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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is

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Speaker 2: Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,

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Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about the nineteen eighty eight

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Speaker 3: film The Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin Scorsese,

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Speaker 3: based on the nineteen fifty five novel by Niko's Cousinsakas,

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Speaker 3: which addresses one of the central mysteries of Christianity, how

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Speaker 3: could God become a human and what would that be like.

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Speaker 3: I had somehow never seen this movie before, which might

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Speaker 3: come as a surprise to listeners who kind of know, Oh,

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Speaker 3: I don't know my tastes of narratives of antiquity and

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Speaker 3: the Bible and stuff like that. But somehow I had

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Speaker 3: never seen it before, and Wow, I loved it. I

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Speaker 3: can't wait to talk about so many things about this movie.

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Speaker 3: I'm so glad you picked it for this week, Rob.

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Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah, this is a film that I had never

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Speaker 2: seen before either, but I've been drawn to it for

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Speaker 2: most of my life in a weird way. And it's

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Speaker 2: weird like that with films, you know, it's like sometimes

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Speaker 2: something remains on the two watch list for most of

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Speaker 2: your time here on Earth, and then when you finally

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Speaker 2: get around to it, well, sometimes it's just it's just

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Speaker 2: that's when you were meant to see it, you know.

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Speaker 2: So I was I was ten years old when this

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Speaker 2: film first came out, so I don't really you know,

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Speaker 2: I certainly don't remember the marketing for it. I don't

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Speaker 2: remember trailers for it, and I don't actually remember any

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Speaker 2: of the initial controversy about it, which we'll get into,

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Speaker 2: but I certainly picked up on that later on, sort

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Speaker 2: of the shockwaves of that initial controversy, in these shockwaves

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Speaker 2: that continue to resonate around it, like you can't generally,

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Speaker 2: if you think about the Last Temptation of Christ, you

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Speaker 2: think about some degree of controversy, and we'll get back

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Speaker 2: to that as well. My other door way into the

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Speaker 2: film was my long standing appreciation for the music of

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Speaker 2: Peter Gabriel, which we'll come back to as well. And

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Speaker 2: at one point i'd actually picked up a copy of

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Speaker 2: the Cousin Zakis novel because that it's based upon, and

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Speaker 2: I read at least part of it during a part

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Speaker 2: a period in my life where I was doing a

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Speaker 2: lot of religious pondering, and I remember, I do strongly

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Speaker 2: remember the passages from it about the presence of God

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Speaker 2: like a raptor's talons in one's mind, and uh, yeah,

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Speaker 2: but it's still I never got around to seeing the

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Speaker 2: film long wanted to watch it. And then, you know,

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Speaker 2: over the past few years, since we started doing weird

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Speaker 2: House cinema, I kind of got into my mind, hey,

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Speaker 2: maybe the Last Temptation of Christ would be a good

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Speaker 2: weird house selection, and uh and then you know, more

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Speaker 2: recently I looked into it a little bit more, sort

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Speaker 2: of identified a few a few factors in it where

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Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that checks that, that checks off the

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Speaker 2: right boxes. I think we could do it. And so

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Speaker 2: here we are. So let's go ahead and acknowledge the controversy,

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Speaker 2: since that is often the case with films that stir

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Speaker 2: up controversy, The controversy like hits first anyway, so we

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Speaker 2: certainly shouldn't understate the uproar. There were threats and acts

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Speaker 2: of violence over this film when it came out. I

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Speaker 2: feel like very little of the uproar has anything to

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Speaker 2: do with the actual content of the film, though, as

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Speaker 2: is often the case with this sort of thing. It's

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Speaker 2: about the idea of what this film might be. And

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Speaker 2: I think we can kind of boil that down to

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Speaker 2: this idea that was spreading that, Hey, you have this

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Speaker 2: blasphemous Hollywood production that's going to depict Jesus Christ as

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Speaker 2: something he's not held to be within dominant Christian groups, specifically,

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Speaker 2: something from outside of the faith depicting something within the faith.

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Speaker 2: And of course, again this kind of idea ends up

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Speaker 2: taking on a life of its own and runs contrary

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Speaker 2: to the actual professed spirituality and religion of the original author,

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Speaker 2: the screenwriter, and the director, and just the content and

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Speaker 2: contact of the film itself.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's absolutely there a feeling that some

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Speaker 3: conservative Christians had about somebody who doesn't understand the story

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Speaker 3: the way that I do is talking about it and

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Speaker 3: I don't like that. And you know, it can always

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Speaker 3: to anybody you can sympathize with feeling uncomfortable about the

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Speaker 3: idea of somebody talking about what's meaningful to you. You know,

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Speaker 3: somebody else is talking about this thing that maybe I

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Speaker 3: suspect they don't really understand or care about the way

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Speaker 3: that I do. So I think there is that kind

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Speaker 3: of suspicion, but there also clearly was a i think

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Speaker 3: a specific type of content that upset people, and it

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Speaker 3: had to do with the core theme that the author

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Speaker 3: was trying to explore in the book this movie is

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Speaker 3: based on, and so is certainly a core theme of

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Speaker 3: the movie as well. It's one of the central Christian

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Speaker 3: mysteries which I alluded to at the top. How can

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Speaker 3: God have become a human being? That is the idea,

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Speaker 3: you know that most Christians today believe that somehow God,

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Speaker 3: omnipotent and omniscient, a being of spirit, the creator of

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Speaker 3: the world, knowing everything, capable of anything, became a human being.

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Speaker 3: And the novel takes that idea seriously and says, what

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Speaker 3: would that mean for God to be a human being

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Speaker 3: with all of the characteristics of a human being, including

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Speaker 3: selfishness and desires, And especially I think this is the

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Speaker 3: part that really set a lot of people off lust,

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Speaker 3: you know, feelings, cravings of the flesh, and so a

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Speaker 3: lot of people I think reacted to the idea that

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Speaker 3: the Jesus in the movie is not depicted as actually,

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Speaker 3: you know, wantonly sexually sinful, but is depicted as a

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Speaker 3: human being feeling human desires including the desire for sex

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Speaker 3: and love, and a lot of people could not handle

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Speaker 3: that that was infuriating to them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and again on this sort of like, you know,

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Speaker 2: the controversy wavelength level of everything, it can feel like

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Speaker 2: instead of it being oh, this is a meditation on

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Speaker 2: what this idea means and what it would be like,

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Speaker 2: and more of like, hey, this dude says Jesus has sex.

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Speaker 2: Boycott this movie, burn this movie.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: That's how controversy tends to to, like flames begin to

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Speaker 2: get out of hand.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So there's a thing I kind of wanted to

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Speaker 3: address here at the beginning of the episode, which is

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Speaker 3: about the idea of making a movie about the life

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Speaker 3: of Jesus. This movie is based on the story of Jesus,

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Speaker 3: but it is not simply an attempt to put the

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Speaker 3: Bible on screen, And so the question is what is it? Then?

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Speaker 3: I think it's best understood as a fictional original novel

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Speaker 3: with partial basis in biblical literature. And I think this

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Speaker 3: is this is a very interesting and fruitful approach, especially

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Speaker 3: given problems with all of the other ways you can

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Speaker 3: think of to put the life of Jesus into a movie.

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Speaker 3: So when you want to make a film about the

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Speaker 3: life of Jesus. There are several different paths you could take.

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Speaker 3: You could take one of the four Gospels of the

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Speaker 3: New Testament and try to adapt it scene by scene

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Speaker 3: to the screen, and you might call this a faithful

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Speaker 3: literary adaptation. So, you know, you treat a single source

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Speaker 3: as a piece of literature, for example, the Gospel of Matthew,

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Speaker 3: and you just go line by line and you try

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Speaker 3: to put the story to film as directly as you can.

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Speaker 2: Can you punch it up a little bit at an

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Speaker 2: action sequencer too.

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Speaker 3: That's a good question. I mean, everybody who even tries

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Speaker 3: this approach just a faithful direct adaptation of a single gospel.

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Speaker 3: I've seen at least one movie I know of watched

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Speaker 3: you know in school, that was a direct adaptation of

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Speaker 3: the Gospel of Matthew to screen. But even that requires interpretation.

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Speaker 3: You have to kind of read in between the lines

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Speaker 3: to fill in some of the action, because you know,

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Speaker 3: there's literally you can't just turn the text into a film.

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Speaker 3: You have to interpret to make things real. So but yeah,

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Speaker 3: imagine you try to make the Gospel of Matthew into

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Speaker 3: a movie. This approach would have problems for a lot

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Speaker 3: of Christians, because the New Testament canon doesn't have just

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Speaker 3: one account of the life of Jesus. It has four. Again,

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Speaker 3: it has the Gospels which are Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.

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Speaker 3: Not to mention accounts that are not included in the

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Speaker 3: standard canon of Christian scripture today, but that many Christians

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Speaker 3: in history believed in things like the Gospel of Thomas

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Speaker 3: and Gospel of Peter and so forth. There are a

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Speaker 3: lot of them, actually, and all four gospels in the

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Speaker 3: Bible today have elements that Christians think of as part

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Speaker 3: of the life of Jesus and integral to the story.

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Speaker 3: So the visit of the magi that's only in the

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Speaker 3: Gospel of Matthew, The parable of the prodigal son is

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Speaker 3: only in the Gospel of Luke. The story of the

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Speaker 3: woman taken in adultery is only in the Gospel of John.

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Speaker 3: In fact, that story was almost certainly not even written

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Speaker 3: by the author of the Gospel of John. That only

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Speaker 3: appears in later manuscripts of the Gospel of John. And

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Speaker 3: there's just tons of things like this that are you know,

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Speaker 3: the story we think of as the story of Jesus

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Speaker 3: is actually scattered across multiple different sources that each have

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Speaker 3: their own take, So in order to get all the

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Speaker 3: stuff you want into the story, it's tempting to try

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Speaker 3: to combine all of your favorite elements, combine the four

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Speaker 3: Gospels into one big narrative that weaves them all together.

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Speaker 3: And so this is sort of the second possible approach

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Speaker 3: you could take to making a Jesus movie. You could

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Speaker 3: call it like the synthetic literary adaptation, where you're combining

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Speaker 3: the four accounts into and making this meta narrative into

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Speaker 3: a film. But I think there's a major problem with

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Speaker 3: this approach too, and the problem is it doesn't take

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Speaker 3: any of the Gospels seriously as its own piece of literature.

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Speaker 3: The Gospels are fundamentally four different stories with narrative and

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Speaker 3: theological contradictions between one another. They have different emphasies, different

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Speaker 3: theological concerns, and in some ways very different renderings of

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Speaker 3: the character of Jesus. And if you doubt this, I

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Speaker 3: would just recommend reading like the Crucifixion narrative. You read

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Speaker 3: the crucifixion narrative in the Gospel of Mark and then

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Speaker 3: compare that to the Gospel of John. They're like extremely

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Speaker 3: interestingly different characterizations of the behavior and attitude of Jesus

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Speaker 3: as he is going to his death. You know, in

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Speaker 3: the Gospel of Mark you get a lot of indications

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Speaker 3: of bafflement and despair. He cries out, my God, my God,

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Speaker 3: why have you forsaken me? Whereas in the Gospel of John,

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Speaker 3: Jesus going to his death is very calm and in control,

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Speaker 3: and he's, you know, the master of his own destiny.

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Speaker 3: He knows what's happening. And so I think, if you're

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Speaker 3: going to take this, you know, this ancient literature seriously,

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Speaker 3: you have to take each book on its own terms.

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Speaker 3: There are some Christians who insist on seeing the Bible

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Speaker 3: as an inerrant and univocal authority, meaning everything in it

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Speaker 3: is correct and it's all agreeing with itself. All the

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Speaker 3: books in the Bible are agreeing with each other and

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Speaker 3: saying the same thing. And I would argue that if

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Speaker 3: you don't allow yourself to see the differences between the

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Speaker 3: Gospels and the New Testament, you're not really treating the

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Speaker 3: texts with respect because you're not allowing each of them

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Speaker 3: to be what they are. And so synthetic literary adaptations

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Speaker 3: are I think, at least to me, sometimes distasteful because

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Speaker 3: they can like smooth over these differences, and they don't

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Speaker 3: allow them to breathe, they don't allow them to be

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Speaker 3: contemplated by the audience. So you might think of this

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Speaker 3: like a synthetic literary adaptation, as a kind of pseudo

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Speaker 3: faithful literary adaptation. It's faithful in a way in that

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Speaker 3: it's taking things from all the sources, but it's also

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Speaker 3: not letting the individual sources be different. So if you

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Speaker 3: accept the problems with a synthetic literary adaptation, you could

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Speaker 3: also try a different approach. I don't know if anybody

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Speaker 3: has ever fully tried to do this, but you could say,

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Speaker 3: what if instead we try to make a historically accurate adaptation,

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Speaker 3: So we go to the historians and say, what's your

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Speaker 3: best guess of what actually happened historically in the life

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Speaker 3: of Jesus. You could try this, and there are some

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Speaker 3: common views among historians about the historical Jesus, but you

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Speaker 3: would hit a big problem here, which is just paucity

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Speaker 3: of detail. I mean, even if you take a fully

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Speaker 3: fleshed out narrative like one of the Gospels and try

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Speaker 3: to adapt it. We were just talking about how you

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Speaker 3: have to fill things in right because you would still

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Speaker 3: it would require some gaps to be filled in to

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Speaker 3: make sense of how they get from one scene to

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Speaker 3: another and so forth. If you go with the historically,

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Speaker 3: you know what the historians are confident of, there's way

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Speaker 3: way less stuff than that. It's basic things like Jesus

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Speaker 3: was Jewish, he preached about the coming kingdom of God,

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Speaker 3: he was crucified by ponscious pilot, and after his death

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Speaker 3: some of his followers proclaimed he had risen from the grave.

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Speaker 3: You know, so you don't have a lot to go on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it could at best be a

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Speaker 2: segment on unsolved mysteries.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, So there's not enough detail to make a

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Speaker 3: story out of this. To make the historical Jesus into

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Speaker 3: a story with scenes and dialogue, you'd either have to

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Speaker 3: rely on detail from the Gospels, which is, you know,

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Speaker 3: less historically certain, or you would simply have to imagine

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Speaker 3: new events that you think you know would fit in

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Speaker 3: with the story. You become a creative storyteller yourself. And

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Speaker 3: so finally that brings us to what the cousant Zakis

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Speaker 3: novel and its film adaptation actually are, which is what

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Speaker 3: you might call meditational fiction. It's a fictional story grown

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Speaker 3: out of what seems to me to be very serious

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Speaker 3: contemplation of the stories we get in the Bible. So,

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Speaker 3: in one sense, the novel is a kind of synthetic

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Speaker 3: literary adaptation in that it takes elements from all four Gospels,

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Speaker 3: it's not confined to just one. But it does not

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Speaker 3: represent itself as the ultimate telling of the story, or

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Speaker 3: as a faithful direct adaptation of the Bible, nor as

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Speaker 3: a historically accurate account. Instead, it's very clear about being

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Speaker 3: a work of fiction. So you know, it's not saying

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Speaker 3: I'm an authoritative account on the life of Jesus. It's

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Speaker 3: the author's attempt to understand the meaning of Jesus as

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Speaker 3: discovered through fictional imagination about the unknown things in his life.

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Speaker 3: So the narrative does reproduce some stories from the four Gospels,

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Speaker 3: but it adds new details. Other times, the author invents

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Speaker 3: new scenes and situations entirely that are nowhere to be

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Speaker 3: found in the Bible. And I love this approach. I

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Speaker 3: found this so refreshing and exciting and even true. I've

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Speaker 3: watched a lot of stuffy Bible movies in my day.

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Speaker 3: I don't think I have ever encountered such a serious

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Speaker 3: and sincere attempt to make sense of the story of Jesus,

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Speaker 3: and that attempt is done through fictionalizing the story. So

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Speaker 3: just one example of how I think the fictionalizing approach

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Speaker 3: works so beautifully. You know, I mentioned that I have

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Speaker 3: a distaste for these synthetic accounts of the Bible that

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Speaker 3: just sort of steam roll over all the different characterizations

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Speaker 3: of Jesus across the Gospels. I think Last Temptation brilliantly

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Speaker 3: deals with many of these differences by choosing to portray

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Speaker 3: Jesus as conflicted, confused, and uncertain. So you get Jesus

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Speaker 3: saying very different kinds of things in this story, and

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Speaker 3: it grows out of him being pulled in different directions

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Speaker 3: by what he believes to be the voice, the voice

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Speaker 3: of God speaking to him, but then also by prophetic

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Speaker 3: influence by other people. He is influenced by the people

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Speaker 3: around him. They sometimes people are able to make persuasive

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Speaker 3: cases to Jesus and prevail upon him. Judas does that

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Speaker 3: in the movie. The John the Baptist does that in

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Speaker 3: the movie, And so he's not depicted as superhumanly confident,

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Speaker 3: all knowing, omniscient in his human form, because it doesn't

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Speaker 3: make sense that a human could be omniscients. It's taking

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Speaker 3: the humanity of Jesus seriously and saying no, he's actually

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Speaker 3: being buffeted about by all of these different influences and

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Speaker 3: he's trying to find his way toward being the savior

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Speaker 3: of humankind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree, and you know it jumping ahead

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Speaker 2: of myself a little bit. But obviously if you know

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Speaker 2: anything about the film, you know that Willem Defoe plays

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Speaker 2: Jesus in this and I was listening to a bit

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Speaker 2: of an older interview. This is, you know, decades old

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Speaker 2: at this point where he was talking about it. In

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Speaker 2: the interviewer ask him, well, you know, what was it

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Speaker 2: like to prepare to play Jesus or what was it

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Speaker 2: like to play Jesus Christ? And his response was like,

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't even begin to know how to do that.

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Speaker 2: I played, you know, I played this guy in this

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Speaker 2: in this screenplay based on this book. You know, because

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Speaker 2: it has to be grounded in something that is you know,

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Speaker 2: for an actor like to Foe to take it on,

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Speaker 2: it has to be grounded in something human and real,

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Speaker 2: something that he can actually like work out in his

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Speaker 2: own mind. Play in these scenes and be true to Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the Jesus in this movie is very human,

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Speaker 3: and he's the It's the first time I've ever seen

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Speaker 3: Jesus played as a character, you know, not as just

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Speaker 3: an infallible kind of wall of pronouncement of wisdom and authority.

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Speaker 3: He's a human character, and he he deals with with doubts,

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Speaker 3: you know, great doubts. He's portrayed as in some ways

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Speaker 3: a very flawed character, but again one who is able

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Speaker 3: to come into his destiny as the savior of humankind

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Speaker 3: with great struggle.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: So one thing I didn't know if I was going

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Speaker 3: to talk about this in the episode, but I after

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Speaker 3: seeing this movie, I actually found myself getting a bit

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Speaker 3: angry about the idea of you know, certain Christians trying

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Speaker 3: to shut down this movie and you know, saying is

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Speaker 3: blasphemous and you know, you can't you can't release this

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Speaker 3: because it's it's just such a misunderstanding. This is, again,

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Speaker 3: the most serious and thoughtful engagement with the meaning of

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Speaker 3: Jesus that I've ever seen in a film, and it

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Speaker 3: just kind of strikes me that if you really think,

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Speaker 3: if you believe in God, and you really think that

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Speaker 3: God would not tolerate a sincere attempt to grapple with

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Speaker 3: the story like this. Then I'm skeptical that you really

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Speaker 3: believe God is good. You know, it just makes it

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Speaker 3: seem like you think that God is so easily offended,

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Speaker 3: and you know, it's like a narcissistic dictator who's going

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Speaker 3: to smash you if you give a poorly phrased compliment. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it just I don't know. That mindset was just making

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Speaker 3: me upset. I think this is a great attempt to

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Speaker 3: deal with what Christianity means.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is a film that engages the

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Speaker 2: viewer in the idea, in the character of Jesus, like

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Speaker 2: in a way that I mean, you know, I'm not

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Speaker 2: saying that it works as any kind of like Christian propaganda,

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Speaker 2: but I can imagine people seeing this film and then

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Speaker 2: being like, we know, maybe I should go back to church,

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Speaker 2: maybe I should give another shot, maybe I should look

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Speaker 2: at it from a different angle, and so forth. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it is thought provoking about about Christianity, about the character

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Speaker 2: of Jesus, and I think for anyone who has any

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Speaker 2: level of familiarity with Christianity, be it you know, a

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Speaker 2: positive story, a negative story, you know, some part of

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Speaker 2: their past life or an important part of their present life.

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Speaker 2: You know, it gives you something to think about and

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Speaker 2: wrestle with. And uh, and yeah, it certainly depicts a

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Speaker 2: different Jesus than the sort of god emperor Jesus that

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Speaker 2: you see with varying shades of uh, you know, the

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Speaker 2: ubermensh machismo, you know, the sort of like you were saying,

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Speaker 2: this sort of like Jesus as a wall of judgment. Uh.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's it's totally different from that. I'm not

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Speaker 2: drawn to those depictions of Christ. I like, I like

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Speaker 2: what we see here, a highly relatable human Jesus. Like

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Speaker 2: that's something I can engage with, you know, and that

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Speaker 2: gives us gives me like so much more to think about.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree, but I would say it's not

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Speaker 3: just more relatable to have a human Jesus like this.

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Speaker 3: It's also there in the core doctrines that I would

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Speaker 3: say most Christians today believe some form of this, that

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Speaker 3: Jesus was both fully God and fully human. And it

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Speaker 3: seems like if you're not going to wrestle with the

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Speaker 3: story in this way, then you're just not thinking about it.

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Speaker 3: You're just putting it out of mind. I mean, you're

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Speaker 3: not grappling with the majesty and mystery and terror that

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Speaker 3: is implied by what you supposedly believe in. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Because again, this is not just throwing it out

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Speaker 2: there like, hey, hear me out, what of Jesus slaved vampires.

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Speaker 2: It's not even saying, hey, hear me out, what of

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Speaker 2: Jesus experienced lust? You know, it's again to your point,

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Speaker 2: it is tackling with some central themes to the whole

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Speaker 2: Christian scenario.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. In other words, I liked this movie. I thought

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Speaker 3: it was very good.

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Speaker 2: Yes, this is a great film, and I'm so glad

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Speaker 2: I finally watched And hey, if you out there listening

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Speaker 2: to the show and or watching the show even would

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Speaker 2: like to view The Last Temptation of Christ as well well.

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Speaker 2: It is widely available, which is great because time was

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Speaker 2: when certain major video stores, including Blockbuster, refuse to carry it.

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Speaker 2: So keep that in mind the next time you encounter

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Speaker 2: someone pushing some like Blockbuster video store nostalgia. Certain films

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Speaker 2: weren't on the shelf, but you can easily find this

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Speaker 2: one digitally today. It's wherever you digitally get your films,

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Speaker 2: go for it. But also, the Criterion collection Blu ray

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Speaker 2: is the definitive physical release.

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Speaker 3: This is interesting. You mentioned about the blockbuster thing years ago,

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Speaker 3: many years ago. Now, there was a time when I

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Speaker 3: house sat for somebody I knew, somebody I greatly admired,

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Speaker 3: who has since passed away. But he and his wife

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Speaker 3: in their house, they had a VCR and I only

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Speaker 3: remembered them own they had a VCR. But I only

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Speaker 3: remember them owning one VHS tape and it was the

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Speaker 3: Last Temptation of Christ. And I was like, that's kind

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Speaker 3: of strange to be the only movie you own. I

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Speaker 3: guess they just rented their other videotapes. But it kind

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Speaker 3: of makes sense that you can't rent that one, can.

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Speaker 2: You that you quite possible?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Or maybe the other version is this is the only

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Speaker 2: movie they ever watched. They had one copy of it.

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Speaker 2: It's the only one they needed. They played it every night.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I do love this movie. I don't know

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Speaker 3: how many times a year I want to watch it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: you know you can get you can get enough crucifixion

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Speaker 3: scenes for to do you for a while.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, this one I will. If anyone out there

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Speaker 2: is hesitant because of crucifixion scenes. Yes, this film does

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Speaker 2: include some graphic depictions of crucifixion, but this film also

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Speaker 2: doesn't go as hard on that as other adaptations have.

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Speaker 2: So you know, I didn't feel like I was personally

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Speaker 2: put through the ringer on this one when it came

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Speaker 2: to the graphic content. But you know, everyone's mind is

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Speaker 2: going to vary on that sort of thing.

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Speaker 3: I would argue that this movie does deal head on

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Speaker 3: with the pain implied by torture and execution. It deals

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Speaker 3: with the pain of crucifixion, but it deals with it

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Speaker 3: as something that is meaningful because it's happening to a

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Speaker 3: human character. It does not use it as gore spectacle

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Speaker 3: the way some other movies that we might not name

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Speaker 3: a famous for doing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well, let's get into the people behind

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Speaker 2: this film, starting of course, at the top of the director,

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Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese, who was born in nineteen forty two and

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Speaker 2: as of this recording is still out there, still producing, directing,

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Speaker 2: making movies. I don't think he's ever going to stop.

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Speaker 2: He has, of course, a living icon of American cinema.

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Speaker 2: We previously discussed him very briefly in our episode on

433
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 2: Krisawa's Dreams because Marty shows up in that playing Vincent

434
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 2: van go Oh, so were just like you know who.

435
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 2: This says now we can talk about him a little

436
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 2: bit more. At this point in his career, he was,

437
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 2: of course, already a season pro, an Oscar nominee. All

438
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 2: of that just to say the least. He directed multiple

439
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 2: short films during the sixties, a longer documentary, as well

440
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 2: as the sixty seven feature length film Who's That Knocking

441
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 2: at My Door starring Harvey Titel in the first of

442
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 2: many projects together. He followed that up with the Roger

443
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 2: Korman produced boxcar Bertha in seventy two, Mean Streets in

444
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:38,439
Speaker 2: seventy three, that being you know his real breakthrough Alice

445
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: Doesn't Live Here Anymore in seventy four, Taxi Driver, of

446
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 2: Course in seventy six. Subsequent films leading up to Last

447
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 2: Temptation included nineteen eighties Raging Bull that was nominated for

448
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 2: an Oscar, eighty two Is the King of Comedy, eighty

449
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 2: five's After Hours, and eighty six is the Color of Money.

450
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 3: I know I'm not the first person to think of this,

451
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 3: but you can't help but wonder about an alternate version

452
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 3: of Last Temptation of Christ, starring more some other of

453
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 3: Scorsese's regular favorite actors as the role of Jesus and

454
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 3: so forth. So you know Jesus, says de Niro. Jesus

455
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 3: is Joe PESHI.

456
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Steve Simmy was apparently in the

457
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 2: running for the role, and really yeah, yeah, I've heard

458
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 2: that he auditioned for it any rate. I don't know

459
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 2: to what degree he was like a serious contender. I

460
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 2: think he would have done a great job. It would

461
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 2: have been a different movie. So yeah, de Niro, I

462
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 2: mean de Niro in eighty eight. Yeah, it would have

463
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 2: been interesting, would have been a different film though, Yeah.

464
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: All right, asking for that all that world. I like

465
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 3: Willem Dafoe a lot.

466
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's wonderful here. And we'll get back

467
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 2: to him in just a minute. But but yeah, for

468
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 2: as far as Scorsese goes, the last temptation was, if

469
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 2: you'll allow me to say so, a passion project for him,

470
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 2: and the studio apparently agreed to it in exchange for

471
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 2: a more commercial project down the line, and this would

472
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 2: end up being ninety one's Cape Fear. But Marty had

473
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,120
Speaker 2: to make do with a pretty small budget on this one,

474
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:13,399
Speaker 2: all things considered, just seven million dollars. Now, it's always

475
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:15,479
Speaker 2: hard for me to figure it, and we're talking about

476
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,199
Speaker 2: anything over even like one million, I'm like, what does

477
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 2: that number even mean? I don't know. But to put

478
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 2: it in context of just films that came out that year,

479
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 2: Rambo three had a budget of between fifty eight and

480
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: sixty three million dollars. Supposedly Crocodile Done Dee two had

481
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 2: fourteen million dollar budget, so twice that of Less Temptation.

482
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 2: John Carpenter's They Live had a three million dollar budget,

483
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 2: and then Killer Clowns from Outer Space had a budget

484
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 2: of one point eight million. So you know, there's all

485
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 2: sorts of sorcery involved in Hollywood budgets and film budgets.

486
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 2: But maybe that puts everything in a loose perspective here.

487
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 2: So despite the controversy surrounding this picture and some of

488
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 2: the blowback, Scorsese would of course return after this film

489
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 2: with the nineteen ninety hit Good Fee. He's been nominated

490
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 2: many times for an Oscar, including for Last Temptation, finally

491
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 2: won the Oscar in two thousand and seven for That Departed.

492
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 2: Now there's a lot you can say about Scorcedes particular

493
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 2: fingerprints on a film like this, because of course we

494
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 2: associate Marty with New York City, and here he populates

495
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:21,719
Speaker 2: a story of Jesus Christ with a variety of New

496
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 2: York actors, or at least actors who might seem more

497
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 2: in keeping with a contemporary New York City movie as

498
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 2: opposed to one set in the Roman province of Judea

499
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: nine hundred and eighty eight years earlier.

500
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 4: Right.

501
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there's a thing that the movie does

502
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 3: which I actually greatly respect, which is it doesn't try

503
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 3: to homogenize the human character texture. You know, it doesn't

504
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 3: a lot of historical movies. I think we've talked about

505
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 3: this irony before that a lot of historical movies indicate

506
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 3: that there is a historical setting by having all of

507
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 3: the characters speak with British accents, which is hilarious.

508
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, we know, we all know only the Romans spoke

509
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 2: with British accents, if we know anything from cinema, and

510
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 2: I guess this film kind of sticks to this.

511
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 3: No, well no, but it's I think that's only because

512
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,959
Speaker 3: David Bowie actually had a British accent and he plays

513
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 3: the Roman. The main Roman character pilot here. But that

514
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 3: is a funny point. But yeah, everybody just talks the

515
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 3: way they talk. There is a there is a loose

516
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 3: fluid letting people just be themselves in the way they

517
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 3: act out their characters. That is, it feels appropriate to

518
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 3: the approach here in much the same way that the

519
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 3: story does not claim to be an accurate historical representation

520
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 3: of who Jesus was, nor does it claim to be

521
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 3: a you know, a faithful direct adaptation of the Christian literature.

522
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 3: It is its own modern exploration of the story through

523
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 3: through creative originality, and the acting feels the same way.

524
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 3: It is a modern, original exploration of these characters, not

525
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 3: attempting to be grounded in the reality of the time

526
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 3: and place. Yeah.

527
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not speaking in Aramaic. They're not speaking like

528
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 2: it's the King James version of the of the the Bible.

529
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 2: It's it is in kind of a New York vernacular.

530
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 2: I was listening to an old Terry Gross fresh air

531
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 2: interview with one of the stars of this film, Barbara Hershey,

532
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 2: and Terry, in an offhand comment, describes the film as

533
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 2: a kind of quote New York contemporary version of the Bible.

534
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 2: Which which Hershey then agrees to on some to some extent,

535
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 2: but she says, quote, Marty's ears are New York ears,

536
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 2: and you know, she basically says that, you know, like

537
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 2: Marty was just going for like what felt real, and

538
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: that meant the real performances, and you know it's ends

539
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 2: up sounding a little New York. Well, you know, that's

540
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 2: just part of who's making it.

541
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 3: I mean, I think if you accept the spirit in

542
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 3: which the story is told, it works just fine. I

543
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 3: like it a lot, and in fact, I would say

544
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 3: we'll probably get to this in just a minute. A

545
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 3: lot of the hate that Harvey Kayitel for his performance

546
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 3: in this movie, which I think is entirely unjustified, is

547
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 3: just about the fact that he was speaking in his

548
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 3: natural accent, and that just didn't feel right to people

549
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 3: who were used to stuffier historical epics where everybody either

550
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 3: has naturally or puts on a British accent to be

551
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 3: from long ago.

552
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now here's another interesting thing about Scorsese's

553
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 2: approach to the film. Well mentioned the budget seven million dollars,

554
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 2: and I was listening to some old, an old interview

555
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 2: with Marty himself about the film and he really drove

556
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 2: home how like low budget and scrappy this movie really was.

557
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 2: You know, all the actors were working for skill. It

558
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: was shot in rural parts of Morocco. Willem Dafoez pointed

559
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: out in interviews that in between takes, you didn't get

560
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 2: to go to your trailer, You got to go to

561
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 2: a tenant if you were lucky. That sort of thing.

562
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 2: It was. You know, they're kind of roughing it. And

563
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 2: Marty actually credited his work with and his familiarity with

564
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 2: Roger Corman for being able to pull off the production.

565
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 2: I love that, Yeah, like leaning on some of the

566
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 2: tricks that low budget, scrappy filmmakers were having to employ.

567
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Marty's not alone in that regard. A lot

568
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 3: of the greats in American cinema learned it from Roger

569
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 3: Corman or from being around the Roger Corman camp. Yeah.

570
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 2: So there's a particular story that Scorsese has shared. We

571
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 2: have a scene in the film where you have like

572
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 2: Roman soldiers coming in from one side and then another,

573
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 2: and then there are these levied soldiers as well. But

574
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 2: Marty only had five stumpmen that he brought in from Rome,

575
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 2: and so he had to have them play first the

576
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 2: five Roman soldiers coming from one direction, and then all right,

577
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 2: move them over here and have them come from the

578
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 2: other direction. Okay, and now they have to dress up

579
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 2: as the levels and do that number. So really, just

580
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 2: trying to make the most out of a limited budget,

581
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: limited people in limited time.

582
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 3: I love that too. Yeah, I mean, you can't tell

583
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 3: it it doesn't feel like a cheap movie.

584
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 2: No, no, I mean it doesn't feel And I may

585
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 2: have even included the description of a reallypic religious epic,

586
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 2: and it is a religious epic, and it's I guess

587
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: in its subject matter, but not in the sense of

588
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: like eighteen thousand extras and some sort of huge budget

589
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: religious epic. Not that sort of epic, right, Yeah, few

590
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 2: bodies on the screen really when you compare it to

591
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 2: other Bible movies. But then it works in its favor

592
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 2: because this is a film about more about interpersonal relationships.

593
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 2: So you know, how much of a crowd do you

594
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 2: want in a scene like that? All right, moving to

595
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 2: the script here again, let's start with Nick Cousin Zakis,

596
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 2: because we mentioned him already wrote the original novel. He

597
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 2: lived eighteen eighty three to nineteen fifty seven, Greek author,

598
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,240
Speaker 2: best known internationally for nineteen forty seven Zorba the Greek

599
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:14,239
Speaker 2: and fifty five Is the Last Temptation of Christ, as

600
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 2: both were famously directed for English language film. Zorba was

601
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 2: of course adapted in nineteen sixty four in a film

602
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 2: starring Anthony Quinn. The first film adaptation of his work

603
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 2: was nineteen fifty seven's He Who Must Die, based on

604
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: his novel Christ re Crucified. Now the adaptation here. The

605
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 2: screenplay comes to us from Paul Schrader born nineteen forty six,

606
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 2: as a screenwriter, well known for his work with scorsesea

607
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 2: on such films as seventy six As Taxi Driver and

608
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 2: eighties Raging Bull. He started directing in seventy eight with

609
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,399
Speaker 2: Blue Collar, and then went on to helm the likes

610
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 2: of seventy nine's Hardcore, eighty two's Cat People, eighty five's

611
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 2: Mashima A Life in Four Chapters, ninety four's witch Hunt,

612
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 2: two thousand and five's Dominion, and twenty seventeens First Reformed

613
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 2: That and him an Oscar nomination. But yeah, so it's

614
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 2: interesting to think about this being a Paul Schrader script

615
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 2: because I don't know when I think about him, I

616
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 2: think about taxi driver. I think about like really or

617
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 2: I think about hardcore. I think about something that was

618
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 2: like really gritty and probably not so directly dealing with

619
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 2: themes of like love and forgiveness. Not to say those

620
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 2: textures are not there in his work. But you don't think,

621
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:26,880
Speaker 2: Paul Schrader think get this guy a Jesus movie.

622
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't feel like a natural fit for a

623
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 3: telling of the you know, or an exploration of the

624
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 3: life of Jesus. But I think the script is excellent. Yeah,

625
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 3: I think it's wonderful. Yeah, absolutely all right. Getting into

626
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,359
Speaker 3: the cast, as we mentioned already, Jesus is played by

627
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:48,240
Speaker 3: Willem Dafoe born nineteen fifty five, American actor of stage

628
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 3: and screen, who came out of the New York City

629
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 3: based Wooster Experimental Theater group, of which he was a

630
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 3: founding member in the late nineteen seventies. His first notable

631
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:00,720
Speaker 3: film appearance was eighty one's The Loveless from from Catherine

632
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 3: Bigelow and Monty Montgomery, and of course, he pops up

633
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 3: briefly as second phone booth youth in eighty three's The Hunger,

634
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,760
Speaker 3: which we previously covered. Yeah, he's in Streets of Fire.

635
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 3: I keep thinking we've done that, but we haven't yet.

636
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 2: No, no, but that's that's one of the early big ones.

637
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 2: Eighty four on that eighty five is to Live and

638
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 2: Die in La And then a real breakout role in

639
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 2: eighty six is Platoon.

640
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 3: In which he also plays Jesus.

641
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 2: Well he does, yeah, kind of right, he plays He

642
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 2: plays a very good, like moral compass sort of character.

643
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 3: Yes, he plays a character who is viewed viewed as

644
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 3: a quite heroic and noble by the main character, and

645
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,760
Speaker 3: then and then dies almost in a way that's implied

646
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 3: to be dies for the sins of others.

647
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 2: Oh wow. Yeah. And I've also read that like this

648
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 2: was kind of like a key role in sort of.

649
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 2: I mean, I think an actor with Defoe's abilities and

650
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 2: his and his taste was always going to play a diverse,

651
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 2: diverse array of roles. He wasn't. This is this guy

652
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 2: was never gonna get pigeonholed into just playing villains. But

653
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 2: it helps, probably from like a business of Hollywood standpoint,

654
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 2: to have a really standout role occur when you're playing

655
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 2: just an absolute good guy.

656
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 3: But when he does play a bad guy, he's capable

657
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 3: of an absolutely like world class evil grimlin face.

658
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,240
Speaker 2: Yes, he man. There's so much to say about Defoe.

659
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 2: I mean, he's yeah, because he's He's played heroes and villains,

660
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 2: He's played weirdos and straight shooters, grim faced, you know, evildoers,

661
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 2: comedic characters, He's played monsters, and of course the Messiah

662
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 2: just has amazing range. He has this gloriously contemplative voice

663
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 2: that I was thinking it's it's almost like a red

664
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 2: based instrument, and he has this slow, deliberate delivery in

665
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:53,919
Speaker 2: the way he says everything, especially in this film. And yes,

666
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 2: of course an incredibly expressive face capable of just extreme

667
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 2: broad expressions but also great delicacy, and you know, just

668
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 2: so much range too. That like, Defoe's one of those

669
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 2: guys who can with very little, you know, or at

670
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 2: least subtle makeup. He can play suave, he can play

671
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 2: like every day you know, blue collar, he can play

672
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,319
Speaker 2: grotesque like he can do at all. And so much

673
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 2: of it is just in what he knows how to

674
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 2: do with his own body, his own voice, his own

675
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 2: facial expressions and so forth.

676
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 3: One thing that I think is pretty amazing about his

677
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 3: performance in this movie is how is the range of

678
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 3: his level of dominance that he displays, because there are

679
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 3: scenes in which he is in which he credibly commands

680
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 3: a crowd. You know, you can see him as the

681
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 3: leader of an insurrection against Rome or the you know,

682
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 3: the preacher who people are following. Other in other scenes

683
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 3: he is utterly lost and hopeless and does not know

684
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,839
Speaker 3: what he's doing and seems can fused and awkward, and

685
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 3: he occupies the entire range there flawlessly, I would.

686
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 2: Say, yeah, absolutely, yes, scenes where he is just commanding

687
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 2: the crowd, and then these scenes where he's like I

688
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 2: am afraid, I need you to hold me judas uh,

689
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 2: you know, and and just you know, completely believable. In

690
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 2: all this, it's just an incredible performance full of it's

691
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 2: just raw and and and there's torment, and it's he's

692
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 2: ultimately a human being, just like all of us. Uh,

693
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 2: but there is this divine force that is at times

694
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 2: moving through him, that is animating him, that's confounding him

695
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 2: and is tormenting him at times.

696
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I also really like the scene we can

697
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 3: talk about this later, but the scene where he's not

698
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 3: good at preaching yet, when he starts preaching in parables

699
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 3: and he's doing a bad job and people are not

700
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 3: following him.

701
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're like, who's this guy that makes me sense?

702
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah. Oh.

703
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 2: And then and then you have the some some characters

704
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 2: willow thing and he says, oh, those who are laughing

705
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 2: now may be crying later, and they're like, yeah, that's right,

706
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 2: Jesus will kill these guys. I didn't say anything about

707
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 2: killing anybody. So you know, there's some mild life. This

708
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 2: is not a comedy, but this is not the life

709
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 2: of Brian. But there's you know, perhaps a few nods

710
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 2: here and there that you can, you know, rightfully giggle at.

711
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: So there's of course much to be said about the

712
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 2: varying ways that we've depicted Jesus Christ over not even

713
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 2: the cinematic history, but the course of Christianity across many centuries.

714
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 2: We've seen visions of Christ as pretty much every racial

715
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,440
Speaker 2: group on earth. And to be clear in this, in

716
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,439
Speaker 2: this case, we do have a very white Jesus, there's

717
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 2: there's no denying it. But we've had depictions of feminine

718
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 2: Christ that go way back as well. So if the

719
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 2: story of Christ is that of God reaching out to humanity,

720
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 2: then our depictions of him are also part of this

721
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 2: reaching out to each other, I feel, and that's what

722
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 2: I love so much about Defoe's performance here throughout the

723
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 2: entirety of the film, from beginning to end, and he

724
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 2: feels so relatably human. Yeah, all right, let's talk about

725
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,240
Speaker 2: Judas then, played by Harvey Kaitel born nineteen thirty nine.

726
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 2: If there was ever any doubt. Brooklyn born American actor

727
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: best known for playing tough guys, often morally ambiguous figures.

728
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: He's worked six times with CORSESI thus far. He was

729
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 2: in Who's that Knocking at My Door? Mean streets, Alice

730
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:31,720
Speaker 2: Doesn't Live Here Anymore? From seventy four, Taxi Driver, Last Temptation,

731
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 2: and then much later on The Irishman in twenty nineteen,

732
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 2: so his work with Marty was among his earliest film credits.

733
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 2: He's also well known, of course, for his work with

734
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 2: Tarantino and ninety two's Reservoir Dogs ninety four is pulp fiction.

735
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 2: Ninety two's Bad Lieutenant stands out as one of his

736
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 2: probably more most memorable performances as well.

737
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 3: And the original one, not the one with Nicholas Cage.

738
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, this would be we're talking about the

739
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 2: the Abele Ferrara film, not the Herzog film, which I

740
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 2: it's very little connecting the two other than the title.

741
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 3: I'm to understand almost nothing. From what I understand.

742
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe they're part of the Bad Lieutenant universe, because

743
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 2: I think there's another Bad Lieutenant film coming out at

744
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 2: some point. I don't know. I don't know anything about it, but.

745
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 3: We'll see you.

746
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. But Kyitel would also earn an Oscar nomination for

747
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:27,840
Speaker 2: his work in ninety two in the film Bugsy. This film, however,

748
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 2: or for this film, Kyeel received a Razzie Award nomination.

749
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 2: We alluded to some of the blowback regarding his performance here,

750
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 2: and I normally wouldn't even mention the Razzies because my

751
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 2: opinion in general is that they vary from the very

752
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 2: varying degrees of tone deaf, mean spirited, and just above

753
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 2: all not fun and well.

754
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 3: Just can I offer one counter example. I think it's

755
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 3: fun that Paul Verhoven showed up in person to accept

756
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 3: his Razzie Award for show Girls. Oh but I don't.

757
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 3: I'm not a big follower of the Razzies or anything,

758
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 3: but yeah, I get the feeling that some of these

759
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 3: awards are received more in the spirit of good fun

760
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:13,840
Speaker 3: and other ones are kind of hurtful.

761
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And maybe I just end up focusing more

762
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 2: on what seems mean spirited or tone death or just

763
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 2: historically stupid, like for instance, you know, they've they've heaped

764
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 2: on Neil Morricone for his score for John Carpenter's The

765
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: Thing score. Great score, yeah, but people buy it on vinyl.

766
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 2: Uh And and I think it's terrific.

767
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 4: They did.

768
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: They heaped on The Shining when it came out, ripping

769
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 2: both Kubrick and Shelley Duvall, Like who's outside of Stephen King?

770
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 3: Who?

771
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 2: Who? Who really sits around talking talking about how bad

772
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:53,879
Speaker 2: the Shining is? You know, And they've they've given worse

773
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 2: Special Effects awards to Industrial Light and Magic. They gave

774
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 2: a Worst Original Song Award to Prince of all people.

775
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm not a fan of the Razzies. But

776
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 2: I guess if you're looking to criticize that sort of

777
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,840
Speaker 2: New York wavelength to the last Temptation of Christ, I

778
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: guess Kytel's Judas is sort of the lightning Rod, though

779
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 2: only marginally more so than some of the other New

780
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 2: York associated actors in the picture. But I think Kytel

781
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 2: is actually pretty great in this as we'll discuss his

782
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,919
Speaker 2: Judas is a lot more complicated than the idea of

783
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 2: a mere betrayer, someone who just sells out Christ.

784
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely so much more. You know. I would say

785
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 3: one thing that this movie has in common with Jesus

786
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 3: Christ Superstar is that Judas is like the most interesting

787
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 3: character to me, And like, you know, maybe apart from

788
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 3: Jesus himself in this movie, who they actually do make

789
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 3: incredibly interesting. But yeah, Judas is a is a fascinating

790
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 3: complex character. He is somebody who he has his own desires.

791
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 3: And I wanted to talk about this later in the

792
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 3: plot section, but I think it's so interesting that they're that,

793
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 3: even after the Ministry of Jesus begins, that he is

794
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:06,720
Speaker 3: somebody who's gathering followers as a teacher and a leader

795
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 3: and maybe a messianic type figure. That he and Judas

796
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 3: treat each other as peers, and they they sort of

797
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 3: trade authority back and forth when they have debates and conversation,

798
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 3: and that, you know, Judas is well, I like in

799
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 3: this movie that he's kind of a tough guy. Like

800
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 3: that is a different, a different take than you would

801
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 3: usually get on Judas, who is often portrayed as a

802
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 3: more kind of a sinister backstabber. But this is this

803
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 3: guy is the opposite of a backstabber. He's a front stabber.

804
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 3: He is a he's a very tough, a tough, no

805
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 3: nonsense guy who has strong beliefs and he stands up

806
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:51,239
Speaker 3: for them.

807
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's blunt, he's brutally direct. He's a soldier of

808
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 2: rebellion in a troubled world who finds himself gradually and

809
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 2: kind of guardedly opening up to this message of passivism,

810
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,879
Speaker 2: love and submission. I really like there's there's a point

811
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 2: in the film where he Judas comes up to Jesus

812
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 2: and he says, and my delivery of this is not

813
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 2: going to be I'm just going to read the lines.

814
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 2: But Kittel does such a great job with them, with

815
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:20,399
Speaker 2: the words I thought, and he says, the other day,

816
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 2: when you said turn the other cheek to the man

817
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 2: that hit you, I didn't like that. Only an angel

818
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 2: could do that, only an angel or a dog. I'm

819
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 2: a free man. I don't turn my cheek to anyone.

820
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 2: And you can imagine a read of these lines. This

821
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 2: just complete tough guy. You know, it's just like, like,

822
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 2: you know, I don't buy into that at all, but

823
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 2: Ky tell manages to balance it all just perfectly. Like

824
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 2: he is a tough guy. He does disagree, but he

825
00:46:42,239 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 2: is trying really hard to understand what this man is

826
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 2: telling him, a man that he that he really trusts

827
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 2: and has grown to trust so much. Yeah, this is

828
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 2: a Judas that is you know, may seem ironic to

829
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 2: say this, but he is very loving and loyal and

830
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 2: all of this ends up, you know, making sense in

831
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 2: the plot.

832
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, in this telling of the story, Judas

833
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 3: betrays Jesus because he is loyal. I mean, you know,

834
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 3: it should already be clear that you know, this will

835
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 3: contain spoilers for the movie, so you know, if you

836
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 3: want to see it with all surprises intact, of course,

837
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,840
Speaker 3: please pause here and go watch the movie first. But yes,

838
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 3: Judas in this movie is explicitly given instruction by Christ.

839
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 3: Jesus tells him, You've got to turn me over to

840
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 3: the Romans. That's what has to happen. And I think

841
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 3: this is another case where that you know, it doesn't

842
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 3: say in the Bible that Jesus tells Judas to betray him,

843
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 3: but it does address a strange mystery that is implied

844
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 3: in the text. You know, a lot of Christians over

845
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 3: the ages have wondered, why is it that Judas is

846
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 3: treated as as this great villain of history, as the

847
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 3: worst there ever was? If what he did was what

848
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 3: had to happen in order for God's plan to be fulfilled.

849
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, even Dante doesn't understand that. I guess putting

850
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 2: him right there in Satan's mouth is one of the

851
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,439
Speaker 2: three great right, the three great traders of all time?

852
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, you know, people come up with

853
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 3: different ways of trying to address that, but I think

854
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 3: it's a serious question. So if you believe in God,

855
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 3: and you believe God wanted and needed this to happen,

856
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 3: how could he punish the person who did it? Yeah?

857
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, So that's Judas.

858
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 2: And we're not going to go through all the disciples,

859
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 2: just to be clear, otherwise we'll be here all day.

860
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 3: But we're going to the film does make Judas the

861
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:47,760
Speaker 3: most important to Yes, yeah.

862
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I will say that that is one of

863
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:50,919
Speaker 2: the other reasons that Kay tells Judas is so key

864
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 2: here is because we get to know Jesus as a

865
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,399
Speaker 2: character so much more than other films, but also there's

866
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 2: a certain amount of understanding him through the eye of

867
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 2: the people who are witnessing him, and Judas is really,

868
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 2: if not the primary witness, one of the primary witnesses. Yes,

869
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 2: one of the others too, being the character of Mary Magdalen,

870
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 2: played here by Barbara Hershey born nineteen forty eight. Mentioned

871
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 2: Boxcar Bertha already from seventy two. She was in that

872
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 2: that was Corman produced, and apparently on the set of

873
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 2: that film she had hyped up the novel The Last

874
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 2: Temptation of Christ too Storsese along with her then husband

875
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 2: and co star David Carodine.

876
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 3: Wow.

877
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 2: Now we can also imagine an alternate universe where David

878
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:42,239
Speaker 2: Carodine ends up playing Jesus in this film, and maybe

879
00:49:42,239 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 2: he would have been great, but it would have been

880
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 2: a different film, a different Jesus.

881
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:46,919
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know if that's the version I want.

882
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 2: Other Barbara Hershey films include eighties The Stuntman, eighty twos,

883
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 2: The Entity, ninety three is Falling Down, twenty ten's Black Swan,

884
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 2: and the Insidious film franchise. She won an ME and

885
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 2: a Golden Globe for Outstanding Lead Actress in a mini

886
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 2: series for her role in A Killing in a Small

887
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 2: Town in nineteen ninety and she was nominated for an

888
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 2: Academy Award in ninety seven for the Portrait of a Lady.

889
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,760
Speaker 2: I think she's really great here. It's a yeah, it's

890
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 2: a complicated role, and she does a fabulous job with it.

891
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:22,800
Speaker 3: Like some of the other actors in here, like Harvey Kaitel,

892
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 3: and like Harry Deane Stanton, she gets great scenes of

893
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 3: just berating Jesus to his face and telling him the

894
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 3: things that are wrong with him, and she's not wrong.

895
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So we'll get into some examples of that

896
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 2: here in a bit. Let's see, I'm trying to go

897
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 2: faster with some of these here. Verna Bloom plays Mary,

898
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:45,720
Speaker 2: mother of Jesus. She lived nineteen thirty eight through twenty nineteen.

899
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 2: American actress of stage, screen, and TV. You might have

900
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 2: seen her in such films as seventy three's High Planes Drifters.

901
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,799
Speaker 2: Let's see. We also have John the Baptist showing up

902
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 2: in this film, played by Andre Gregory born nineteen thirty four.

903
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 2: If you're familiar with the nineteen eighty one film My

904
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 2: Dinner with Andre, even only by its title, well, This

905
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:09,839
Speaker 2: is Andre frenchborn American theater director, writer and actor, often

906
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 2: associated with the avant garde. I believe he's retired from

907
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 2: active directing now but remains active in the arts. Dinner

908
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 2: was his first film role, however, and he followed that

909
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 2: up with roles in such varied movies as eighty six

910
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:28,200
Speaker 2: is the Mosquito Coast, ninety three is Demolition Man, ninety

911
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 2: four is The Shadow, and the twenty sixteen series The

912
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 2: Young Pope.

913
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:35,280
Speaker 3: Trench and Inside Andre.

914
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 2: So this is one of many performances in this film

915
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 2: that I think really brings an excellent weird energy to

916
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 2: the spirituality and religiosity of the picture. Like this, it

917
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 2: reminds you that this is not We're not dealing with

918
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 2: a religious world of cathedrals here. We're dealing with the

919
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,879
Speaker 2: religion of the desert. And this is yet. We'll say

920
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 2: more about this later, but the John the Baptist in

921
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 2: the film is wonderful and weird. I really like it.

922
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not This is not a boring Sunday

923
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 3: service With John the Baptist, his religiosity is wild. Yes,

924
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 3: I already mentioned Harry Dean Stanton as playing Saul of Tarsus,

925
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:20,760
Speaker 3: slash Paul the Christian. What a strange role for Harry

926
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 3: Dean Huh, yeah.

927
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Harry Dean Stanton, of course, lived in nineteen twenty

928
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 2: six through twenty seventeen American character actor who was just

929
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 2: in so much six decades of work in such movies

930
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,879
Speaker 2: as Cool Hand, Luke in sixty seven, Godfather Part two

931
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:42,800
Speaker 2: and seventy four, Wise Blood in seventy nine, Alien Escape

932
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 2: from New York. I could go on and on. There's

933
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:47,439
Speaker 2: just so many great roles for him. But there's often

934
00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 2: a sort of meekness to a Harry Dean Stanton role,

935
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 2: you know, there's sort of a you know, he often

936
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 2: plays these kind of like, you know, meek, not really

937
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 2: shy characters, but they kind of in and out of

938
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 2: the background. But you can't really say that about his

939
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 2: performances Saul.

940
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 3: Here, not at all. No. I mean there's a scene

941
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 3: late in the film where he tells Jesus off because

942
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 3: Jesus tries to disagree with his preaching and Saul or

943
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 3: I guess he's Paul at this point. Paul is just

944
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 3: like get out of here. There's a line where he says, like,

945
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 3: I'm glad I met you, so I can forget You're

946
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 3: you're not worth my time, get out of here. And yeah,

947
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 3: he's brutal.

948
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a scene in Lazarus. The resurrection of

949
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 2: Lazarus is depicted in the film, and he murders Lazarus.

950
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 2: So there's this great scene where Saul comes up to

951
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 2: him and he says, feeling better and Lazarus says, Lazarus is,

952
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 2: you know, kind of dazed. He's come back from the dead.

953
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 2: And he says, I like the light. And Saul says,

954
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 2: what was it like, which is better life or death?

955
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 2: And Lazarus says, well, I was a little surprised there

956
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 2: wasn't that much difference. And Saul says, well, let me

957
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:55,840
Speaker 2: help you make up your mind, and then stads in

958
00:53:55,920 --> 00:54:00,359
Speaker 2: front steps yeah, and I was like, wow, this does

959
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 2: not play around.

960
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean I think that's depicted as part

961
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 3: of Saul's persecution of Christians before his conversion. His persecution

962
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 3: of Christians goes so far that he cannot even allow

963
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 3: this resurrected, this man resurrected by Jesus to live. He's

964
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:20,240
Speaker 3: got to put down any scent of this heresy.

965
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 2: Yeah.

966
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 3: Yeah.

967
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 2: We also have a character show up in the film

968
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 2: that is referred to as the Old Master, and he's

969
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 2: played by Robert S. Blossom with nineteen twenty four through

970
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:31,439
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, perhaps best known to many as the Old

971
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 2: Guy from Home Alone. Stage actor and character actor of

972
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 2: TV and film, with credits going back to the fifties,

973
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:40,799
Speaker 2: noted for roles in such films as seventy seven's Close

974
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 2: Encounters of the Third Kind and eighty three's Christine.

975
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 3: And Home Alone. The salt turns the bodies into mummies,

976
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 3: but the irony being in this movie we see him

977
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:55,400
Speaker 3: being buried in a very creepy ethereal almost mummy like scene.

978
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's see. We also have Peter Is.

979
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 2: I think he has a lot of screen time in

980
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 2: this played by Victor Argo, who lived nineteen thirty four

981
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 2: through two thousand and four, a New York character actor

982
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 2: of stage, screen and TV, known for his work with

983
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and so forth, often played tough

984
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 2: guys and heavies. Other noted films include eighty six is

985
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 2: Raw Deal in nineteen nineties King of New York definitely

986
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 2: a strong bit of New York City cast in color here.

987
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:26,240
Speaker 2: I would say even more so than Harvey Kaitel.

988
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 3: He was in Raw Deal.

989
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:30,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he plays like dangerous man or something

990
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 2: in Raw Deal again, often played Heavies all right, And

991
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 2: as mentioned earlier, we have David Bowie playing pilot. We've

992
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 2: talked about Bowie multiple times in the show before because

993
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 2: we've talked about several Bowie films. Seventy six is The

994
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 2: Man Who Fell to Earth, eighty three is The Hunger,

995
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:50,600
Speaker 2: eighty six is Labyrinth, and here he plays the fifth

996
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 2: Governor of the Roman Province of Judea, A definite historical person,

997
00:55:56,680 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 2: but one subject to a vast array of portrayals and

998
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: religious tradition and religious media. Throughout the history of Christianity's

999
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 2: he has been regarded as everything from a saint to

1000
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 2: a reluctant judge to just a you know, a mustache

1001
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 2: twirling villain himself. And I really found Bowie's portrayal interesting

1002
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:22,319
Speaker 2: here He's so he's not reluctant, but I would say

1003
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 2: he is. He comes off. He came off to me anyway.

1004
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:27,719
Speaker 2: Is bureaucratically detached?

1005
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:34,839
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, detached, So you know the real you use

1006
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 3: the word reluctant, and yes, the reluctant pilot is a

1007
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 3: convention going way back in Christianity and was actually I

1008
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:47,920
Speaker 3: think it's widely understood by many historians at least to

1009
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:53,200
Speaker 3: be part of the anti Jewish developments in the story

1010
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:55,840
Speaker 3: of the Crucifixion over time. So, like if you track

1011
00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 3: depictions of the Crucifixion and how Christian theologians to talk

1012
00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 3: about it over time, the earliest accounts and earliest discussion

1013
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 3: are going to acknowledge Pilot as he's the one responsible.

1014
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 3: He's condemning Jesus to torture and death. That is generally

1015
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 3: what historians think probably happened in history. But later accounts

1016
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 3: increasingly portray Pilot as reluctant to harm Jesus, and these

1017
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 3: stories shift the blame onto the Jewish leaders or sometimes

1018
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 3: even on to the Jewish people. Sometimes this is interpreted

1019
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:32,960
Speaker 3: by historians as a result of conflict between like Roman

1020
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:36,920
Speaker 3: Christians and Jews who did not accept the resurrection of Christ,

1021
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 3: you know, so they like make them the bad guys

1022
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 3: of the story. So this does not fall into that

1023
00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 3: Katie Pilot is not portrayed as reluctant here, but it's

1024
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 3: something that I think could easily be interpreted as reluctance

1025
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 3: it's actually just that Pilot is very gentle and soft

1026
00:57:55,880 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 3: spoken and cultured. In the scene where he condemns Jesus,

1027
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 3: he is absolutely, I think a figure of evil in

1028
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:07,840
Speaker 3: this story. He represents one of the most evil, like

1029
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 3: really the central locus of evil in the story, except

1030
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 3: apart from the character of Satan himself. But the way

1031
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 3: that he represents evil is in how he hands out

1032
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 3: torture and death like it's nothing, without the least a

1033
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 3: bit of excitement or anger or any emotion at all.

1034
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:31,880
Speaker 3: He comes off as someone who is sophisticated and urbane

1035
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 3: and probably even kind to people in his personal dealings,

1036
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 3: but will just send people to the cross for the

1037
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 3: slightest whiff of troublemaking. And you know, there's a moment

1038
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 3: in the movie where he sits down and gives Jesus

1039
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 3: an explanation. This just like, you know, I'm sorry, this

1040
00:58:49,520 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 3: just can't be tolerated. Attempts to change the order of

1041
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,200
Speaker 3: the world. They're not tolerable to the empire. And it

1042
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 3: doesn't matter whether that change comes by violence or by

1043
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:00,680
Speaker 3: a message of love. You're just you're walking the boat.

1044
00:59:00,800 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 3: That's not acceptable. You're going to die now, Yeah, yeah.

1045
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:06,160
Speaker 2: And he has this. He also ends with this great

1046
00:59:06,200 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 2: line about the number of skulls at Golgotha, like saying,

1047
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:12,840
Speaker 2: I wish I wish you people would count the skulls.

1048
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:16,439
Speaker 2: Maybe would make a difference, but probably not. You know, which,

1049
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 2: you know? Is it?

1050
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 3: You know?

1051
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 2: I think Cements is sort of his cold estimation of everything.

1052
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 2: You know, It's like, these are all the skulls that

1053
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 2: I have helped accumulate there by sending people to torture

1054
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:29,600
Speaker 2: and death, and it's not going to stop. But I

1055
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,960
Speaker 2: also highly doubt any of it makes any difference. Yeah,

1056
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 2: so yeah, rather chilling.

1057
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 3: It's almost that the way Pilot is characterized here, it's

1058
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 3: like it doesn't matter to him if the skulls and

1059
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 3: the crucifixion are a deterrent or not. He just thinks like, well,

1060
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 3: this is what you do, This is what you gotta do.

1061
00:59:48,760 --> 00:59:52,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna I have some

1062
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 2: other people in the notes, some other actors. I'm going

1063
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 2: to skip them. We may come back to them when

1064
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 2: we get into the plot. I'm going to mention really quickly.

1065
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:01,439
Speaker 2: The cinematographer here is Michael Aauhaus, who of nineteen thirty

1066
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 2: five through twenty seventeen German cinematographer, known for his work

1067
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:09,280
Speaker 2: with the Renier Vernervet Fastpender, as well as his work

1068
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 2: on ninety two's Brams Stoker's Dracula and multiple Scorsese films

1069
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 2: from eighty five's After Hours till two thousand and six.

1070
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 2: Is that departed and at least writ in my own mind,

1071
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 2: it was very interesting to think about that Dracula connection,

1072
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 2: given the great use of darkness in some key scenes

1073
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 2: and Last Temptation. So we'll refer back to some of

1074
01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:32,360
Speaker 2: the lighting in these scenes as we proceed. But then finally,

1075
01:00:32,680 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 2: the score for this film is famously the work of

1076
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:39,560
Speaker 2: Peter Gabriel born nineteen fifty English musician, best known for

1077
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:41,280
Speaker 2: his work as the original front man of the rock

1078
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,920
Speaker 2: band Genesis, and of course his long solo career. His

1079
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 2: first four studio albums are simply titled Peter Gabriel and

1080
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:52,920
Speaker 2: have been given shorthand titles based on their evocative album Mars.

1081
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 2: He had seventy seven's Car seventy eight Scratch eighties Melt

1082
01:00:56,880 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 2: in eighty two security, and it was apparently on Melt

1083
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 2: that his interest in world music really began to materialize,

1084
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:06,680
Speaker 2: and I'd argue for my money anyway, This is when

1085
01:01:08,960 --> 01:01:12,480
Speaker 2: his work really solidifies into the sound I associate with him,

1086
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:17,040
Speaker 2: a fusing of world music styles that I think will

1087
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 2: seem fresh and exotic in Western popular music at the time,

1088
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 2: creating this world beat sound. This becomes like a really

1089
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 2: driving force in Gabriel's creative output. He founds the World

1090
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 2: of Music, Arts and Dance or WOEMD, a festival with

1091
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 2: this name in nineteen eighty two, and then he founds

1092
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 2: real world records and real world studios as well, all

1093
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 2: of this to foster the international reception of world music.

1094
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:47,920
Speaker 2: And so all of this, of course makes Gabriel kind

1095
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 2: of like the perfect person to score The Last Temptation

1096
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 2: of Christ, combining a modern ambient vibe with a rich

1097
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:59,800
Speaker 2: array of world musical artist leaning on those Woe Mad Connections,

1098
01:02:00,400 --> 01:02:04,440
Speaker 2: and several noted traditional performers. Now, there was apparently a

1099
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,040
Speaker 2: kind of a constricted production timeline on the film, So

1100
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 2: like the music in the film is, to be clear, terrific,

1101
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 2: it's great. But then after the film comes out, Gabriel

1102
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:17,440
Speaker 2: continues to work it over a little bit. So the

1103
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:20,840
Speaker 2: versions of the tracks you hear on the album Passion

1104
01:02:20,960 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 2: music for the Last Temptation of Christ are a little

1105
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 2: different in places, but I mean they're both tremendous. That

1106
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:30,200
Speaker 2: album goes on to win a Grammy Award for Best

1107
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:33,400
Speaker 2: New Age Album in nineteen ninety and is I believe,

1108
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 2: highly regarded as a really influential release in the global

1109
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 2: promotion of world music. And I really can't overstress how

1110
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 2: important the Peter Gabriel score is, as well as the

1111
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,640
Speaker 2: film's use of digetic music that really, you know, it

1112
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 2: just all really propels The Last Temptation of Christ forward,

1113
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 2: at times ethereal, you know, propelling us through the mysteries

1114
01:02:56,360 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 2: of a desert God, and other times pounding, pulsing with frantic,

1115
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:06,880
Speaker 2: almost orgasmic energy of fanatic devotion. I'm always saying on

1116
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 2: Weird House, see this movie in the best visual quality possible,

1117
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:13,720
Speaker 2: but I'd also stress listen to this film as you

1118
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 2: watch it in the best sound quality possible. I watched

1119
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 2: it on an airplane, which is to say I did

1120
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 2: not have maybe like the best screen viewing experience. I

1121
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:29,400
Speaker 2: had my phone, but I did have some great earbuds

1122
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:32,920
Speaker 2: in and I've just was overwhelmed by how great this

1123
01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 2: film sounds it's just amazing. Now, outside of this Gabriel

1124
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:41,160
Speaker 2: score two other films, previously eighty five's Birdie and then

1125
01:03:41,240 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 2: later on two thousand and two's Rabbit Proof Fence, But

1126
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:47,800
Speaker 2: for my money, the Last Temptation of Christ Passion is

1127
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 2: the absolute best. This is just an amazing score.

1128
01:03:51,000 --> 01:03:53,560
Speaker 3: Never listened to it on its own, so I'll have

1129
01:03:53,640 --> 01:03:55,200
Speaker 3: to check it out. But I did like the music

1130
01:03:55,200 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 3: in the film.

1131
01:03:55,760 --> 01:04:06,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, all right.

1132
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:08,080
Speaker 2: Do you want to talk about the plot some Yeah,

1133
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 2: let's get into it.

1134
01:04:09,200 --> 01:04:11,320
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to do a detailed scene by

1135
01:04:11,360 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 3: scene narration like we do with some movies. I feel

1136
01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 3: like that always makes more sense in a I don't know,

1137
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:21,320
Speaker 3: more downscale B movie. Context doesn't make as much sense

1138
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 3: for classics. But instead here I think we can do

1139
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 3: a combination of general summary and some thematic organization.

1140
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Plus, it's one of those stories where a lot

1141
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 2: of people are going to know some of the beats,

1142
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:33,840
Speaker 2: You know some of the things that are going to happen.

1143
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 2: You probably know the big thing that's going to happen.

1144
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:39,680
Speaker 3: Yes, So at the beginning of the story, Jesus of Nazareth,

1145
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 3: played by Willem Dafoe, is a Jewish carpenter living in

1146
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 3: Roman occupied Judea in the first century, and when we

1147
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:50,680
Speaker 3: meet him, he is already and has been for a

1148
01:04:50,680 --> 01:04:55,480
Speaker 3: long time, tortured by inner visions. He hears voices, he

1149
01:04:55,520 --> 01:04:59,680
Speaker 3: has sensations of God, and he believes all of this

1150
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:04,760
Speaker 3: is sent to him by the divine But we sense that, Rob,

1151
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:06,840
Speaker 3: did you get the same feeling that at the beginning

1152
01:05:06,840 --> 01:05:09,720
Speaker 3: of the story. He doesn't understand it. He just knows

1153
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:14,000
Speaker 3: that God is doing something to him and sending him

1154
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:18,640
Speaker 3: these visions and sensations and maybe calling him to something.

1155
01:05:18,680 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 3: But he doesn't understand what it is, except that he's

1156
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:22,280
Speaker 3: afraid of it.

1157
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:24,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't fully understand it, and he does not

1158
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 2: want it.

1159
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:29,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so so whatever it is, he can't bear

1160
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 3: to face it. He seems to understand, possibly that it

1161
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,600
Speaker 3: could involve his death or at least some danger to

1162
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:39,520
Speaker 3: him and Jesus at the beginning of the story. This

1163
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:42,560
Speaker 3: is one of the most interesting plot conventions. I looked

1164
01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:45,720
Speaker 3: it up that this does not predate the Cousin Zakas novel.

1165
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:49,920
Speaker 3: This plot convention was invented by Cousin Zakas. Here, Jesus

1166
01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:55,080
Speaker 3: makes a living building crosses for the Romans. He makes

1167
01:05:55,400 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 3: crosses for the Romans to use in the crucifixion of

1168
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 3: other criminals, many of whom are Zealots who are revolutionaries

1169
01:06:04,160 --> 01:06:08,480
Speaker 3: who try to resist the Roman occupation with violence. And

1170
01:06:08,560 --> 01:06:12,320
Speaker 3: in the beginning here Jesus has a friend named Judas,

1171
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:15,920
Speaker 3: who is himself a Zelot. Like we see Judas this

1172
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 3: is the harveke Tell character fighting and killing Roman soldiers

1173
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 3: and escaping afterwards. And Judas is Jesus's friend, but he

1174
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:30,840
Speaker 3: is completely disgusted by Jesus's collaboration with the Roman authorities.

1175
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:35,040
Speaker 3: And it's worth noting that throughout this whole beginning part

1176
01:06:35,040 --> 01:06:41,720
Speaker 3: of the film, Jesus is pretty consistently portrayed as weak, confused, frightened,

1177
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 3: and even cowardly. Yeah, so at the beginning of the movie,

1178
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 3: Jesus is a traitor to his people. He's despised by everyone. Now,

1179
01:06:50,680 --> 01:06:52,400
Speaker 3: I did want to do a brief note on here

1180
01:06:52,440 --> 01:06:55,840
Speaker 3: because I think this is kind of interesting. The idea

1181
01:06:55,920 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 3: of having Jesus making crosses for crucifier, I think is

1182
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:04,680
Speaker 3: such a fascinating ironic detail to add to the story.

1183
01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 3: Of course, that's not in the Bible, and I wanted

1184
01:07:08,600 --> 01:07:11,920
Speaker 3: to raise the question. Briefly, does the Bible actually say

1185
01:07:12,520 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 3: that Jesus was a carpenter. This is often said of him,

1186
01:07:16,920 --> 01:07:20,520
Speaker 3: not exactly the English translation that states back to the

1187
01:07:20,560 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 3: earliest English translations of the Bible, it does say he's

1188
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 3: a carpenter in there, but this is in the Gospel

1189
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 3: of Mark, and the original Greek in the Gospel of

1190
01:07:30,360 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 3: Mark refers to Jesus as the word is a tecton,

1191
01:07:34,240 --> 01:07:37,880
Speaker 3: which means a builder or a craftsman, so someone who

1192
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 3: works with their hands and builds things, and this would

1193
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 3: include carpentry, but it could also equally mean a stonemason

1194
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 3: or any other kind of builder, and would often be

1195
01:07:50,560 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 3: you might think of it as like a construction worker

1196
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 3: or a general contractor somebody who might do all of

1197
01:07:56,280 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 3: these things. But so it does have Jesus work with

1198
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:04,160
Speaker 3: wood in this context, making these crosses and at the

1199
01:08:04,200 --> 01:08:07,600
Speaker 3: same time getting these attacks of spiritual pain, almost like

1200
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 3: he's having seizures. He describes, you know, he describes the

1201
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:16,560
Speaker 3: feeling like the visceral direct sensations of God reaching into him.

1202
01:08:16,840 --> 01:08:19,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like it's really the early Jesus here.

1203
01:08:19,720 --> 01:08:22,479
Speaker 2: First of all, shorter hair, you can tell how how

1204
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:25,800
Speaker 2: how much he's embraced his identity based on the length

1205
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:28,679
Speaker 2: of Dwollem Defoe's hair. But but yeah, it's like he

1206
01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:31,320
Speaker 2: he almost seems to have like no agency in his life.

1207
01:08:31,400 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 2: It's like, the Romans tell me to build these crosses.

1208
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 2: I'm the only one that will do it, so I

1209
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:37,200
Speaker 2: guess I'll do it my you know, my friends are

1210
01:08:37,200 --> 01:08:39,320
Speaker 2: disgusted with me, and I don't know what to do

1211
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:42,799
Speaker 2: with these this this power, this voice that is moving

1212
01:08:42,840 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 2: through me.

1213
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:47,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he not only makes crosses. He after he

1214
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:53,760
Speaker 3: makes the cross parts, he assists with the crucifixion of revolutionaries.

1215
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:56,679
Speaker 3: Like so it showed. There's a scene at the beginning

1216
01:08:56,720 --> 01:08:59,759
Speaker 3: of the movie of the Romans crucifying someone for claiming

1217
01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:02,840
Speaker 3: that Messiah would come free the people from Roman rule,

1218
01:09:04,720 --> 01:09:07,320
Speaker 3: and it shows Jesus carrying part of the cross up

1219
01:09:07,360 --> 01:09:09,840
Speaker 3: to the hill so this other guy can be crucified,

1220
01:09:09,880 --> 01:09:13,240
Speaker 3: which is again an interesting irony there. But there's a

1221
01:09:13,280 --> 01:09:17,519
Speaker 3: part where Jesus talks about He says that he makes

1222
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:21,400
Speaker 3: crosses hoping that it will make God hate him, because

1223
01:09:21,400 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 3: if God hates him, maybe God will choose someone else

1224
01:09:24,640 --> 01:09:27,599
Speaker 3: to send these visions to and choose someone else for

1225
01:09:27,680 --> 01:09:32,120
Speaker 3: whatever this is he's being called to do. Now. After this,

1226
01:09:32,160 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 3: there's a very interesting part of the movie where Jesus

1227
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:38,120
Speaker 3: goes on a journey. He has the feeling that he

1228
01:09:38,160 --> 01:09:40,479
Speaker 3: has to go somewhere, so he's getting ready to leave

1229
01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:44,960
Speaker 3: and he's talking with his mother Mary, and Mary says,

1230
01:09:45,080 --> 01:09:47,240
Speaker 3: are you sure it's God calling you? What if it's

1231
01:09:47,280 --> 01:09:50,880
Speaker 3: the devil? And Jesus says he doesn't really know. And

1232
01:09:50,960 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 3: his mother says, if it's a devil, it can be

1233
01:09:53,360 --> 01:09:56,280
Speaker 3: cast out, like you could get over this problem. If

1234
01:09:56,320 --> 01:09:58,560
Speaker 3: it's just a devil, we can get you an exorcism.

1235
01:09:59,080 --> 01:10:01,840
Speaker 3: But Jesus says, but if it's God, God can't be

1236
01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:04,400
Speaker 3: cast out. So what he's really afraid of is that

1237
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:08,240
Speaker 3: it's God and not a devil. And so he goes

1238
01:10:08,280 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 3: out walking. He's going somewhere, we don't know where initially,

1239
01:10:12,400 --> 01:10:14,559
Speaker 3: and as he's walking there's this thing where he hears

1240
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 3: footsteps behind him. This seems to happen to him often.

1241
01:10:17,200 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 3: It's like there's another presence wherever he is that's haunting

1242
01:10:20,280 --> 01:10:23,080
Speaker 3: him and it's not a comfort to him. There is

1243
01:10:23,120 --> 01:10:25,759
Speaker 3: a presence that is putting him on edge.

1244
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 2: And in the sound design here is terrific too, because

1245
01:10:28,600 --> 01:10:34,479
Speaker 2: it is like otherworldly footsteps, something unseen, but titanic in

1246
01:10:34,560 --> 01:10:36,719
Speaker 2: its size and its endport.

1247
01:10:37,120 --> 01:10:39,760
Speaker 3: So eventually he arrives in this place that's kind of

1248
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 3: a it's a raucous party, like all these people are

1249
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:46,960
Speaker 3: hanging out, you know, for hanging out waiting for something.

1250
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:50,760
Speaker 3: It's like sort of a waiting room canteena type area.

1251
01:10:51,120 --> 01:10:53,120
Speaker 3: So he's hanging out with a bunch of guys, and

1252
01:10:53,439 --> 01:10:56,640
Speaker 3: what we eventually realize is that it's a bunch of

1253
01:10:56,640 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 3: guys waiting to book some time with Mary Magdalen, the prostitute.

1254
01:11:01,640 --> 01:11:06,320
Speaker 3: And so another interesting Bible fact. A lot of people

1255
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:10,960
Speaker 3: naturally think Mary Magdalen is the prostitute from the New

1256
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:13,800
Speaker 3: Testament who is a follower of Jesus, but actually the

1257
01:11:13,840 --> 01:11:17,240
Speaker 3: Bible does not say that Mary Magdalen was a prostitute.

1258
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:21,120
Speaker 3: That is later a lore. In the Gospels, she is named,

1259
01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:25,639
Speaker 3: and she is only described as an important disciple. We

1260
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 3: learn a few things like that Jesus casts seven demons

1261
01:11:29,360 --> 01:11:32,559
Speaker 3: out of her and that she is in some tellings

1262
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:35,360
Speaker 3: one of the witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, but

1263
01:11:35,520 --> 01:11:40,520
Speaker 3: she's never said to be a prostitute. Separately from Mary Magdalen.

1264
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:45,360
Speaker 3: Jesus is described as associating himself with sinners and prostitutes,

1265
01:11:46,120 --> 01:11:50,400
Speaker 3: and so this misconception conflating these things traces back to

1266
01:11:51,720 --> 01:11:54,120
Speaker 3: based on what I was reading, back to the sixth century,

1267
01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:58,240
Speaker 3: when Pope Gregory the First gave an Easter sermon where

1268
01:11:58,280 --> 01:12:01,800
Speaker 3: he conflated the biblical character of Mary Magdalen with an

1269
01:12:01,920 --> 01:12:05,080
Speaker 3: unnamed sinful woman in a different story in the Gospel

1270
01:12:05,080 --> 01:12:08,720
Speaker 3: of Luke. And this association stuck to some degree in

1271
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:12,160
Speaker 3: the Western Church, and over time this evolved into the

1272
01:12:12,160 --> 01:12:15,320
Speaker 3: belief that Mary Magdalen was a penitent prostitute.

1273
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:19,200
Speaker 2: It's just like screenplay writing sometimes, and you're adapting something,

1274
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:21,160
Speaker 2: You're like, what if I just combined these two characters,

1275
01:12:21,160 --> 01:12:23,360
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be so much easier. We got a name here,

1276
01:12:23,560 --> 01:12:25,840
Speaker 2: we got to roll here. Let's make these two one.

1277
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 3: There you go. Also, did you catch the crabs in here?

1278
01:12:29,280 --> 01:12:32,120
Speaker 3: At the Mary Magdalen waiting room, there's like a cook

1279
01:12:32,160 --> 01:12:33,839
Speaker 3: with a platter of fried crabs.

1280
01:12:34,080 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 2: They're a fair number of critters in this film. I

1281
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 2: noted crabs, lizards, and did I see monkeys? At one point.

1282
01:12:40,240 --> 01:12:43,200
Speaker 3: Later during the vision from the Cross, you know the

1283
01:12:43,240 --> 01:12:45,240
Speaker 3: part we talk about we'll talk about later at the

1284
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:48,920
Speaker 3: end of the movie. There were monkeys running across the ground. Yeah,

1285
01:12:48,920 --> 01:12:52,280
Speaker 3: but yeah, Mary Magdalen seems to have pet lizards. But

1286
01:12:52,320 --> 01:12:55,600
Speaker 3: so Jesus waits all day here, letting everybody else go

1287
01:12:55,680 --> 01:12:58,120
Speaker 3: ahead of him to have their turn with Mary. And

1288
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:01,080
Speaker 3: then finally it's dark and he's the only man left

1289
01:13:01,120 --> 01:13:06,080
Speaker 3: waiting and he approaches Mary, but not with lust. Instead,

1290
01:13:06,120 --> 01:13:09,519
Speaker 3: he wants to talk to her. He asks her to

1291
01:13:09,640 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 3: forgive him, because actually there's a scene where we meet

1292
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:15,679
Speaker 3: her earlier. When he's carrying the cross up the hill

1293
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:19,320
Speaker 3: for the Romans to use in crucifixion, he crosses paths

1294
01:13:19,400 --> 01:13:23,080
Speaker 3: with Mary Magdalene and she spits in his face. She

1295
01:13:23,280 --> 01:13:27,400
Speaker 3: hates him, and so he tells her that he is

1296
01:13:27,439 --> 01:13:30,479
Speaker 3: about to go out into the wilderness, and before he goes,

1297
01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 3: he wants her forgiveness for the bad things that he's done,

1298
01:13:34,400 --> 01:13:38,240
Speaker 3: and she's very angry. She's basically like, you might need forgiveness,

1299
01:13:38,240 --> 01:13:40,120
Speaker 3: but it's not up to me to give it to you.

1300
01:13:41,120 --> 01:13:45,000
Speaker 3: And at fair point, I think she's kind of like, like,

1301
01:13:45,080 --> 01:13:47,400
Speaker 3: your problems are bigger than me, you know, I can't

1302
01:13:47,439 --> 01:13:50,080
Speaker 3: forgive you all the forgiving you need. But then there's

1303
01:13:50,120 --> 01:13:55,000
Speaker 3: an interesting twist. There's a backstory between them, like why

1304
01:13:55,080 --> 01:13:58,200
Speaker 3: is she here in this situation? Well, it seems that

1305
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:00,960
Speaker 3: in the story it has something to do with Jesus

1306
01:14:01,560 --> 01:14:07,080
Speaker 3: having had left her in the past. So Jesus and

1307
01:14:07,120 --> 01:14:09,360
Speaker 3: Mary we learned. Did you understand it the same way

1308
01:14:09,400 --> 01:14:12,320
Speaker 3: as I did? That they grew up together, and they

1309
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:17,439
Speaker 3: were childhood friends and at some point they fell into

1310
01:14:17,800 --> 01:14:21,120
Speaker 3: they fell in love, but it was an unfulfilled love.

1311
01:14:22,280 --> 01:14:25,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I vaguely remember reading some of this in

1312
01:14:25,880 --> 01:14:28,439
Speaker 2: the novel Ages Ago, but it was just kind of

1313
01:14:28,439 --> 01:14:31,479
Speaker 2: like a Feigt impression that kind of, you know, synced

1314
01:14:31,560 --> 01:14:32,639
Speaker 2: up with my viewing.

1315
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:35,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they were childhood friends and they loved each other,

1316
01:14:35,760 --> 01:14:39,680
Speaker 3: but Jesus rejected her. He would not love her or

1317
01:14:39,720 --> 01:14:43,519
Speaker 3: marry her for reasons having to do with his inner

1318
01:14:43,560 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 3: manifestations from God and with fear and apprehension about what

1319
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:52,160
Speaker 3: that meant, and just general fear that he wouldn't he

1320
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:54,559
Speaker 3: wouldn't be with her, he wouldn't marry her. And then

1321
01:14:54,600 --> 01:14:58,200
Speaker 3: after she was rejected, Mary Magdalene becomes a prostitute in

1322
01:14:58,600 --> 01:15:01,799
Speaker 3: this telling of the story. So I think it's interesting

1323
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:04,240
Speaker 3: when you think about his relationship with Judas and his

1324
01:15:04,320 --> 01:15:07,240
Speaker 3: relationship with Mary. Here at the beginning of the story,

1325
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:11,200
Speaker 3: Jesus has failed and disappointed all of his friends and

1326
01:15:11,240 --> 01:15:12,440
Speaker 3: the people he loves.

1327
01:15:13,080 --> 01:15:15,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does not look seem like he should be

1328
01:15:15,360 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 2: on the short list anybody's short list or the long

1329
01:15:19,080 --> 01:15:23,639
Speaker 2: list to be a messiah. Yeah, he's just he does

1330
01:15:23,680 --> 01:15:27,200
Speaker 2: not have it together at all, and encounters with Jesus

1331
01:15:27,320 --> 01:15:31,200
Speaker 2: seems to leave people feeling worse. Yeah, you spend any

1332
01:15:31,200 --> 01:15:33,439
Speaker 2: time with Jesus, you're just going to feel a little

1333
01:15:33,520 --> 01:15:37,000
Speaker 2: more angry at yourself and at Jesus and at the world.

1334
01:15:37,880 --> 01:15:41,719
Speaker 3: So he's trying to understand now what God wants of him.

1335
01:15:42,120 --> 01:15:44,679
Speaker 3: So he decides he's going to go into the desert

1336
01:15:44,760 --> 01:15:48,559
Speaker 3: to join an ascetic brotherhood at least for some time.

1337
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:51,919
Speaker 3: So he goes out to this brotherhood. He has interesting

1338
01:15:52,360 --> 01:15:55,400
Speaker 3: prophetic interactions, like when he gets there, this is where

1339
01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:58,040
Speaker 3: he meets the Old Master and the Old Master tells

1340
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:00,680
Speaker 3: him I know you, I know where you're here. But

1341
01:16:00,720 --> 01:16:03,280
Speaker 3: then he later discovers that the Old Master had actually

1342
01:16:03,360 --> 01:16:06,000
Speaker 3: died like the day before he had the meeting with him.

1343
01:16:06,280 --> 01:16:08,800
Speaker 3: And there's this haunting scene where they bury him in

1344
01:16:08,840 --> 01:16:12,559
Speaker 3: this canyon in the middle of a dust storm. But

1345
01:16:12,920 --> 01:16:15,200
Speaker 3: while Jesus is there in the desert, he has more

1346
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:19,840
Speaker 3: terrifying visions and this increasing consciousness that he may be

1347
01:16:20,400 --> 01:16:25,920
Speaker 3: the Messiah. So what exactly does this mean. It's worth

1348
01:16:25,960 --> 01:16:29,640
Speaker 3: noting that the modern understanding of the term Messiah is

1349
01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:32,719
Speaker 3: different than what it would have meant to do Jesus

1350
01:16:32,760 --> 01:16:36,240
Speaker 3: or people in Jesus's time and place. In the modern world,

1351
01:16:36,560 --> 01:16:40,080
Speaker 3: influenced by the history of Christianity, people often think of

1352
01:16:40,160 --> 01:16:44,839
Speaker 3: Messiah as either synonymous with God or meaning a person

1353
01:16:44,880 --> 01:16:49,240
Speaker 3: who is sacrificed to save others from their sins, and

1354
01:16:49,600 --> 01:16:53,400
Speaker 3: neither of these is the original meaning messiah. Originally, it

1355
01:16:53,640 --> 01:16:57,800
Speaker 3: literally means anointed in the sense that a person would

1356
01:16:57,800 --> 01:17:01,000
Speaker 3: be blessed and chosen for a special honor, like being

1357
01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:04,599
Speaker 3: a newly coronated king or an ordained priest or something,

1358
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:07,200
Speaker 3: and in that case they would be anointed with oil.

1359
01:17:07,320 --> 01:17:10,160
Speaker 3: You put oil on their head, and that is making

1360
01:17:10,200 --> 01:17:14,320
Speaker 3: them a messiah, a blessed anointed person. And in the

1361
01:17:14,360 --> 01:17:18,919
Speaker 3: historical context of Jesus's time, the Messiah was a figure

1362
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:22,160
Speaker 3: of prophecy, a figure who would come to be a

1363
01:17:22,240 --> 01:17:25,680
Speaker 3: savior and leader of the Jewish people. And in the

1364
01:17:25,720 --> 01:17:30,080
Speaker 3: first century this was understood by many Jews. This was

1365
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:33,360
Speaker 3: by no means universal, but it was a common understanding,

1366
01:17:33,840 --> 01:17:35,800
Speaker 3: was that it would be a leader who would lead

1367
01:17:35,840 --> 01:17:38,679
Speaker 3: a rebellion to throw off the yoke of the Roman

1368
01:17:38,720 --> 01:17:42,519
Speaker 3: Empire and become a new king of the Jews. So

1369
01:17:42,640 --> 01:17:44,960
Speaker 3: that's going to be a major interpretation of what it

1370
01:17:45,000 --> 01:17:48,880
Speaker 3: means to be the Messiah. And this meek, cowardly guy

1371
01:17:49,160 --> 01:17:52,519
Speaker 3: is getting these feelings that he's maybe supposed to be

1372
01:17:52,640 --> 01:17:57,280
Speaker 3: the Messiah. Though. It's interesting he raises in this section

1373
01:17:57,360 --> 01:18:01,400
Speaker 3: of the movie that this consciousness of being the Messiah

1374
01:18:01,439 --> 01:18:06,559
Speaker 3: maybe a blasphemous temptation by Satan, which is a great question. Again,

1375
01:18:06,640 --> 01:18:10,040
Speaker 3: this is like seriously dealing with the story to you know,

1376
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:14,160
Speaker 3: taking it for real, saying, if you take the humanity

1377
01:18:14,160 --> 01:18:18,479
Speaker 3: of Jesus seriously, how would a truly human Jesus know

1378
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:22,720
Speaker 3: that his awareness of himself and his sense of his

1379
01:18:22,800 --> 01:18:26,800
Speaker 3: own mission and importance was not a delusion or, in

1380
01:18:26,880 --> 01:18:31,519
Speaker 3: theological terms, a lie coming from the devil, or a

1381
01:18:31,560 --> 01:18:33,080
Speaker 3: temptation to pride.

1382
01:18:33,600 --> 01:18:35,479
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, because if one is real, the other

1383
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:35,880
Speaker 2: is real.

1384
01:18:35,960 --> 01:18:40,160
Speaker 3: Right Yeah. So anyway, while Jesus is out here in

1385
01:18:40,200 --> 01:18:43,559
Speaker 3: the desert. There's some very nice scenes in this part.

1386
01:18:43,640 --> 01:18:45,120
Speaker 3: Maybe we could come back to him if we want to.

1387
01:18:45,200 --> 01:18:48,639
Speaker 3: But where he has conversations with this other guy who's

1388
01:18:48,680 --> 01:18:52,679
Speaker 3: devoted to this sect named Jeroboam, where you know, Jesus

1389
01:18:52,720 --> 01:18:56,400
Speaker 3: is explaining how basically God, his God, is fear, that

1390
01:18:56,920 --> 01:19:00,000
Speaker 3: his whole life is ruled by fear and lack of courage.

1391
01:19:01,400 --> 01:19:04,400
Speaker 3: But while he's out in the desert, one night, Judas appears.

1392
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:07,840
Speaker 3: His friend Judas played by Harvey Keitel. He appears, pulls

1393
01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:10,200
Speaker 3: Jesus out of his hut and tells him that he

1394
01:19:10,240 --> 01:19:13,040
Speaker 3: has been sent by the Zealots to kill Jesus for

1395
01:19:13,160 --> 01:19:18,160
Speaker 3: collaborating with the Romans. And instead of killing Jesus, they

1396
01:19:18,240 --> 01:19:23,200
Speaker 3: start talking and Jesus gives this speech to Judas about

1397
01:19:23,200 --> 01:19:27,080
Speaker 3: the strange consciousness roiling in him. This one part he

1398
01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:29,040
Speaker 3: talks about. He says, when I look at an ant

1399
01:19:29,160 --> 01:19:32,280
Speaker 3: at its shiny black eye, I see the face of God.

1400
01:19:32,600 --> 01:19:34,559
Speaker 3: He's talking about how he sees the face of God

1401
01:19:34,600 --> 01:19:37,479
Speaker 3: in everything and he doesn't know what it means. And

1402
01:19:37,600 --> 01:19:41,719
Speaker 3: Judas is put back on his heels and Jesus says,

1403
01:19:41,800 --> 01:19:44,200
Speaker 3: maybe God didn't send you here to kill me. Maybe

1404
01:19:44,280 --> 01:19:47,800
Speaker 3: he sent you to follow me, And so now they

1405
01:19:47,840 --> 01:19:50,439
Speaker 3: actually Judas seems to kind of assent to this that

1406
01:19:50,600 --> 01:19:54,000
Speaker 3: he says he'll follow Jesus, but he warns him that

1407
01:19:54,320 --> 01:19:56,920
Speaker 3: if he thinks Jesus is straying from the path of

1408
01:19:57,000 --> 01:20:01,200
Speaker 3: revolution against Rome, he will kill him. And together they

1409
01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:03,639
Speaker 3: start to gather followers. It might come actually a little

1410
01:20:03,640 --> 01:20:05,400
Speaker 3: bit later, I don't remember, but at some point here

1411
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:09,880
Speaker 3: there's a montage scene of Jesus like assembling the team. Yeah.

1412
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:11,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really does seem like they're about to

1413
01:20:11,920 --> 01:20:15,960
Speaker 2: pull off the biggest highest ever. Yeah. They're they're going

1414
01:20:16,000 --> 01:20:19,680
Speaker 2: to steal Pilot's treasure hoard or something, right.

1415
01:20:19,920 --> 01:20:31,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, So most of what has come already in the

1416
01:20:31,320 --> 01:20:34,439
Speaker 3: story has been original, but this is when the story

1417
01:20:34,520 --> 01:20:38,200
Speaker 3: begins to align with certain events told in the Gospels.

1418
01:20:38,880 --> 01:20:40,840
Speaker 3: So you've got the story of the woman taken in

1419
01:20:40,840 --> 01:20:45,160
Speaker 3: adultery that is somewhat replicated in a scene where men

1420
01:20:45,200 --> 01:20:49,280
Speaker 3: try to stone Mary Magdalene and Jesus saves her. It

1421
01:20:49,400 --> 01:20:52,960
Speaker 3: elaborates on that story by showing Jesus confront the crowd

1422
01:20:53,479 --> 01:20:57,160
Speaker 3: with knowledge of their own hypocrisies about like naming their

1423
01:20:57,160 --> 01:21:01,240
Speaker 3: equivalent sins. So all Zebede comes out. He really wants

1424
01:21:01,320 --> 01:21:04,679
Speaker 3: to stone. He's happy, he's very excited to throw stones.

1425
01:21:05,040 --> 01:21:08,200
Speaker 3: But Jesus is like Zebede, God sees how you cheat

1426
01:21:08,280 --> 01:21:11,560
Speaker 3: your workers, and he's seeing you with that widow woman too.

1427
01:21:12,080 --> 01:21:15,400
Speaker 3: And Zebedee here is played by Irvan Kershner, director If

1428
01:21:15,400 --> 01:21:16,559
Speaker 3: the Empire Strikes Back.

1429
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:21,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, some directors casting directors here. But he's good.

1430
01:21:22,160 --> 01:21:26,879
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I like the scene. And Jesus starts preaching

1431
01:21:26,920 --> 01:21:29,639
Speaker 3: after this. He starts to gather some followers and begins

1432
01:21:29,720 --> 01:21:34,280
Speaker 3: preaching a message of God's infinite universal love. It's a

1433
01:21:34,280 --> 01:21:37,320
Speaker 3: lot about love at this part of the movie, though

1434
01:21:37,360 --> 01:21:42,320
Speaker 3: at the same time, his preaching feels disorganized and uneven.

1435
01:21:42,680 --> 01:21:46,080
Speaker 3: It's kind of veering around to different tones and topics.

1436
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:50,479
Speaker 3: He doesn't seem to yet be able to command the

1437
01:21:50,520 --> 01:21:52,880
Speaker 3: attention of the crowd very well. A lot of the

1438
01:21:52,880 --> 01:21:56,280
Speaker 3: crowd is skeptical and unimpressed, but he does pick up

1439
01:21:56,320 --> 01:21:59,960
Speaker 3: a few followers, including the sons of Zebedee. There's one

1440
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:03,599
Speaker 3: part in this section where he's he's like, God attacked

1441
01:22:03,640 --> 01:22:05,200
Speaker 3: me like an angry bird.

1442
01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:09,840
Speaker 2: That part, yeah, again, I get that. That's directly from

1443
01:22:09,880 --> 01:22:14,080
Speaker 2: the text I remember that the talons in the mind.

1444
01:22:14,240 --> 01:22:17,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he also has there are scenes of him

1445
01:22:17,040 --> 01:22:20,719
Speaker 3: having debates with Judas like what should we do first,

1446
01:22:20,840 --> 01:22:24,320
Speaker 3: overthrow the Romans or purify the human soul through love,

1447
01:22:25,040 --> 01:22:27,920
Speaker 3: and that they just don't agree on this. Judas is like,

1448
01:22:28,040 --> 01:22:29,680
Speaker 3: you know, we know we've got to deal with the

1449
01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:32,840
Speaker 3: body first, which means we overthrow the Romans first and

1450
01:22:32,880 --> 01:22:36,160
Speaker 3: then we can perfect the human soul. And Jesus wants

1451
01:22:36,160 --> 01:22:39,920
Speaker 3: it the other way around. And I sort of alluded

1452
01:22:39,960 --> 01:22:42,439
Speaker 3: to this earlier, but I think it's so interesting that

1453
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:48,800
Speaker 3: Jesus's wisdom and authority is not presumed. Judas argues with

1454
01:22:48,920 --> 01:22:52,320
Speaker 3: Jesus as if he sometimes believes he has more moral

1455
01:22:52,400 --> 01:22:57,000
Speaker 3: authority than Jesus does, and on some issues he's defiant

1456
01:22:57,040 --> 01:23:03,200
Speaker 3: when challenged. On others, he kind of reconsidered he I

1457
01:23:03,240 --> 01:23:06,600
Speaker 3: don't know. And another thing is the way Jesus is

1458
01:23:06,680 --> 01:23:10,080
Speaker 3: depicted as often. I don't know if you saw it

1459
01:23:10,120 --> 01:23:12,000
Speaker 3: the same way. It seemed to me. He was shown

1460
01:23:12,040 --> 01:23:16,759
Speaker 3: as not understanding why he says the things he says

1461
01:23:16,960 --> 01:23:21,879
Speaker 3: or where they come from. That he is often Jesus

1462
01:23:21,920 --> 01:23:26,120
Speaker 3: is surprised and often dismayed by his own preaching.

1463
01:23:26,120 --> 01:23:28,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And he alludes to this at one point,

1464
01:23:28,160 --> 01:23:29,640
Speaker 2: saying like, basically, I'm going to get up there and

1465
01:23:29,640 --> 01:23:31,600
Speaker 2: I'm going to and God is going to talk through me.

1466
01:23:31,680 --> 01:23:36,200
Speaker 2: And I don't necessarily know what he is going to say, yeah,

1467
01:23:35,880 --> 01:23:38,240
Speaker 2: but I do. Like you have this conversation that Jesus

1468
01:23:38,280 --> 01:23:41,840
Speaker 2: and Judas have where they're and Jesus is ultimately like, yeah,

1469
01:23:41,920 --> 01:23:44,559
Speaker 2: the soul is the foundation. If you don't fix that,

1470
01:23:44,640 --> 01:23:46,760
Speaker 2: you're just if you throw off the Romans, you're just

1471
01:23:46,760 --> 01:23:49,160
Speaker 2: going to have someone else to deal with. You won't

1472
01:23:49,400 --> 01:23:52,439
Speaker 2: cure the basic sickness now here.

1473
01:23:53,040 --> 01:23:56,760
Speaker 3: At some point, Jesus and Judas decide that Jesus needs

1474
01:23:56,800 --> 01:23:59,559
Speaker 3: to go get baptized by John the Baptist, or maybe

1475
01:23:59,640 --> 01:24:01,800
Speaker 3: not give baptized. They're at least like, you should go

1476
01:24:01,840 --> 01:24:04,160
Speaker 3: to John the Baptist. He'll know if you're the mascare.

1477
01:24:04,280 --> 01:24:04,519
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1478
01:24:04,600 --> 01:24:08,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, So John the Baptist is down in the river

1479
01:24:08,720 --> 01:24:12,360
Speaker 3: baptizing people and it is a wild scene with dancing

1480
01:24:12,479 --> 01:24:17,000
Speaker 3: and drums and people naked and you know, painting their bodies,

1481
01:24:17,040 --> 01:24:20,400
Speaker 3: and John is going a little over the edge and

1482
01:24:20,479 --> 01:24:24,840
Speaker 3: not just preaching into he's like doing belligerent ranting.

1483
01:24:24,840 --> 01:24:27,200
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And it is a very again, this is

1484
01:24:27,280 --> 01:24:30,519
Speaker 2: like mystery religions of the desert. Here, this is like

1485
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:34,080
Speaker 2: rhythm of the heat. There is dancing, there is nudity.

1486
01:24:34,200 --> 01:24:39,400
Speaker 2: People are getting baptized in a very aggressive fashion. And

1487
01:24:40,439 --> 01:24:43,559
Speaker 2: I like the framing of the scene too, where Judas

1488
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:47,240
Speaker 2: and Jesus end up like approaching John the Baptist from behind,

1489
01:24:47,280 --> 01:24:50,519
Speaker 2: so he doesn't see them approaching, but then turns around

1490
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:51,080
Speaker 2: and sees them.

1491
01:24:51,360 --> 01:24:56,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, so in this scene, Jesus does get baptized by

1492
01:24:56,160 --> 01:24:59,320
Speaker 3: John the Baptist. John the Baptist tries to resist at first,

1493
01:24:59,360 --> 01:25:01,320
Speaker 3: but like in the Bible, you know, he says, no,

1494
01:25:01,640 --> 01:25:04,200
Speaker 3: you know, it is important to fulfill alrighteousness. I don't

1495
01:25:04,200 --> 01:25:07,240
Speaker 3: remember how he phrases it here, but he gets baptized.

1496
01:25:08,040 --> 01:25:10,720
Speaker 3: And then later that night Jesus has an argument with

1497
01:25:10,840 --> 01:25:15,639
Speaker 3: John the Baptist where they have fundamentally different spiritual visions

1498
01:25:15,840 --> 01:25:18,639
Speaker 3: of what's wrong with the world and what God wants

1499
01:25:18,640 --> 01:25:23,160
Speaker 3: of them. Jesus has he's getting a message from God

1500
01:25:23,200 --> 01:25:26,400
Speaker 3: that there is something about love that needs to be preached,

1501
01:25:26,840 --> 01:25:30,759
Speaker 3: whereas John is preaching fire and brimstone and the tree

1502
01:25:30,880 --> 01:25:34,160
Speaker 3: is rotten, we must chop it down, and you know,

1503
01:25:34,240 --> 01:25:37,400
Speaker 3: destruction of this sinful world, and we've got to rebuild it.

1504
01:25:38,360 --> 01:25:41,280
Speaker 3: I think I transcribed part of what John says. He says,

1505
01:25:41,320 --> 01:25:43,759
Speaker 3: on the day of the Lord, blood will come from wood,

1506
01:25:44,200 --> 01:25:46,720
Speaker 3: the stones of the houses will come alive and kill

1507
01:25:46,760 --> 01:25:50,519
Speaker 3: their owners. That day is here. He gave me the acts,

1508
01:25:50,800 --> 01:25:54,840
Speaker 3: now I give it to you. And so there at

1509
01:25:54,880 --> 01:25:59,400
Speaker 3: an impasse here also, but this leads. This leads Jesus

1510
01:25:59,439 --> 01:26:01,120
Speaker 3: to say, well, I've got to go to the desert.

1511
01:26:01,320 --> 01:26:04,040
Speaker 3: Maybe there God will talk to me. I'll force him

1512
01:26:04,080 --> 01:26:05,599
Speaker 3: to talk to me and tell me what it is

1513
01:26:05,640 --> 01:26:09,320
Speaker 3: he actually wants. So this leads into the story from

1514
01:26:09,400 --> 01:26:12,360
Speaker 3: the Gospels of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, where

1515
01:26:12,640 --> 01:26:16,519
Speaker 3: he goes out alone. He sits by himself, looking to

1516
01:26:16,560 --> 01:26:19,280
Speaker 3: receive a message from God. What is he supposed to do?

1517
01:26:20,080 --> 01:26:22,880
Speaker 3: He says, love or the axe, But you have to

1518
01:26:22,960 --> 01:26:26,760
Speaker 3: tell me. And yeah, I like how he draws a

1519
01:26:26,800 --> 01:26:27,759
Speaker 3: circle in the earth.

1520
01:26:28,200 --> 01:26:28,840
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1521
01:26:28,960 --> 01:26:29,240
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1522
01:26:29,280 --> 01:26:33,439
Speaker 2: And then the various apparitions that he faces here, the

1523
01:26:33,520 --> 01:26:38,719
Speaker 2: fire with the voice of the devil, the lion, which

1524
01:26:39,040 --> 01:26:44,519
Speaker 2: speaks with Judas's voice, Yeah, and the snake, which speaks

1525
01:26:44,520 --> 01:26:46,400
Speaker 2: with the Mary Magdalen's voice.

1526
01:26:46,560 --> 01:26:53,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the snake offers him temptations to flesh and

1527
01:26:53,720 --> 01:26:56,040
Speaker 3: temptations of the heart that you should know love and

1528
01:26:56,080 --> 01:26:59,480
Speaker 3: you should have a family. The Lion offers him temptations

1529
01:26:59,479 --> 01:27:02,479
Speaker 3: of power, you know, you should, you should step into power.

1530
01:27:03,120 --> 01:27:06,679
Speaker 3: And the pillar of Fire offers him temptations of telling

1531
01:27:06,800 --> 01:27:10,200
Speaker 3: him he is God, which is weird because it keeps

1532
01:27:10,280 --> 01:27:14,599
Speaker 3: blurring the line. Here like what Christians would traditionally assume

1533
01:27:14,720 --> 01:27:19,320
Speaker 3: is Jesus's full inner consciousness of his godhood, here is

1534
01:27:19,360 --> 01:27:24,160
Speaker 3: presented as this repetitive but uncertain and dangerous message that

1535
01:27:24,280 --> 01:27:28,439
Speaker 3: may well be coming from Satan. Yeah, so after his time, Oh,

1536
01:27:28,479 --> 01:27:30,680
Speaker 3: and so Jesus comes out of his experience in the

1537
01:27:30,720 --> 01:27:34,679
Speaker 3: wilderness deciding, Okay, John the Baptist was right, it's the axe.

1538
01:27:35,000 --> 01:27:37,240
Speaker 3: You've got to be a I was preaching about love,

1539
01:27:37,320 --> 01:27:39,400
Speaker 3: but now it's about the axe. It's got to be

1540
01:27:39,439 --> 01:27:43,160
Speaker 3: a cleansing fire. So he comes out of the desert

1541
01:27:43,200 --> 01:27:45,639
Speaker 3: and there's an interlude where you know, he needs water,

1542
01:27:45,760 --> 01:27:48,920
Speaker 3: and he stumbles into the home of Mary and Martha

1543
01:27:48,960 --> 01:27:52,439
Speaker 3: of Bethany, and they're very kind to him. They show

1544
01:27:52,520 --> 01:27:55,519
Speaker 3: hospitality to a foreigner like the Bible says you should,

1545
01:27:56,400 --> 01:28:00,080
Speaker 3: and he thanks them, but Mary tells Jesus, you know,

1546
01:28:00,120 --> 01:28:03,439
Speaker 3: he's talking about what he represents, and Jesus, you know,

1547
01:28:03,479 --> 01:28:06,240
Speaker 3: if you want to serve God, read your scriptures. They

1548
01:28:06,240 --> 01:28:08,640
Speaker 3: don't say go fast and pray in the desert. They

1549
01:28:08,640 --> 01:28:12,439
Speaker 3: say have a family and make children. It's what God wants. Yeah.

1550
01:28:12,560 --> 01:28:16,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they're presenting, you know, quite naturally and without

1551
01:28:16,880 --> 01:28:19,880
Speaker 2: any ulterior motive here something that is going to go

1552
01:28:19,960 --> 01:28:22,759
Speaker 2: on to become part of the titular Last Temptation.

1553
01:28:23,280 --> 01:28:27,639
Speaker 3: Yeah. One thing I really like is in the scenes later,

1554
01:28:27,960 --> 01:28:31,560
Speaker 3: a consistent thing is that Jesus's apostles are not perfectly

1555
01:28:31,600 --> 01:28:35,960
Speaker 3: devoted either. It shows them being annoyed and unconfident and

1556
01:28:36,000 --> 01:28:38,840
Speaker 3: wanting to leave Jesus's movement and get back to their

1557
01:28:38,840 --> 01:28:41,080
Speaker 3: sheep or get back to their fishing. One guy keeps

1558
01:28:41,080 --> 01:28:42,880
Speaker 3: talking about, I don't know what happened to my sheep.

1559
01:28:43,000 --> 01:28:46,599
Speaker 3: I'm really worried about it. Yeah. But at this point

1560
01:28:46,680 --> 01:28:49,200
Speaker 3: Jesus is like, Okay, I don't invite you to love.

1561
01:28:49,320 --> 01:28:51,799
Speaker 3: I invite you to war. It is time for fire

1562
01:28:52,040 --> 01:28:55,680
Speaker 3: and the axe. And so we get some miracles throughout here.

1563
01:28:55,680 --> 01:28:57,960
Speaker 3: We get the scene of the raising of Lazarus. Again

1564
01:28:58,120 --> 01:29:01,719
Speaker 3: strong horror movie themes here Lazarus is like a mummy.

1565
01:29:02,280 --> 01:29:06,040
Speaker 3: This scene is very patient and suspenseful and pretty scary.

1566
01:29:06,640 --> 01:29:08,360
Speaker 2: And the use of darkness here as well.

1567
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:10,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, and finally, I think I'm want to be a

1568
01:29:10,560 --> 01:29:13,080
Speaker 3: little more summary. As we move on towards the end

1569
01:29:13,080 --> 01:29:15,200
Speaker 3: of the movie, we get to the scene of the

1570
01:29:15,240 --> 01:29:17,880
Speaker 3: Conflict of the Temple where, you know, this is in

1571
01:29:17,920 --> 01:29:21,680
Speaker 3: the Bible as well, where Jesus goes with his disciples

1572
01:29:21,720 --> 01:29:25,120
Speaker 3: to the temple in Jerusalem and he is disgusted at

1573
01:29:25,120 --> 01:29:29,240
Speaker 3: discovering the money changers there at the temple. Who it's

1574
01:29:29,280 --> 01:29:32,920
Speaker 3: interesting also the priests here, or maybe it's not the priest,

1575
01:29:33,040 --> 01:29:36,240
Speaker 3: somebody explains the reason that the money changers are there,

1576
01:29:36,600 --> 01:29:39,080
Speaker 3: and it's not just like a scam. It is like

1577
01:29:39,200 --> 01:29:42,360
Speaker 3: a there is a sensical reason based on their religious

1578
01:29:42,360 --> 01:29:45,080
Speaker 3: beliefs that the money changers have to be there. That

1579
01:29:45,200 --> 01:29:47,360
Speaker 3: you know, they have to pay the temple tax and

1580
01:29:47,439 --> 01:29:49,839
Speaker 3: they don't want to do it with profane Roman coinage,

1581
01:29:49,880 --> 01:29:53,000
Speaker 3: so they have to exchange it for with coinage that

1582
01:29:53,080 --> 01:29:55,120
Speaker 3: will not be part of you know, that will not

1583
01:29:55,360 --> 01:29:58,080
Speaker 3: have the profane image of the emperor on the coin.

1584
01:29:59,280 --> 01:30:02,960
Speaker 3: So that's why it's going on. But still it's business.

1585
01:30:03,120 --> 01:30:06,559
Speaker 3: It's business taking place at the temple, and Jesus doesn't

1586
01:30:06,640 --> 01:30:09,240
Speaker 3: like it, you know, he walks around. There's a scene

1587
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:12,080
Speaker 3: where he asks one of the money changers, how much

1588
01:30:12,120 --> 01:30:15,080
Speaker 3: profit do you make, you know, on all the pilgrims

1589
01:30:15,120 --> 01:30:17,599
Speaker 3: who are coming to the temple here, and the money

1590
01:30:17,640 --> 01:30:21,400
Speaker 3: changers like it's fair, it's fair, And Jesus attacks the

1591
01:30:21,439 --> 01:30:24,920
Speaker 3: money changer, stalls and leads a near riot. He has

1592
01:30:24,920 --> 01:30:28,200
Speaker 3: an argument with the High Priest, and for a while

1593
01:30:28,240 --> 01:30:30,000
Speaker 3: here in the movie, it seems like Judas is going

1594
01:30:30,080 --> 01:30:31,960
Speaker 3: to get what he wants. He's going to get to

1595
01:30:32,000 --> 01:30:37,600
Speaker 3: see Jesus leading a rebellion against Rome. But so this

1596
01:30:37,720 --> 01:30:39,840
Speaker 3: kind of happens actually across a couple of scenes, like

1597
01:30:39,840 --> 01:30:41,800
Speaker 3: they come back to the temple later and they're gonna

1598
01:30:41,840 --> 01:30:44,320
Speaker 3: it looks like they're going to stage a rebellion finally,

1599
01:30:45,000 --> 01:30:47,640
Speaker 3: but in a way that I love this choice in

1600
01:30:47,680 --> 01:30:50,960
Speaker 3: a way that is depicted is actually quite shameful and

1601
01:30:51,040 --> 01:30:55,680
Speaker 3: difficult to watch. After assembling the crowd and having them

1602
01:30:55,720 --> 01:30:59,960
Speaker 3: face off against the Roman soldiers, Jesus backs away from

1603
01:31:00,120 --> 01:31:04,200
Speaker 3: leading the revolt. He has this experience of like pre stigmata,

1604
01:31:04,240 --> 01:31:07,680
Speaker 3: where he starts bleeding from his hands and realizes a

1605
01:31:07,720 --> 01:31:11,080
Speaker 3: different He has a new consciousness now, a different idea

1606
01:31:11,080 --> 01:31:13,519
Speaker 3: of what is it he has to do, not lead

1607
01:31:13,560 --> 01:31:17,800
Speaker 3: a revolt but die. He realizes he has to die.

1608
01:31:18,960 --> 01:31:22,960
Speaker 3: And so this this descends into chaos. You see the

1609
01:31:23,000 --> 01:31:25,960
Speaker 3: soldiers coming in, like beating up the people that Jesus led.

1610
01:31:26,000 --> 01:31:30,320
Speaker 3: There again, it's like, I love how it's engaging with

1611
01:31:30,400 --> 01:31:33,639
Speaker 3: this kind of like this shameful failure, you.

1612
01:31:33,600 --> 01:31:36,040
Speaker 2: Know what I mean, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And it's like

1613
01:31:36,120 --> 01:31:39,439
Speaker 2: the team just kind of falls apart as I mean,

1614
01:31:39,479 --> 01:31:42,120
Speaker 2: we know scripturally it's going to happen like that. You

1615
01:31:42,160 --> 01:31:46,360
Speaker 2: know he's going to be denied and so forth. But yeah,

1616
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:50,759
Speaker 2: it's like they're at the very forefront of actually stepping

1617
01:31:50,800 --> 01:31:55,120
Speaker 2: into this role as the true rebel Jesus and then

1618
01:31:55,200 --> 01:31:55,800
Speaker 2: pulling back.

1619
01:31:56,840 --> 01:32:01,120
Speaker 3: So Jesus, now having this new awareness, tells Judas that

1620
01:32:01,240 --> 01:32:03,280
Speaker 3: Judas has to turn him over to the Romans to

1621
01:32:03,320 --> 01:32:06,920
Speaker 3: be executed. He is now aware that he has to

1622
01:32:06,960 --> 01:32:09,320
Speaker 3: be a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

1623
01:32:09,560 --> 01:32:12,160
Speaker 2: And this is a really great scene, really heartbreaking stain

1624
01:32:12,200 --> 01:32:14,840
Speaker 2: between Judas and Jesus that it's not just like where

1625
01:32:15,200 --> 01:32:17,240
Speaker 2: Jesus is like, yeah, I gotta dice you need to

1626
01:32:17,240 --> 01:32:18,920
Speaker 2: turn me in, and Judas is like, you got.

1627
01:32:18,720 --> 01:32:20,920
Speaker 3: It, pal, No, he doesn't want to hear this.

1628
01:32:21,000 --> 01:32:23,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't want to do this, but he agrees,

1629
01:32:23,840 --> 01:32:26,040
Speaker 2: and Jesus is like, you're this is the only way

1630
01:32:26,040 --> 01:32:27,760
Speaker 2: it can happen. I'm not strong enough to do it

1631
01:32:27,760 --> 01:32:29,800
Speaker 2: on my own. You have to turn me in. You

1632
01:32:29,840 --> 01:32:31,439
Speaker 2: have to be the one that makes this happen.

1633
01:32:31,960 --> 01:32:36,120
Speaker 3: You're stronger than I am, so you have to do Yeah.

1634
01:32:36,160 --> 01:32:38,920
Speaker 3: So this leads up to the famous scene in the

1635
01:32:38,920 --> 01:32:41,640
Speaker 3: Bible where Jesus is captured in the Garden of Gethsemone.

1636
01:32:41,720 --> 01:32:43,800
Speaker 3: You know, he cuts the ear off of the Roman guard,

1637
01:32:43,840 --> 01:32:46,600
Speaker 3: but then Peter does and then Jesus heals it, and

1638
01:32:46,720 --> 01:32:50,559
Speaker 3: they do with that reverse reverse photography thing to have

1639
01:32:50,600 --> 01:32:53,920
Speaker 3: the ear heal, and he's brought before ponscious Pilot. In

1640
01:32:53,960 --> 01:32:57,040
Speaker 3: the scene we discussed earlier with David Bowie, he is

1641
01:32:57,479 --> 01:33:01,519
Speaker 3: unemotionally condemned to death and we see him whipped, beaten,

1642
01:33:01,760 --> 01:33:04,200
Speaker 3: and in an echo of the opening scene, we see

1643
01:33:04,240 --> 01:33:07,040
Speaker 3: him forced to carry his cross to the hill of

1644
01:33:07,080 --> 01:33:07,760
Speaker 3: his execution.

1645
01:33:08,560 --> 01:33:12,560
Speaker 2: I want to say that there's so much about crucifixion,

1646
01:33:12,680 --> 01:33:18,120
Speaker 2: iconography and descriptions of crucifixion that, especially within Christian culture,

1647
01:33:18,479 --> 01:33:21,320
Speaker 2: you almost become dead into after a while. Like I

1648
01:33:21,360 --> 01:33:24,599
Speaker 2: remember a whole Baptist sermons when I was a child

1649
01:33:25,080 --> 01:33:29,720
Speaker 2: where all the grizzly details of crucifixion were explained to me.

1650
01:33:30,320 --> 01:33:32,840
Speaker 2: And you know, there's so many visual depictions and then

1651
01:33:32,920 --> 01:33:37,520
Speaker 2: film depictions that it can almost kind of lose its grizzliness,

1652
01:33:37,840 --> 01:33:42,840
Speaker 2: and the mystical symbol that is formed out of the

1653
01:33:42,920 --> 01:33:45,960
Speaker 2: grotesque kind of ends up overpowering it. And I thought

1654
01:33:46,000 --> 01:33:48,519
Speaker 2: this film did a great job subverting some of that

1655
01:33:48,600 --> 01:33:50,280
Speaker 2: in some interesting ways. Like I don't know, there's a

1656
01:33:50,320 --> 01:33:52,120
Speaker 2: scene much earlier on. I'm not even a scene. It's

1657
01:33:52,160 --> 01:33:55,280
Speaker 2: just characters talking about crucifixion, and at this point you've

1658
01:33:55,280 --> 01:33:59,880
Speaker 2: already witnessed a crucifixion that Jesus is therefore early on

1659
01:34:00,080 --> 01:34:02,400
Speaker 2: with the crucifixion of the Zealot. But there's a scene

1660
01:34:02,400 --> 01:34:05,519
Speaker 2: where someone's saying, have you ever seen somebody crucified? Like

1661
01:34:05,560 --> 01:34:07,920
Speaker 2: after two days, they don't even have any eyes anymore,

1662
01:34:07,960 --> 01:34:10,639
Speaker 2: and dogs have eaten their feet and it's like.

1663
01:34:10,760 --> 01:34:12,599
Speaker 3: The birds come and suck their eyes.

1664
01:34:13,320 --> 01:34:16,479
Speaker 2: And just that description alone like gave me, like without

1665
01:34:16,520 --> 01:34:20,080
Speaker 2: even depicting anything visually made me like see the horror

1666
01:34:20,160 --> 01:34:24,759
Speaker 2: of this practice in a new way. And then you know, again,

1667
01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:27,200
Speaker 2: this film doesn't go as hard as other films have

1668
01:34:27,280 --> 01:34:31,000
Speaker 2: gone depicting the you know, the whipping of Christ and

1669
01:34:31,040 --> 01:34:33,840
Speaker 2: the placement of the crown of thorns, though it is

1670
01:34:33,880 --> 01:34:38,360
Speaker 2: there and it is bloody, but they depict a lot

1671
01:34:38,400 --> 01:34:41,040
Speaker 2: of it. And then when we actually go up to Gogatha,

1672
01:34:41,720 --> 01:34:45,040
Speaker 2: the place where the crucifixions are are, where they are

1673
01:34:45,080 --> 01:34:50,639
Speaker 2: carried out, we don't get that very iconic three crosses image,

1674
01:34:50,680 --> 01:34:54,320
Speaker 2: you know, that very like asymmetrical vision of things. And

1675
01:34:54,520 --> 01:34:58,000
Speaker 2: instead it looks like a place of ignoble death. It

1676
01:34:58,040 --> 01:35:02,880
Speaker 2: looks like a place of loneliness and horror. And I

1677
01:35:03,240 --> 01:35:05,759
Speaker 2: also really liked that it did not look like holy

1678
01:35:06,000 --> 01:35:08,759
Speaker 2: iconography and therefore did not seem like a holy place,

1679
01:35:09,000 --> 01:35:11,760
Speaker 2: which it wouldn't be in this world. Like that's something

1680
01:35:11,800 --> 01:35:14,400
Speaker 2: that comes later with the religious tradition.

1681
01:35:14,400 --> 01:35:17,080
Speaker 3: Right, It was not supposed the Romans were viewing it

1682
01:35:17,120 --> 01:35:19,679
Speaker 3: as the exact opposite of a place of like honor

1683
01:35:19,720 --> 01:35:23,800
Speaker 3: and reverence. It was supposed to be a humiliating, painful,

1684
01:35:23,920 --> 01:35:29,960
Speaker 3: shameful death. Yeah, and I love another detail in this

1685
01:35:30,000 --> 01:35:33,920
Speaker 3: scene of how narrow. The avenue is where Jesus has

1686
01:35:34,000 --> 01:35:37,639
Speaker 3: to carry his cross, So he's carrying the cross beam

1687
01:35:37,880 --> 01:35:40,920
Speaker 3: of the cross through this tiny alley which is not

1688
01:35:41,080 --> 01:35:43,920
Speaker 3: even wide enough for the beam to pass. He has

1689
01:35:44,000 --> 01:35:45,400
Speaker 3: to turn its sideways.

1690
01:35:45,960 --> 01:35:46,439
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1691
01:35:46,520 --> 01:35:59,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, So while he's on the cross, here comes probably

1692
01:35:59,240 --> 01:36:03,080
Speaker 3: the most famous thing about the Last Temptation of Christ,

1693
01:36:03,160 --> 01:36:05,160
Speaker 3: the thing that a lot of people react to in

1694
01:36:05,240 --> 01:36:08,479
Speaker 3: terms of the plot, and also one of the most

1695
01:36:08,479 --> 01:36:12,879
Speaker 3: interesting and original things about it. While Jesus is suffering

1696
01:36:12,920 --> 01:36:16,840
Speaker 3: on the cross in this telling of the story, he's

1697
01:36:16,920 --> 01:36:20,920
Speaker 3: granted a reprieve. He sees a young girl sitting on

1698
01:36:20,960 --> 01:36:24,759
Speaker 3: the ground and sort of all the sound is sucked

1699
01:36:24,800 --> 01:36:29,240
Speaker 3: out except for Jesus and the girl, and the girl

1700
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:32,479
Speaker 3: tells him that she is his guardian angel and it's

1701
01:36:32,520 --> 01:36:36,639
Speaker 3: all right. He has proven himself worthy and God doesn't

1702
01:36:36,680 --> 01:36:39,519
Speaker 3: want him to suffer anymore. God wants him to be happy.

1703
01:36:40,240 --> 01:36:43,280
Speaker 3: And they have this exchange where Jesus asks, wait, you

1704
01:36:43,320 --> 01:36:47,120
Speaker 3: mean I'm not the Messiah and she says, no, you're not,

1705
01:36:47,960 --> 01:36:50,960
Speaker 3: and he's so relieved that it doesn't have to be him,

1706
01:36:51,600 --> 01:36:54,360
Speaker 3: and she brings him down off the cross and she

1707
01:36:54,560 --> 01:36:58,120
Speaker 3: kisses his wounds and they begin to heal, and she

1708
01:36:58,320 --> 01:37:02,160
Speaker 3: leads him away from the hill. Suddenly the world is green.

1709
01:37:02,400 --> 01:37:05,920
Speaker 3: There's a genuine shift in the scenery. The same scenery

1710
01:37:06,000 --> 01:37:10,360
Speaker 3: up till now has been very dry desert, you know,

1711
01:37:10,479 --> 01:37:14,760
Speaker 3: a very very white and brown and just not a

1712
01:37:14,840 --> 01:37:20,240
Speaker 3: lot of life. And suddenly we see these green fields

1713
01:37:20,280 --> 01:37:25,120
Speaker 3: and hills and vegetation, and Jesus has sort of led

1714
01:37:25,200 --> 01:37:28,200
Speaker 3: into this forest and now he gets to live the

1715
01:37:28,280 --> 01:37:33,360
Speaker 3: life that he was denied. He marries Mary Magdalen and

1716
01:37:33,640 --> 01:37:36,719
Speaker 3: they love one another. They have a happy life together.

1717
01:37:37,400 --> 01:37:39,760
Speaker 3: We see them together in this sort of cabin in

1718
01:37:39,800 --> 01:37:43,759
Speaker 3: the woods, and eventually Mary dies. But then the guardian

1719
01:37:43,800 --> 01:37:47,600
Speaker 3: angel who always walks beside Jesus now tells him to

1720
01:37:47,640 --> 01:37:49,840
Speaker 3: take a new wife and to have a family. So

1721
01:37:49,920 --> 01:37:54,360
Speaker 3: he does. He has children, He has a family, and

1722
01:37:54,400 --> 01:37:56,800
Speaker 3: we see him, you know, he's just going through his life.

1723
01:37:57,040 --> 01:38:00,280
Speaker 3: And then we come across one very interesting scene, which

1724
01:38:00,320 --> 01:38:06,080
Speaker 3: is the confrontation with Paul soul Is. Paul is out

1725
01:38:06,080 --> 01:38:08,960
Speaker 3: in the middle of somewhere. People are gathering and Paul

1726
01:38:09,120 --> 01:38:13,400
Speaker 3: is preaching. He is preaching the Christian message. He's preaching

1727
01:38:13,520 --> 01:38:16,799
Speaker 3: salvation to all through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

1728
01:38:16,920 --> 01:38:21,000
Speaker 3: Christ and Jesus confronts him. He comes up and he says,

1729
01:38:21,040 --> 01:38:24,120
Speaker 3: that's not true. I'm that man you're talking about, and

1730
01:38:24,160 --> 01:38:27,599
Speaker 3: I never died. And Paul gets up in his face

1731
01:38:27,640 --> 01:38:31,400
Speaker 3: and argues with him, and he hates meeting Jesus. He's like,

1732
01:38:31,520 --> 01:38:34,320
Speaker 3: this guy is terrible. What a let down. This was

1733
01:38:34,360 --> 01:38:36,240
Speaker 3: the line, I'm glad I met you, so I can

1734
01:38:36,280 --> 01:38:39,599
Speaker 3: forget all about you. You are nothing like the Jesus

1735
01:38:39,680 --> 01:38:44,360
Speaker 3: I preach. The Jesus I preach is great, and he

1736
01:38:44,760 --> 01:38:46,920
Speaker 3: makes the emphasis that it's kind of like, I don't

1737
01:38:46,920 --> 01:38:48,960
Speaker 3: care if what you're saying is right or not. I

1738
01:38:48,960 --> 01:38:51,280
Speaker 3: don't care if you are that man and you never died.

1739
01:38:51,600 --> 01:38:55,519
Speaker 3: The story I'm telling is true, whether it actually happened

1740
01:38:55,600 --> 01:38:59,400
Speaker 3: or not. But Jesus doesn't buy this. He is disturbed.

1741
01:38:59,400 --> 01:39:01,479
Speaker 3: He's like, how can it be right to preach the

1742
01:39:01,560 --> 01:39:04,280
Speaker 3: story if it's built on a lie. So they do

1743
01:39:04,360 --> 01:39:08,040
Speaker 3: not agree here, you know, they part ways and Jesus

1744
01:39:08,120 --> 01:39:11,519
Speaker 3: is like, it can't it can't be a true story

1745
01:39:11,640 --> 01:39:16,040
Speaker 3: if it's a lie. And so later, when Jesus is

1746
01:39:16,120 --> 01:39:20,280
Speaker 3: old and on his deathbed, it happens to be during

1747
01:39:20,320 --> 01:39:22,879
Speaker 3: the Siege of Jerusalem, which was in the year seventy

1748
01:39:22,960 --> 01:39:26,120
Speaker 3: in the first century. So the Romans are here laying

1749
01:39:26,120 --> 01:39:29,080
Speaker 3: waste to the city, and Jesus is visited by his

1750
01:39:29,160 --> 01:39:33,320
Speaker 3: old disciples, including a Judas, and it's seen that it

1751
01:39:33,560 --> 01:39:36,920
Speaker 3: lays bare his betrayal of his purpose by the life

1752
01:39:36,920 --> 01:39:42,280
Speaker 3: that he led, and this scene brings a terrible final revelation.

1753
01:39:43,000 --> 01:39:45,320
Speaker 3: So his whole life up to this point, and now

1754
01:39:45,360 --> 01:39:48,800
Speaker 3: he's led this good life with love and marriage and

1755
01:39:48,840 --> 01:39:52,760
Speaker 3: a family and pleasures and peace, and you know, he's

1756
01:39:52,840 --> 01:39:55,919
Speaker 3: dying in old age, but the whole time, his guardian

1757
01:39:55,960 --> 01:39:59,479
Speaker 3: angel has walked beside him. And in a frightening and

1758
01:39:59,520 --> 01:40:04,200
Speaker 3: sickening twist, the gentle guardian from all these years is

1759
01:40:04,320 --> 01:40:08,519
Speaker 3: revealed to have been Satan, which makes sense if you

1760
01:40:08,600 --> 01:40:11,040
Speaker 3: think back on it. I love this twist because you

1761
01:40:11,160 --> 01:40:13,880
Speaker 3: now start to think back on things the guardian Angel

1762
01:40:13,960 --> 01:40:19,400
Speaker 3: said throughout the montage of the Years, where the guardian

1763
01:40:19,439 --> 01:40:24,160
Speaker 3: Angel speaks words that sound enough like wisdom, but really

1764
01:40:24,200 --> 01:40:28,559
Speaker 3: what they were was what Jesus wanted to hear.

1765
01:40:29,080 --> 01:40:33,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, the angel even backs it up with scripture

1766
01:40:33,680 --> 01:40:37,799
Speaker 2: and says like, didn't you know, didn't God save Isaac

1767
01:40:37,800 --> 01:40:40,519
Speaker 2: from Abraham's hand at the last minute? That's what I'm doing. Now.

1768
01:40:40,680 --> 01:40:42,360
Speaker 2: This is what God wants for you as well.

1769
01:40:42,600 --> 01:40:47,080
Speaker 3: It sounds like wisdom, but it's always whatever Jesus wished

1770
01:40:47,160 --> 01:40:50,599
Speaker 3: were true, which is I mean, that's a great people,

1771
01:40:51,400 --> 01:40:54,559
Speaker 3: that's a great piece of wisdom generally. How easy it

1772
01:40:54,640 --> 01:40:58,600
Speaker 3: is for sophistory to sound correct and to sound like

1773
01:40:58,640 --> 01:41:02,599
Speaker 3: wisdom itself when it's what you want to hear. We've

1774
01:41:02,600 --> 01:41:05,240
Speaker 3: always got to be suspicious of things, no matter how

1775
01:41:05,280 --> 01:41:08,200
Speaker 3: true they sound, if they also happened to be the

1776
01:41:08,280 --> 01:41:12,120
Speaker 3: thing we would like to be true. Yeah, yeah, so

1777
01:41:12,840 --> 01:41:16,519
Speaker 3: horrified and shamed. At this point, Jesus is you know,

1778
01:41:16,560 --> 01:41:20,000
Speaker 3: he's an old man, he's dying, but he crawls, dragging

1779
01:41:20,040 --> 01:41:23,880
Speaker 3: his aged and sickly body up to the hill of Golgotha.

1780
01:41:24,000 --> 01:41:26,479
Speaker 3: He climbs up to the hill of the cross, and

1781
01:41:26,560 --> 01:41:29,439
Speaker 3: he begs God to give him another chance to die

1782
01:41:29,520 --> 01:41:32,960
Speaker 3: for the world. And now here's where the title comes in.

1783
01:41:33,120 --> 01:41:36,880
Speaker 3: Having passed the last temptation. The other earlier temptations were

1784
01:41:36,880 --> 01:41:39,719
Speaker 3: in the desert, and now he's had the last temptation

1785
01:41:39,840 --> 01:41:42,599
Speaker 3: here on the cross. He has returned to the cross

1786
01:41:43,400 --> 01:41:46,240
Speaker 3: as if everything that we saw since this point had

1787
01:41:46,240 --> 01:41:49,200
Speaker 3: been a dream. Now, I don't know how we're supposed

1788
01:41:49,240 --> 01:41:51,120
Speaker 3: to take that. Was it all a dream and he

1789
01:41:51,240 --> 01:41:52,920
Speaker 3: was really just here on the cross all the time?

1790
01:41:53,040 --> 01:41:55,040
Speaker 3: Or when you're talking about the power of God, does

1791
01:41:55,080 --> 01:41:57,080
Speaker 3: it even make a difference. I don't know.

1792
01:41:57,680 --> 01:42:00,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I guess then for my own part,

1793
01:42:00,840 --> 01:42:03,760
Speaker 2: I just imagined it as like this is that this

1794
01:42:03,880 --> 01:42:06,599
Speaker 2: is just all a temptation happening in the moment while

1795
01:42:06,600 --> 01:42:09,519
Speaker 2: he's on the cross, and then that is rejected, And

1796
01:42:09,560 --> 01:42:13,000
Speaker 2: this is just how it's presented cinematically. But I mean,

1797
01:42:13,040 --> 01:42:16,880
Speaker 2: when you're dealing with divine powers and infernal powers here,

1798
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:18,640
Speaker 2: I guess it could go in various directions.

1799
01:42:19,360 --> 01:42:22,400
Speaker 3: So the story ends with the death of Jesus on

1800
01:42:22,439 --> 01:42:24,920
Speaker 3: the cross here and he says it is accomplished, which

1801
01:42:24,960 --> 01:42:26,920
Speaker 3: are his words I believe from the Gospel of John.

1802
01:42:28,120 --> 01:42:31,200
Speaker 3: So it's interesting that the story comes back and it

1803
01:42:31,560 --> 01:42:35,200
Speaker 3: ends the same way we normally see in the gospel accounts.

1804
01:42:35,240 --> 01:42:38,200
Speaker 3: Of course, it doesn't address the resurrection, which I think

1805
01:42:38,240 --> 01:42:41,960
Speaker 3: is an interesting choice. You know, you almost always have

1806
01:42:42,040 --> 01:42:46,360
Speaker 3: to have the resurrection of Christ in the story about Christ.

1807
01:42:46,360 --> 01:42:49,599
Speaker 3: That's sort of like the central tenet. According to most Christians,

1808
01:42:49,640 --> 01:42:51,719
Speaker 3: at least but it leaves that part out.

1809
01:42:52,560 --> 01:42:55,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you can easily imagine a version of the

1810
01:42:55,880 --> 01:43:00,880
Speaker 2: film that has that at the end as well. But

1811
01:43:01,280 --> 01:43:02,880
Speaker 2: in a way, I guess, you know, it is accomplished.

1812
01:43:02,920 --> 01:43:05,599
Speaker 2: He has resisted the temptation and done the thing that

1813
01:43:05,680 --> 01:43:08,360
Speaker 2: he had to do, and therefore it's as good a

1814
01:43:08,400 --> 01:43:11,080
Speaker 2: place to end it as any one.

1815
01:43:11,080 --> 01:43:13,639
Speaker 3: Thing you might say is that if this fictional account

1816
01:43:13,720 --> 01:43:17,880
Speaker 3: of the life of Jesus is is explicitly aimed at

1817
01:43:17,920 --> 01:43:22,080
Speaker 3: exploring the humanity of Jesus, you know, to cousin Zakas,

1818
01:43:22,280 --> 01:43:24,240
Speaker 3: he may I don't want to put words in his mouth,

1819
01:43:24,320 --> 01:43:27,760
Speaker 3: but he may well have believed that. You know. It's

1820
01:43:27,560 --> 01:43:31,479
Speaker 3: the humanity is what ended at the time of Christ's death,

1821
01:43:31,520 --> 01:43:34,080
Speaker 3: and at that point he's he sort of is God

1822
01:43:34,240 --> 01:43:37,240
Speaker 3: once again, fully God and not fully human anymore.

1823
01:43:38,000 --> 01:43:39,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like this is this has been a story

1824
01:43:40,000 --> 01:43:42,760
Speaker 2: of integration and at this point, with the resurrection, like

1825
01:43:42,920 --> 01:43:45,040
Speaker 2: man and God are fully integrated in one being, and

1826
01:43:45,080 --> 01:43:47,639
Speaker 2: they're like, it's a different story and a different character.

1827
01:43:47,960 --> 01:43:50,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, could be I'm just guessing.

1828
01:43:50,560 --> 01:43:52,400
Speaker 2: There, but no, no, that makes a lot of sense.

1829
01:43:53,680 --> 01:43:58,840
Speaker 3: But so anyway, last Temptation of Christ, this is a wonderful, beautiful,

1830
01:43:59,439 --> 01:44:03,760
Speaker 3: fascinating film. I just so much, so much love for

1831
01:44:03,800 --> 01:44:07,640
Speaker 3: this movie. I'm sad it took me this long in

1832
01:44:07,680 --> 01:44:09,880
Speaker 3: life to see it, but I'm very glad I finally did.

1833
01:44:10,120 --> 01:44:13,120
Speaker 2: Oh, don't feel sad. I mean, I think it's sometimes

1834
01:44:13,160 --> 01:44:14,920
Speaker 2: we think that like that, like that, we think, oh,

1835
01:44:14,920 --> 01:44:16,400
Speaker 2: this is a great film. It's been around all my

1836
01:44:16,479 --> 01:44:19,360
Speaker 2: life and so forth. Why did I wait until now?

1837
01:44:19,400 --> 01:44:21,599
Speaker 2: It's like, if you'd seen it years ago, you wouldn't

1838
01:44:21,600 --> 01:44:23,120
Speaker 2: get to see it for the first time. Now you

1839
01:44:23,120 --> 01:44:25,360
Speaker 2: know this film was out there waiting on you.

1840
01:44:26,080 --> 01:44:27,720
Speaker 3: That's true. I think if I had seen this in

1841
01:44:27,800 --> 01:44:30,679
Speaker 3: high school, I probably would not have appreciated it quite

1842
01:44:30,720 --> 01:44:31,040
Speaker 3: as well.

1843
01:44:31,160 --> 01:44:35,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love the ending. Here we get

1844
01:44:35,400 --> 01:44:39,599
Speaker 2: a splash of otherworldly color right here at the very

1845
01:44:39,720 --> 01:44:41,920
Speaker 2: end of the film. It's shocking, it's beautiful. I was

1846
01:44:41,960 --> 01:44:44,760
Speaker 2: like I was taken aback by it. Apparently this was

1847
01:44:45,640 --> 01:44:49,519
Speaker 2: an accident of filmmaking, the color integrity of the image

1848
01:44:49,520 --> 01:44:52,040
Speaker 2: of the film. It's somehow been compromised. But of course

1849
01:44:52,040 --> 01:44:54,000
Speaker 2: they ended up really liking it. And yeah, I think

1850
01:44:54,040 --> 01:44:58,280
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful, beautiful way to land the picture. And

1851
01:44:59,040 --> 01:45:02,280
Speaker 2: I mentioned I watched this on the plane. The plane

1852
01:45:02,320 --> 01:45:05,760
Speaker 2: landed as the film was landing, and I don't know,

1853
01:45:06,840 --> 01:45:08,840
Speaker 2: not always like that, but in this case it really

1854
01:45:08,840 --> 01:45:10,160
Speaker 2: worked for me. It was kind of like, this is

1855
01:45:10,200 --> 01:45:13,360
Speaker 2: actually a pretty great situation in which to watch the film, Like,

1856
01:45:13,800 --> 01:45:15,559
Speaker 2: I don't really like flying. I'm always a little bit

1857
01:45:15,600 --> 01:45:17,920
Speaker 2: afraid while I'm flying. This is a film about fear

1858
01:45:18,400 --> 01:45:22,719
Speaker 2: in many respects. And then yeah, everything just comes together

1859
01:45:22,800 --> 01:45:23,559
Speaker 2: right there at the end.

1860
01:45:23,800 --> 01:45:26,080
Speaker 3: Did you think much about how it was only two

1861
01:45:26,120 --> 01:45:29,240
Speaker 3: weeks to get from Demon Warp to Last Temptation of Christ?

1862
01:45:31,160 --> 01:45:33,320
Speaker 2: That's a good point. It is interesting that we did

1863
01:45:33,400 --> 01:45:37,400
Speaker 2: Demon Demon and then Last Last to Demons in Yeah,

1864
01:45:37,560 --> 01:45:39,280
Speaker 2: and then two last films.

1865
01:45:38,920 --> 01:45:43,960
Speaker 3: So Demon Pond, Demon Warp, Last Last Man on Earth,

1866
01:45:44,040 --> 01:45:47,439
Speaker 3: Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah. I enjoyed all four of them.

1867
01:45:47,479 --> 01:45:48,840
Speaker 3: You know, we've been on a good run.

1868
01:45:49,200 --> 01:45:51,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it has been a good run. Good run.

1869
01:45:51,280 --> 01:45:53,559
Speaker 2: I don't know how where we'll go from here. Where

1870
01:45:53,560 --> 01:45:55,280
Speaker 2: do you go from Last Temptation of Christ?

1871
01:45:55,600 --> 01:45:59,480
Speaker 3: Probably a real stinker. I'm thinking, like a late nineties

1872
01:45:59,520 --> 01:46:02,200
Speaker 3: made for TV sci fi movie is what I'm thinking.

1873
01:46:02,640 --> 01:46:04,880
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we have some good choices out there,

1874
01:46:04,920 --> 01:46:09,120
Speaker 2: that's for sure. Right, Well, Yeah, this one's a great one.

1875
01:46:09,280 --> 01:46:11,759
Speaker 2: Highly recommend it. If you haven't seen The Last Temptation

1876
01:46:11,800 --> 01:46:14,320
Speaker 2: of Christ and you made it through this episode, go

1877
01:46:14,360 --> 01:46:16,000
Speaker 2: see it. If it's been a long time since you've

1878
01:46:16,040 --> 01:46:19,200
Speaker 2: seen it, go see it again. And if nothing else, yeah,

1879
01:46:19,240 --> 01:46:21,680
Speaker 2: just dive into that score. Oh my goodness. Like I said,

1880
01:46:21,680 --> 01:46:27,000
Speaker 2: I've been listening to to Passion for decades and it

1881
01:46:27,000 --> 01:46:29,519
Speaker 2: didn't ruin me for anything, in part because it is

1882
01:46:29,520 --> 01:46:31,400
Speaker 2: a little different from what you hear in the film.

1883
01:46:31,439 --> 01:46:36,439
Speaker 2: And yeah, absolutely terrific. All right, at this point, we'll

1884
01:46:36,479 --> 01:46:38,400
Speaker 2: just quickly remind you Stuff to Blow your Mind is

1885
01:46:38,439 --> 01:46:40,880
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcasts with core episodes on

1886
01:46:40,880 --> 01:46:44,479
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but here on Fridays, and this is

1887
01:46:44,600 --> 01:46:48,519
Speaker 2: a good Friday. We set aside all that stuff and

1888
01:46:48,560 --> 01:46:51,320
Speaker 2: we just talk about a weird film, and it's up

1889
01:46:51,360 --> 01:46:53,759
Speaker 2: to us to decide exactly what constitutes a weird film.

1890
01:46:53,960 --> 01:46:56,799
Speaker 2: I should met We're going to end this podcast eventually,

1891
01:46:56,840 --> 01:46:58,519
Speaker 2: but I will mention there is a scene in this

1892
01:46:58,640 --> 01:47:01,720
Speaker 2: movie where Jesus takes his own heart out yep, And

1893
01:47:01,920 --> 01:47:04,240
Speaker 2: that was a moment where I'm like, that happens in

1894
01:47:04,280 --> 01:47:06,240
Speaker 2: this movie. We can do weird house about.

1895
01:47:06,040 --> 01:47:08,200
Speaker 3: It before that?

1896
01:47:08,400 --> 01:47:10,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, how it did is but that is a

1897
01:47:10,240 --> 01:47:12,080
Speaker 2: wonderfully surreal moment in the picture.

1898
01:47:12,880 --> 01:47:15,240
Speaker 3: Okay, where are we? We're closing it out right? Okay,

1899
01:47:15,680 --> 01:47:18,759
Speaker 3: so huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer

1900
01:47:18,840 --> 01:47:21,200
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch

1901
01:47:21,240 --> 01:47:23,320
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1902
01:47:23,400 --> 01:47:25,479
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1903
01:47:25,520 --> 01:47:28,519
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

1904
01:47:28,560 --> 01:47:36,560
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.

1905
01:47:36,680 --> 01:47:39,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1906
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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.