Movie: The last temptation of Christ?

[patrick457]

(Continued)

Supposing that the ‘last temptation’ in the film version really did happen in the real world, it introduces the disturbing implication that Jesus is without backbone, a weakling.

Where the book’s Jesus and the film’s Jesus differ is character growth: the book’s Jesus does begin the story as someone filled with self-doubt and self-denial, but over the course of the story He begins to accept what God is pulling Him towards. He develops as a person and as a literary character. He gains confidence and certainty over who He is; He becomes more active. (It’s the archetypal ‘hero’s journey of self-discovery’. Yes, applying this trope to Jesus does produce somewhat unorthodox results.) However, the movie’s Jesus doesn’t have that. By the end of the film He is still pretty much the passive weakling you see in the beginning of the film, only with longer hair. Willem Defoe’s Jesus doesn’t grow or develop - He doesn’t ‘ascend’.

Case in point. In the book, Jesus’ words to God just as He was about to be crucified is “Father, your will be done.” This is no longer the Jesus who wishes for God to leave Him alone. He is now in total union with His Father. He now actively embraces His fate. He has now developed as a character. But in the movie, what He says is, “Father, stay with me, don’t leave me” - which is a more passive, even sort of spineless type of plea.

Also, in the book, Jesus wins over the last temptation by forcing Himself to wake up from His dream; an active action on His behalf. (“He tried with all his might to discover where he was, who he was and why he felt pain…”) In the movie, Jesus wakes up from the last temptation after He delivers this prayer of repentance to God where He calls Himself “a selfish, unfaithful son” and declares that He wants to be His son again (“I want to be your son. I want to pay the price. I want to be crucified and rise again. I want to be the Messiah!”)

That last prayer (an addition by Scorsese and Schrader) is highly offensive - blasphemous, yes - both because it makes Jesus call Himself “a selfish, unfaithful son” and because it makes Jesus look as if He is not even capable of confronting the temptation. Seriously, the movie’s Jesus would be nothing if He did not have his buddy Harvey Keitel…er, Judas or God, He’s that weak a character.

This ‘weak Jesus’ actually proves disastrous for Kazantzakis’ premise. For Nikos Kazantzakis, Jesus is a role model for all of struggling humanity because He defeated temptation and sin and confronted His ‘shadow’ (base human desires, the dark side of the human psyche = the ‘flesh’), and with it, the ‘shadows’ of all humanity. For Kazantzakis, it is Jesus managing to pull this herculean feat and ascending into a total union with God that makes Him Christ and (Son of) God. You might say Jesus for Kazantzakis is a kind of Nietszchean Übermensch (Superman). He shows the highest path humanity can achieve.

The Jesus of Scorsese is the total opposite of this image. In a way, Scorsese’s Jesus is closer to the type of person Kazantzakis is adverse to: “A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends.” Scorsese’s Jesus cannot stand on His own feet.

And the fact that Scorsese portrays Jesus in that way is disturbing, because what sort of message does that send out to the viewers? In a way, it’s misanthropic: by showing Jesus in such a light, Scorsese paints a very negative, very bleak picture of humanity as a whole. If the “model who blazes our trail and gives us strength” (as Kazantzakis calls Jesus) is actually a spineless, neurotic coward, then we’re all doomed.

That’s it from me.

 

[tomarin]

(Continued)

Supposing that the ‘last temptation’ in the film version really did happen in the real world, it introduces the disturbing implication that Jesus is without backbone, a weakling.
…
That’s it from me.

Thanks for your informative posts, Patrick. The more I hear about this movie the less interest I have in seeing it. It sounds like a resounding failure on a number of levels, which is a shame in a way because I’ve enjoyed some of Scorcese’s other movies and some of the actors cast in this one were interesting choices (David Bowie as Pilate?). Reading the novel it was based on sounds like a more rewarding endeavor, ultimately.

 

[patrick457]

Thanks for your informative posts, Patrick. The more I hear about this movie the less interest I have in seeing it. It sounds like a resounding failure on a number of levels, which is a shame in a way because I’ve enjoyed some of Scorcese’s other movies and some of the actors cast in this one were interesting choices (David Bowie as Pilate?).

BTW I mentioned earlier that Scorsese actually planned at first to have Robert De Niro play Jesus, but De Niro declined, so he settled on Willem Defoe. Had that happened it would be Mean Streets and Taxi Driver all over again (Keitel and De Niro).

Scorsese essentially adapted the novel by using the buddy template he used on his other films: two close friends, one of which is the earthly, active guy looking after his more other-worldly, passive friend, saving the other’s butt when needed. In Mean Streets it was Johnny Boy and Charlie; in The Last Temptation it is Jesus and Judas.

Reading the novel it was based on sounds like a more rewarding endeavor, ultimately.

The fault of the novel, to sum it up in a few words, is it’s too post-modernist, too existential. Not surprising since Kazantzakis’ personal philosophy was a sort of combination of Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson (Kazantzakis admired Nietzsche since his student days - he even wrote a dissertation on Nietzsche while studying law in Paris; after studying law, he studied philosophy under Bergson), with a dash of Sigmund Freud. Kazantzakis’ Jesus is Nietzsche’s superman, but unlike Nietzsche, Kazantzakis respected and admired Jesus and accepted a dualistic view of the world (an influence of Bergson’s idea of spirit and matter - Kazantzakis’ ‘spirit’ and ‘flesh’).

Kazantzakis was born Greek Orthodox; his two marriages and funeral were within the Orthodox Church (although he was not buried on consecrated ground due to his controversial status). However, his actual philosophy / theology leans more towards the panentheistic and collectivistic (although some have argued that his worldview was actually closer to Eastern Christian mysticism than one would think, although he still did have ideas that run counter to traditional Christian understanding). At times, he could even sound agnostic - atheistic even. In other words, his actual ideas and position are not very consistent - they’re quite contradictory even.

 

[patrick457]

Sorry for posting again here, but I’d like to add another observation.

I’ve seen some critics who argued that Scorsese and Schrader actually pulled The Last Temptation towards a more ‘orthodox’ direction. Which to me sort of makes sense: as I said earlier, the book is somewhat existentialist in tone. Jesus is presented as a paragon of what humanity is meant to do - which is to struggle and make their own way towards a union with God (= Nietzsche’s theory of the superman), who for Kazantzakis is not so much a concrete being ‘up there’ but a kind of force, the creative and evolutionary life force or principle that resides in every being. (= Bergson’s theory of the élan vital “vital impulse / force.”)

Schrader and Scorsese by contrast are said to have pulled the work towards a more traditional Christian worldview: where we humans have a weakness due to our inherited fallen nature and that we need outside help (i.e. God) as a result. We can’t just ascend to God on our own; we need God’s grace and mercy to give us strength.

However, their introduction of this traditional worldview ironically actually ends up subverting traditional Christianity in my opinion, because it is not just ‘some guy’, it is Jesus Christ that’s being depicted. He couldn’t have been as weak and helpless (always reliant on others - be it Judas or God - to set Him straight) as He is shown in the film. I don’t think He shared our fallen, wounded nature; His is a perfect human nature. (He was like us in all things except for sin.) The irony is that Kazantzakis’ Übermensch Jesus actually ends up in a way affirming - or at least, being a tad more consistent with - traditional Christian beliefs about Jesus more than the weak, overly-reliant Jesus of Scorsese and Schrader.

If Kazantzakis’ fault is to portray the rest of humanity along the same lines as Jesus (he did say once that humans are already ‘part-God’ due to the élan vital within us - he believed all creation is within God because we all have this force inside us), then Scorsese’s and Schrader’s fault is to portray Jesus along the same lines as the rest of fallen humanity.

(I don’t mean to sound accusatory here, just theorizing, but I think the fact that Paul Schrader - the screenwriter - is Calvinist might have had some influence in this decision. Y’know, the idea of total depravity and stuff.)

 

[patrick457]

Sorry for posting again here, but I’d like to add two further observations and thoughts.

(1) I’ve seen some critics who argued that Scorsese and Schrader actually pulled The Last Temptation towards a more ‘orthodox’ direction. Which to me sort of makes sense: as I said earlier, the book is somewhat existentialist in tone. Jesus is presented as a paragon of what humanity is meant to do - which is to struggle and make their own way towards a union with God (= Nietzsche’s theory of the superman), who for Kazantzakis is not so much a concrete being ‘up there’ but a kind of force, the creative and evolutionary life force or principle that resides in every being. (= Bergson’s theory of the élan vital “vital impulse / force.”)

Schrader and Scorsese by contrast are said to have pulled the work towards a more traditional Christian worldview: where we humans have a weakness due to our inherited fallen nature and that we need outside help (i.e. God) as a result. We can’t just ascend to God on our own; we need God’s grace and mercy to give us strength.

However, their introduction of this traditional worldview ironically actually ends up subverting traditional Christianity in my opinion, because it is not just ‘some guy’, it is Jesus Christ that’s being depicted. He couldn’t have been as weak and helpless (always reliant on others - be it Judas or God - to set Him straight) as He is shown in the film. I don’t think He shared our fallen, wounded nature; His is a perfect human nature. (He was like us in all things except for sin.) The irony is that Kazantzakis’ Übermensch Jesus actually ends up in a way affirming - or at least, being a tad more consistent with - traditional Christian beliefs about Jesus more than the weak, overly-reliant Jesus of Scorsese and Schrader.

If Kazantzakis’ fault is to portray the rest of humanity along the same lines as Jesus (he did say once that humans are already ‘part-God’ due to the élan vital within us - he believed all creation is within God because we all have this force inside us), then Scorsese’s and Schrader’s fault is to portray Jesus along the same lines as the rest of fallen humanity.

(I don’t mean to sound accusatory here, just theorizing, but I think the fact that Paul Schrader - the screenwriter - is Calvinist might have had some influence in this decision. Y’know, the idea of total depravity and stuff.)

 

[patrick457]

This is the other one.

(2) Another scene in the movie that sort of got on my nerves (the other one is the final scene where Jesus prays the prayer of repentance to God - which is definitely blasphemous) is when Jesus was about to be crucified. When Jesus is stripped of His clothing, He sees His mother and female disciples, and He says to Mary (via voiceover): “Mother, I’m sorry for being a bad son.” Where the heck did that come from?

I’m supposing that this is a reference to the earlier scene where Jesus does not recognize Mary as His mother (Steven Greydanus talks a bit about this scene in his review). This one line is another example of what I think is wrong with the movie.

In the book, Jesus’ refusal to recognize His mother (which actually happens twice - the movie is a combined version of the two instances) makes somewhat more sense. In the novel, Mary is portrayed in a somewhat unflattering manner: she is depicted as someone who just wants Jesus to live a normal life, to marry and have children. She knows Jesus is special, that He is not like other humans, but that’s exactly what hurts for her. (That is problematic for us Christians who venerate Mary and consider her fiat to be one of the best things ever, but that’s an issue I won’t cover here.) For Kazantzakis apparently, being chosen by God isn’t all flowers and sunshine: Mary “had been so unfortunate in her life, unfortunate in her husband, unfortunate in her son. She had been widowed before she married, was a mother without possessing a child.”

In other words, she is an obstacle to Jesus’ journey / struggle. She (although with good intentions), with her desire for Jesus to be just ‘normal’, ends up being one of those who tempt Jesus. Kazantzakis believed that “the greatest sin of all is the sin of satisfaction;” the book’s Mary, with her desire to see Jesus to be content with a simple domestic life as a normal man, is portrayed as an un-positive character. That’s probably why He refused to recognize her as His mother during that time: doing so will tie Him to the things of this world and prevent Him from what God is calling Him to do. In other words, familial ties threaten to be a distraction to Him and His struggle / ascent. He has got to lay them aside and just look forward (or upward).

In fact, in the equivalent scene in the novel, Jesus does not apologize to Mary for being “a bad son.” Instead, He pretty much says that now that He has “[turned] the Curse into a blessing,” nothing is no longer preventing Him from finally recognizing her. In other words, He says the exact opposite of what He said in the film.

And while he sat and waited, crumbling a small clod of earth between his fingers, he felt someone standing before him, looking at him. Raising his head calmly, without haste, he saw and recognized her.
“Welcome, faithful fellow voyager,” he murmured. “Here the journey ends. What you wanted has been accomplished; what I wanted has also been accomplished. All my life I toiled to turn the Curse into a blessing. I’ve done it, and we are friends now. Farewell, Mother!” He waved his hand languidly at the savage shade.

Kazantzakis must have based Jesus’ detachment towards Mary during His ministry on the passage in the gospels where Jesus says: “anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (a teaching of Jesus He adapts in the novel, to which he adds - “The old commandments are no longer large enough to hold us; neither are the old loves”). In fact, Kazantzakis has a scene where Jesus reinterprets the command to honor father and mother ("… but I say, Do not imprison your heart within your parents’ home" - instead, one’s love should be more universal in scope; to honor ‘father’ and ‘mother’ now means to honor God - our Father - and the Earth - our mother).

Now the film’s problem is that (1) it doesn’t really dwell on the ‘ascent’ element of the story (which ties in with what I said earlier: the movie’s Jesus doesn’t grow up or come to terms as to who He is) and (2) cuts out many parts of the novel that focuses on Jesus’ teaching that could have provided the action with some context.

Jesus’ distancing of Himself from His mother is left hanging in the air with pretty much little to no proper context. The thing happens, and it makes Jesus look very rude. In fact, Jesus’ pre-crucifixion apology just gives it the worst connotations. In effect, this Jesus can be read as sort of admitting that He did wrong (!), that He was ‘a bad son’ for doing what God wants Him to do :ehh: - a side effect of which is abandoning familial ties.