What did you think of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)?

Yeah good point, Jesus can't watch over Lazarus all the time, but maybe if he brought him back again, he could help him escape to somewhere where he won't be found perhaps, I thought.

As for Hershey, what was so bad about her?

“I could’a done that better than Jesus.”

That's a fair argument, Ironpony. I have to admit there are things in The Bible I can't easily explain but that's also true of life in general.

But I still think it's a very good movie and definitely underrated.

It s a real shame they had to make jesus christ as a gay rather than a straight person...real shame,with all due respect...

They didn't do that, though.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Wisest words Michael Scott ever said. I haven't seen it yet, but it's gonna be hard for it to top my favorite Scorcese flick... The Last Waltz.

Scorsese has made some pretty good movies, and is considered to be one of the best directors out there, but do you ever feel like his movies have a very standard and average style to them? Like just the filmmaking style is very ordinary I find, and he doesn't really do anything to separate himself from other directors, style wise.

Unless I am wrong and not seeing it?

So you've never seen the movie then?

I liked the movie. Not at all one of my favorite Scorsese flicks, I'm more of a fan of Casino and King of Comedy, but I'm glad I saw it.

I'm an atheist who really likes watching a good Jesus movie, which I suppose is weird, but oh well.

__________________
"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

How come the movie didn't do as well as The Passion of the Christ, for example?

My guess is that Temptation got a bad rep since it's an extrapolation of the gospels & a "what if?" story that interjected certain plot points that could be viewed as irreverent which caused it to be panned as being controversial and even blasphemous to Christianity (and thus a lot of Christians avoided it).

Whereas Passion was a pretty direct interpretation of the gospels as written - which brought a lot more Christians to the theater.

Temptation ended up being viewed as playing with the story of Christ (which is not viewed kindly within the religious community as you're not supposed to play around with the "facts" or at least with the story as written in the New Testament) while Passion was viewed as simply telling the story on film.

Just my guess.

The Passion of the Christ was incredibly disturbing. I can't see why that was so popular. As controversial as it was, at least the Scorsese film wasn't like Hostel, but with Jesus.

I think it's popularity was due to it being one of the most realistic portrayals of the story while sticking directly to the source material. It was the story without any of the dramatic fluff of the other Hollywood epics. The language was in Arabic (?) with subtitles which added to the realism and there was no Handel's Messiah playing as the background music.

Yeah, it was overly graphic with the gore... supposedly because Gibson wanted to emphasize the suffering of Christ and the level of brutality both the Jews and Romans levied against him to make his choice to sacrifice himself all the more momentous.

Speaking of Handel's Messiah, one of my favorite movie scenes of all time is the Hallelujah sequence form The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) just after the raising of Lazarus. Go to 6:20 for start of the Hallelujah chorus! Thanks to Van Heflin, Sal Mineo and Ed Wynn for bringing the climax of this scene together!

Well I understand how it's a good rule of thumb to stick to the Biblical facts in an overall general sense. However, in storytelling, in order to get the messages and feelings across, that you want to get across, sometimes, you have to take artistic license and make certain things up, even in true history, don't you?

I mean if the filmmakers wanted their message to be "If Jesus Christ can resist temptation, than so we can we", then wouldn't Martin Scorsese look at the Bible and be like "Hey wait a minute, if we stick to the Bible stories 100 hundred percent point by point, we won't be able to get that message across! And Jesus is not going to be able to go through any type of character developmental arc, if we just have him know everything and not have to learn and grow at all!"

So therefore, from a storytelling standpoint, don't certain liberties and artistic licenses have to be taken to convey that message and tell a more emotionally effective story as a result, rather than a story that is emotionally limited too, a 'just the facts approach'?

This may be controversial to some Christians but I (being a Christian myself) think there is some indication in The Bible that Jesus came to terms with his mission over time though he never strayed from it. So that could be the character arc you're looking for.
Another approach would be for his disciples to change in their faith in him and understanding of their own mission. The story of Christ doesn't really end with his resurrection. A film about him could end showing how, following his crucifixion. his disciples set about preaching to others. They went from staying very close to him physically, though not always understanding his teachings, to striking out and with a stronger faith in him, building the Christian church.

It was great! My favorite of his films.

__________________
"When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other, that not only does God exist, you're doing His will." ~ The Bride

Well I read that all the controversy is over is the movie being sacrilegious and blasphemous, but I don't see how. I mean the devil plants temptations in Christs head, but didn't Jesus fight temptation from the devil for 40 days in the bible, if I recall correct?

If that is so, than why is it blasphemous?

I kinda prefer passion of the christ as a movie, however i prefer willem defoe s portrayal of jesus christ better, he simply fitted the bill more from likeness point of view, remember willem defoe was a top shelf actor in the 80s

Oh okay, I thought that Jim Caviezel fits the likeness in the sense, that he has more of the Jesus look we know, at least to me he seems to, but I like The Last Temptation of Christ cause it gives us a lot more to take in from Jesus rather than just the last day of his life only. But The Passion of the Christ was very good too .