Who portrayed Jesus the best?

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CatholicKnight3

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Robert Powell in Jesus of Nazareth
Jim Caviezel in The Passion of The Christ
Max Von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told
 
I personally liked how Robert Powell portrayed Christ the best. It may be because I was seven or so when I saw the movie and it had a profound effect on me. I thought he combined humility and authority virtually perfectly.
 
Jim Caviezel, for me.

*Jesus of Nazareth *was one of those films that I watched over and over again as a child, and so Robert Powell is rather special to me. But Caviezel’s Jesus was so much more Jewish.

In fact, if The Passion of the Christ is still on Netflix, I may just watch it later. 🙂
 
I would go with:

Jim Caviezel, “Passion of the Christ.”

Robert Powell, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Henry Ian Cusick, “Gospel of John.”
 
A list of the men who portrayed Christ from IMDb: imdb.com/list/ls055785992/.

The most interesting one to me is H. B. Warner. After playing Christ in the silent Cecil B. DeMille’s “King of Kings” his career nearly ended because he was too closely associated with the part. The same thing nearly happened to Jim Caviezel and to others.

Anyway, my overall favorite is Robert Powell for carrying the character so evenly and well over the length of a mini-series. For me, Jim Caviezel’s portrayal comes in second–he had a hard task to make Jesus accessible while portraying him as a willing victim, which he did, but we didn’t get to know the character as much as we perhaps should have–more the “fault” of the limited subject matter–the trial and death of Christ.

The performance that actually moved me the most was that of Claude Heater in “Ben Hur.” He never says a word and we never see his face, but the camera direction and the music along with his presence evokes Jesus’ divinity and compassion more than any other depiction. Sometimes the best way to portray divinity is to imply it rather than shove it in an audience’s face. The same cinematic device was used to good effect in “The Song of Bernadette,” especially the scene in which Bernadette kisses the Virgin’s foot. Both move me to tears every time I see them.
 
Robert Powell

I’ve never watched Passion of the Christ…I don’t know if I could handle the brutality…which is not the “tame” brutality in Jesus of Nazareth (which I love to watch around Easter and Christmas)
 
Jim Caviezel for me because since I actually see the real Jesus, he comes closest to the real one.
 
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