Posted on 09/28/2012 10:28:47 AM PDT by TigerClaws
When Nikos Kazantzakis publishes The Last Temptation of Christ in 1955, the Catholic Church bans it and the Greek Orthodox Church excommunicates him. Three decades later, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese releases his screen adaptation of the novel. The film, according to its prologue, "is not based on the Gospels, but upon this fictional exploration of the eternal spiritual conflict." Scorsese, known for such masterpieces as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, portrays Jesus as a confused man who struggles against his dual nature, in thoughts more than action.
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Universal responds with an open letter in newspapers across the country, saying that acquiescence to these forces would infringe on the First Amendment rights of all Americans
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
So Christians are offended by a film and they organize a boycott that is moderately successful. Note that the article did not metion any bombings, or calls to execute Scorsese by prominent Christians or any other violence. Because there was none. Nor did the article mention Reagan’s Justice Department digging up old warrants or dirt on Scorsese or arresting him on some trumped up charges. Nor did it mention Reagan and his cabinet members getting on TV to apologize for the film.
The media pumped it, gave it awards, they still keep it alive as a great work of art and a classic.
“Scorsese received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and Hershey’s performance as Mary Magdalene earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress nomination.”
“In his review of the film, Roger Ebert, who gave the film four out of four stars. Ebert later included the film in his list of “Great Movies”.”
“Writers at NNDB claim that “Paul Schrader’s screenplay and Willem Dafoe’s performance made perhaps the most honestly Christ-like portrayal of Jesus ever filmed.”
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the picture has been given a “Fresh” rating of 83%, with an average rating of 7.6 out of 10 as of December 2010.”
“The film’s musical soundtrack, composed by Peter Gabriel, received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture in 1988 and was released on CD with the title Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, which won a Grammy in 1990 for Best New Age Album. The film’s score itself helped to popularize world music.”
WHAT WAS THE BOX OFFICE REACTION?
Worldwide total including US.: $8,373,585
I saw the movie. I wasn’t terribly offended by it. I just thought it was banal. I thought Dafoe’s portayal of Christ was bad. Not because he portrayed Christ as confused, but because Dafoe did a bad acting job.
Personally, I don’t mind fictional movies that might not be biblically correct, but I do mind mindless, poorly done movies that gin up controversy to mask poor writing and acting.
I don’t see your point. That those critical bodies should just look at the box office results before making any decisions? Films about Biblical figures hadn’t done well at the Box Office since the early 1960s and still don’t (’Passion of the Christ’ was an exception).
It was an attempt to counterpoise his religiously themed NYC films like Mean Streets and Taxi Driver...a film with religious figures displaying the attitudes of New Yorkers.
My point was that the movie sucked and the left plays it up, that is why we can just hear about a movie being planned, and often guess that it will win awards, just by learning it’s agenda or politics before it is even made.
I liked it. Roger Ebert had it in his Great Movies list because he liked it too. It’s not a political issue. There was no agenda involved with this particular film. Scorsese had been wanting to make it since the early 1970s.
You and the left agree, me and the rest of the world agree, our view is the real life view that the movie sucked and the reason the left loves it is because of it’s agenda.
Ebert is notorious for mixing his politics and agenda with his movie reviewing.
I watched it too and I really don’t remember much about it. Guess it really didn’t make much of an impression on me.
I agree about Defoe. He’s not a very good actor in most movies I’ve seen him in.
I much more prefer The Life of Brian to this one. LOL
But then I am a Monty Python fan.
I don’t mimic my cinematic taste from what the ‘world’ thinks. Besides, it’s a well regarded film by film buffs. Ebert’s reviews only became notoriously political in the last ten years or so. Before that he was fairly reliable even if you disagreed with him.
Just about the only people that agree with you is the left, of course they mostly didn’t bother to watch the movie either, they just like the agenda, and you were late spotting Ebert’s agenda if you only caught it since 2002.
Gee, I get it, you personally like the movie, and personally couldn’t see the bias in Ebert that we other more conservative people could.
Way to go, too bad you couldn’t persuade people to agree with you on the movie, and conservatives to agree with you about Ebert.
Cite an example of Ebert’s pre 1998 bias.
Get serious, your liberal joy in an old lefty, 1988 movie and Roger Ebert’s liberalism, isn’t interesting enough to me to go back 15 years in time and try to recall why we conservatives were mocking the guy and his TV show.
The guy that is an icon in your liberal view is not very important to me, TV isn’t important to me.
You have some strong personal tastes for a lefty movie and a lefty reviewer, big deal, you can’t really convince conservatives to accept them, just enjoy your own world view and strive to get what you can from FR.
LOL. You aren’t interested in substantiating your claims. Just casting casting aspersions. This film is completely apolitical.
I’m out here in the real world, the world that knows that the movie was a bomb, a stinker, an anti-Christian agenda movie that failed miserably, yet that the left did what they often do, tried to help it as much as possible with awards and publicity, and lavish reviews.
This pattern is well known to conservatives.
It is you that is trying to force some bizarre claim, that we don’t really know what we know, that Ebert is a raving liberal, and that Temptation had a lefty agenda.
The movie stank, and it was a total bomb, and the left absolutely loves it, adores it, and still promotes it, like you.
You need to show that Christians did not/do not, think that the fictional movie was anti-Christian (a liberal agenda movie).
You need to show that conservatives do not consider Ebert an old lefty.
You have to undo almost a quarter century of truth about the Last Temptation, and telling us that you personally love the movie and that you never noticed that Ebert was liberal, is not exactly enough.
Scorsese had been wanting to make that film since the early 1970s and it was clearly the work of believers (Scorsese was a former seminarian and writer Paul Schraeder was raised in a fairly strict Calvinist faith). It had no ties at all to the anti-Moral Majority movement a lot of people tried to pigeonhole it into upon release. It simply took a long time to get made. As I said if Scorsese had his way it would have been made in the early 1970s. Ebert had traditionally been hostile to overtly anti-religious films (Priest for example). He did not become raving until a combination of Siskel’s death and a bad case of B.D.S. set in.
No it wasn’t, calling that anti-Christian trash a work of devout, believing Christians is absurd, and untrue, frankly a lie, you don’t know what Scorcese’s religious beliefs are, but we are pretty sure that he is not a devoted Christian.
Christians despise the film, as did the rest of the people in America, and your lack of conservatism is showing not just in your adoration for the movie, but in your admission that you couldn’t see the liberalism in Ebert that the rest of us were mocking.
I wonder what your reasons are as a Christian, to love this movie?
This isn’t the first time that you have taken this exact same role in defending an anti-Christian movie, and the Hollywood left.
I think your own biases and liberalism are on display, as your claw for this silly, flop of a lefty movie, and an old famously lefty, movie critic.
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