While the remake is a true classic and grand fun, there are several good reasons to check out this earlier version.įor starters, it’s a good way to explore biblical epics that most people forget. When someone mentions “Ben-Hur,” most people think of the 1959 film starring Charlton Heston. Photo Credit: Arco Film Lux Compagnie, Cinématographique de France He preached something that, if true, changes everything. The Gospel According to Saint Matthew is a deliberately low-scale film that reminds us Jesus was more than just another religious teacher. Still, he did preach a way of life that upset people’s standards-where the last were first, where prostitutes could enter heaven before religious leaders. He didn’t bring the political revolution people expected. The emphasis on Jesus as a challenginger reminds us that Jesus was a revolutionary. The movie may focus on a side of Jesus that we rarely think about, but for a good reason. He talks in a terse voice about hypocrites and warns his followers that he is not giving them an easy task. Viewers see Jesus healing the sick but also cursing a fig tree. The smaller scale feel pushes viewers to focus on what Jesus is doing-which, in this movie, is primarily challenging people. In fact, it’s almost designed to look like one of the disciples was capturing footage with a cheap camera as events happened-small, intimate, like a documentary or home movie. The Gospel According to Saint Matthew avoids big special effects and grand music or performances. Sometimes the best Bible movies avoid spectacle and use something unusual to make us rethink how we see the story. The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964) These elements make it a modern Jesus movie that the whole family can see.Ģ. It tells the story straight with some grand spectacle (like a massive boat rocking in the storm before Jesus calms the weather) and intentionally silly humor. Nor does it try to update the story for new audiences or delve into unorthodox theories about Jesus. Musical theater fans will argue how this compares to Jesus Christ Superstar, but this movie doesn’t aim to compete with more famous musicals. When Jesus talks Peter out fishing and tells him to put his nets on the other side, Peter scoffs, “You don’t do a lot of fishing do you?” The humor is sometimes cheesy but on purpose. Like most Sight & Sound productions, it favors big set designs, features music numbers, and takes a fun-for-the-whole-family approach. Jesus is the most recent of the plays filmed and released online. Sight & Sound has been producing plays based on Bible stories for years (from the story of Noah to the story of Esther). Each will help you think about Jesus’ life and work in new ways. Some you’ve heard about, and others you likely didn’t know existed. They emphasize orthodox views of Jesus (nothing you’d see discussed in The Da Vinci Code), but not all of them are biblical epics. These 10 Jesus movies provide a little of everything. Some Jesus movies play fast and loose with the biblical narrative-sometimes in heretical ways, sometimes making us see orthodox ideas in new ways. Some Jesus movies follow the Gospels pretty closely-but even there, when the movie was made informs how it shows things, making for very different movies with the same plot. You can find a movie about Jesus that features almost anything, depending on what you want.
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