental (I don’t mean the temple scene, because that really happened, but in general) and just not…as holy as in other movies. For example in the movie Ben Hur, you never even see Jesus’ face, but you get the impression that He is special. Here, He just didn’t seem believable to me. I just can’t relate this movie to the Jesus that I know.

I was also shocked by the scene at the temple - the dancing… :eek: I’d rather not see something like that. Especially in a movie about Our Lord.

Yes I did watch the movie - today. (couldn’t finish it 😦 maybe I’m too sensitive I don’t know). I was also not a big fan of all the 70s themes, the dancing, etc… It just didn’t seem appropriate to the subject matter. (to me).
 
LilyM said:
I can give one or two that don’t run true to the biblical Jesus. The most obvious ones come from Gethsemane.

‘If I die what would be my reward?’ … ‘Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?’

These aren’t right. The biblical Jesus on the contrary warned against expecting to be rewarded for one’s good deeds, and against expecting to be noticed for one’s noble actions.

And the final lyric - ‘Take me now, before I change my mind’ - completely wrong. The biblical Jesus, again completely contrary to this, blasted those who having put their hand to the plow looked back - in other words those who change their minds too easily.
Click to expand...
People seem to forget that while Jesus was fully divine, He was also fully human. It’s the eve of his Passion, I think we can forgive Him for being a little unnerved. I would be amazed if Jesus was not at least a little afraid. In Luke 22:42, He says “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” Mark 14:33 notes that at Gethsemane, Jesus became “troubled and distressed”.

There’s a reason why torture is so immorally used, and it’s because nobody has an infinite pain tolerance. Human’s are fearful of pain. Even though there’s probably at least a handful of people here who would say “I can take it”, when push comes to shove there’s very few people who wouldn’t try to stop it before it starts. And those who don’t try will regret that decision fairly quickly. That’s not weakness; that’s being human.

He’s God, not a superhero. He was not a “superhuman” immune to fear, He was the One who shows us how to truly overcome fear through believing wholly in God. We don’t promise people 70 virgins if they are martyred, and yet we still had many, many martyrs. It was their trust and faith in God that pulled them through. The pain doesn’t magically disappear.

Crucifixion in particular is an agonizing death. You die a slow, excruciating death over several hours due to eventual suffocation (that’s why they eventually brake the legs, because then you’re unable to pull yourself up to be able to breathe). Jesus suffered all of that for us (no broken legs of course). When we say “suffered”, that’s not just an expression. He truly suffered. Even just imagining having to endure that would be agonizing. If you think Jesus just walked in cool as a cucumber, then I don’t think you understand what being human means.
Monica4316 said:
I was also shocked by the scene at the temple - the dancing… :eek: I’d rather not see something like that. Especially in a movie about Our Lord.
Click to expand...
You know what else we shouldn’t do? Use the “n” word in To Kill a Mockingbird. C’mon, there are children watching!
 
Monica4316 said:
Sure, I meant the example that Lily gave, and also when Jesus was yelling at the lepers to leave Him alone… I just can’t imagine Jesus doing this, - I’m sure there were times when He retreated into solitude to pray to the Father, but I’ve read in a Catholic book that He was always glad to heal the sick.
Click to expand...
Well, you do have the times when Jesus ran away from the 5000 He fed because they tried to make Him king by force or from lynch mobs - all in the Gospel of John. In any case, the lepers seem to be using Jesus for their own personal gains like the 5000: their pleas start off pretty decently, but we then get to the man saying “See my purse, I’m a poor man,” and “Won’t you pay me Christ?” And as we’ve seen, Jesus was not going to put up with this.
In addition, the Jesus in the movie just seemed entirely human… I know that it’s impossible to show His divinity well because the actors portraying Him are always human, but I think the Passion of the Christ at least did this better. In the Passion, you kind of get the sense that He is more than only a man. But in this movie, He is kind of temperamental (I don’t mean the temple scene, because that really happened, but in general) and just not…as holy as in other movies.
Click to expand...
Well, there are ‘other movies’ - especially the ones from the age of epic films - which do seem to go at the opposite direction and portray an ultra-divine, Docetic Christ: a very stiff, nigh-emotionless man with barely a shred of humanity (He doesn’t even seem to feel any pain or grief during His Passion!) - and who almost always speaks in Elizabethan English for some reason, never forgetting His thous and thees even when the other characters speak in a more modern form of English.

But yep, I kind of agree with you. One thing often leveled by critics against the rock opera is that Jesus is kind of whiny - and I symphatize with the criticism. 😃

But then again, Jesus Himself was in many ways, ‘unconventional’ and made His contemporaries uncomfortable. His words and deeds were shocking - dare I say even ‘offensive’ - to His listeners: a quality that has, unfortunately, become softened and too-familiar after centuries of retelling and repetition. I sometimes feel that we Christians have become too used to Jesus Christ. He’s become a mere part of the scenery, something that we can take for granted. Lord, Son of God, Savior of the world, the Lamb, the litany goes on.

Hence, IMHO we need something now and often that would make us reevaluate and rethink just who exactly this Man is and why He is so important, both in history in general and within our own lives. Jesus asked His disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” We all know the answer of course, but we need to stop saying that only with our mouths but also reflect on it and confess it in our hearts.

I’ll admit that I usually consider an adaptation to be a good one if it manages to NOT make the listener feel comfortable and cozy with it, one that jolts the viewer out of all preconceived notions. Hence I think that the 1973 JCS has done its job pretty well in your case.
 
By the way, a little trivia.

The 1957 film version of Ben-Hur was made in a time when Hollywood had a sort of phobia against showing Jesus and His life overtly onscreen, due to the 1934 Production Code which required a high standard of reverence toward any depiction of our Lord, thus discouraging many filmmakers into tackling His life directly. The last time Jesus can be publicly seen on the theaters was in Cecil B. DeMille’s (yeah, THAT DeMille) 1927 The King of Kings; He would not make any further major appearance until the 1961 King of Kings by Nicholas Ray. Of course, this probihition did not hold for other countries, and in some parts, Jesus films continued to be produced.

Filmmakers at the time usually played it safe and filmed religious epics like Quo Vadis, The Robe, Barabbas and Ben-Hur instead, where Jesus can be a pivotal character but does not (have to) make any direct appearance. And they used every opportunity they could to hide His face and sometimes, His voice, just so there wouldn’t be any danger of irreverence. And sometimes they found rather clever ways of doing it!

The situation was quite similar to the UK, where any depiction of Jesus on film was forbidden by the British Board of Film Censors until the end of World War II (DeMille’s film had to obtain a license to be screened, and scenes featuring Jesus was even edited out of other films). This may be the reason why Ben-Hur does not have any full-frontal view of Christ: it was also intended for British distribution.
 
Honestly I have to admit I love super star, even though like all hollywood movies it gets a whole lot wrong.
 
patrick457 said:
By the way, a little trivia.

The 1957 film version of Ben-Hur was made in a time when Hollywood had a sort of phobia against showing Jesus and His life overtly onscreen, due to the 1934 Production Code which required a high standard of reverence toward any depiction of our Lord, thus discouraging many filmmakers into tackling His life directly. The last time Jesus can be publicly seen on the theaters was in Cecil B. DeMille’s (yeah, THAT DeMille) 1927 The King of Kings; He would not make any further major appearance until the 1961 King of Kings by Nicholas Ray. Of course, this probihition did not hold for other countries, and in some parts, Jesus films continued to be produced.

Filmmakers at the time usually played it safe and filmed religious epics like Quo Vadis, The Robe, Barabbas and Ben-Hur instead, where Jesus can be a pivotal character but does not (have to) make any direct appearance. And they used every opportunity they could to hide His face and sometimes, His voice, just so there wouldn’t be any danger of irreverence. And sometimes they found rather clever ways of doing it!

The situation was quite similar to the UK, where any depiction of Jesus on film was forbidden by the British Board of Film Censors until the end of World War II (DeMille’s film had to obtain a license to be screened, and scenes featuring Jesus was even edited out of other films). This may be the reason why Ben-Hur does not have any full-frontal view of Christ: it was also intended for British distribution.
Click to expand...
My how the times have changed =(

Though I think this attitude wasn’t necesarly healthy either, still at least it’s better intensioned.
 
I watched the film and as a fan of musicals, I wasn’t that impressed. Personally, I wasn’t angered by the things I saw in it even if there were things that were inaccurate/didn’t happen but the movie isn’t a re-telling of the Passion of Christ, as in like it was made to be a re-telling only. It was obviously edited to achieve whatever Andrew Lloyd Weber wanted and he didn’t offend me. I didn’t even see Mary M and Jesus in a relationship in the movie so I don’t know what people are talking about regarding that.
 
I think you misunderstood me a bit 🙂

I didnt mean that we should think of Jesus as not human or emotionless… but in every accepted private revelation (like Sacred Heart, Divine Mercy) - Jesus has emotions, but He doesn’t seem at all like in the movie. I’m not quite sure how to explain… it’s just when I saw it, I thought, “no that’s not the Jesus I know”. Even when He shows emotions, (which is something I value about Him) - it’s still different. I think the Passion of the Christ portrays this better.
 
Our local Catholic HS will be performing JCS next year! 👍

My family is also going to see a local theater company perform it in a few months.
 
There’s nothing intrinsically blasphemous about it if I do say so myself. One must remember that the story is from Judas Iscariot’s eyes, so it is how Judas might have seen Jesus.
 
Count me in as one of those who loves JCS, both the 1973 movie and the play. To clarify that, I’ve seen the play several times over the years and all but once was with Ted Neely in it. The non-Ted Neely one was horrible. It was back in the late 90s or early 2000’s and was updated to current times. Nothing about it was commendable. The Ted Neely ones were fantastic, though.
 
TCM had it on Sunday night. I recorded it and watched it for the first time in several years. I forgot how much I love that music. The only part I do not care for is “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” I zip past that part.
 
blackfirepro said:
I just wish they’d have mentioned the Mother of God.
Click to expand...
Well bare in mind the authors came from an Anglican background so I’m not sure there would be great imputous to put her in there. If one is trying to take their story from the pages of scripture (alone) then there’s not much to go on other than she was standing at the cross.

Obviously Mel Gibson produced a far greater work retelling the passion in the movie of the same name. But for what it is, Superstar still holds up well enough and I would suggest is the superior movie to view on easter as a family with small children.
 
pnewton said:
I really enjoy the music of Jesus Christ Superstar. I know it has serious inaccuracies, but being inaccurate is not the same thing as blasphemy.
Click to expand...
I agree. Certainly some artistic license was taken and there are some lines that are (to say the least) theologically imprecise, but I wouldn’t call it blasphemy.

A lot does depend on who puts on the show. I was in JCS once at my Catholic high school and once with a Christian group at my college. In both productions, we added our own Resurrection scene to the end. The assistant director for my college production said she saw a version of the show in Germany that ended with Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Judas all getting on a motorcycle and driving off together. That I have problems with! :eek:
 
For the record, one of my favorite moments of the 1973 film is the montage of artworks portraying the Crucifixion in Gethsemane. It might seem odd to a lot of people, but it kind of brings a tear to my eye whenever I see it and hear the blaring of the orchestra. It’s just that epic, I think it’s one of the greatest moments in Jesus films. 😛
 
Some of the artworks used in the montage:

Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece, by Matthias Grünewald (1512-1516)
Crucifixion, by Tintoretto (1565)
Crucifixion, by Matthias Grünewald (1500-1508)
Christ on the Cross, by Diego Velázquez (1631)
Crucifixion, by Masaccio (ca. 1426)
Crucifixion, by Andrea del Castagno (ca. 1450)
Saint Luke as a Painter before Christ on the Cross by Francisco de Zurbarán (1635-1640)
Christ Carrying the Cross, by Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1510-1535)
Christ on the Cross with Mary and St. John, by Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1460)
Christ on the Cross, by Francisco de Goya (1780)
 
patrick457 said:
For the record, one of my favorite moments of the 1973 film is the montage of artworks portraying the Crucifixion in Gethsemane. It might seem odd to a lot of people, but it kind of brings a tear to my eye whenever I see it and hear the blaring of the orchestra. It’s just that epic, I think it’s one of the greatest moments in Jesus films. 😛
Click to expand...
It really hits home for me, too, when he sings, “Watch me die.” It speaks to the ramifications of his death which will speak to people for centuries to come. Thanks for the links, too.
 
The_Professor said:
It really hits home for me, too, when he sings, “Watch me die.” It speaks to the ramifications of his death which will speak to people for centuries to come. Thanks for the links, too.
Click to expand...
In the context, the montage seems related to either Jesus’ line “See how I die”: i.e. He thinks of (and sees) the sufferings He will undergo and the ramifications it will have; or His pleas “I’d have to know, my Lord” and “Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain,” which has apparently not fallen on deaf ears, or a combination of both. At least, that’s how I interpreted it. :o
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top