From the earliest silent films through to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, movies about Jesus Christ tend to adhere to a standard biopic template. In her recently launched book, Jesus of Hollywood (Oxford University Press), Adele Reinhartz, associate vice-president, research, examines the principal characteristics of the “Jesus biopics.” Reinhartz explains, “First, they make a claim to historical authenticity. Second, and at the same time, they undermine that claim in ways that are both subtle and overt. Third, they use the Jesus story as a lens through which to view and to work out contemporary concerns, such as sexuality, ethnic identity, theology, and the relationship between religion and politics.”
An expert in the depiction of biblical characters in film and the visual arts, Reinhartz sees changes in portrayals over the more than 100 years of cinema as our society’s concerns and preoccupations have evolved. She points to two significant developments. “Not surprisingly, women’s roles — particularly the role of Mary, Jesus’ mother, and the role of Mary Magdalene — have grown and, in the case of Mary Magdalene, become more positive and involved in Jesus’ activities. And films made after the Holocaust show evidence of attempts to soften or downplay the Jewish role in Jesus’ death. But not all films follow these two paths,” she says.
Despite the controversy raised over films such as Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, most are quite conventional, staying within what is normally acceptable from the point of view of mainstream Christianity. “But that doesn’t mean that they are accurate representations of the Bible,” adds Reinhartz. “The Gospel accounts have many gaps and contradictions, and they give us no indication of how people looked or sounded. So any cinematic representation will be fictionalized even if it includes a lot of scriptural material.”
