The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Jesus, a humble Judean carpenter beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into revolutionary action against the Roman occupiers by Judas -- despite his protestations that love, not violence, is the path to salvation. The burden of being the savior of mankind torments Jesus throughout his life, leading him to doubt.
29 connections found
View:
29 connections, in both directions
What critics compared The Last Temptation of Christ to
These intriguing questions are enough to hold one’s interest in the absence of physical forward motion, and, before long, our man finds himself at his true destination, whereupon he more fully wrestles with the very concepts that launched him on his journey — dubious motivations that inspire meditations on nothing less than the meaning of life — via a sequence reminiscent of the penultimate stretch in The Last Temptation of Christ .
While the poem concludes in a joyful reversal that reflects the spiritual renewal of the New Year, the filmmaker opts for a more sober and uncertain ending that evokes no less a film than The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
Lowery, never shy about wearing influences on his sleeve, borrows a little from both, while nodding also to the controversial revisionism of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ and to the allegorical dread (and talking fox!) of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist .
Lowery presents this theme with such an assured hand that comparisons can be made to Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life (2019) and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), in which a character struggles to embrace their morals in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Lowery attempts an equally audacious movement here–a full fifteen minutes without dialogue, spanning decades in an amazing homage to “The Last Temptation Of Christ.”
He imagines the life he might have had (like Willem Dafoe’s Jesus in “The Last Temptation of Christ”).
Although controversy surrounded the 1977 television broadcast of Franco Zeffirelli's miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and even more clamor erupted over Martin Scorsese's 1988 movie The Last Temptation of Christ, they were tempests in a teapot compared to the pre-release raging debates over Mel Gibson's film.
In The Passion of the Christ, he relies far too much on slow motion and on background music that sounds lifted from Peter Gabriel's score for The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), full of mournful woodwinds, rhythmic thumps, moans and wails.
It wants to be the last word on the subject without offering up a theological exploration (as did Martin Scorsese with his dynamic and far superior The Last Temptation of Christ) or a solid dramatic construct.
Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings (1927) and Martin Scorese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) come immediately to mind.
(Ironically, this is the same kind of negative wave that results when Christian groups attack a movie for being anti-Christian - like Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ or the Pythons' The Life of Brian.)
Those days ended with "The Last Temptation of Christ," which infuriated many people in 1988, and "Dogma," which did the same in 1999.
Given all the film’s Christ references (Superman is 33 years old when he takes on his superhero identity, and at one point he is framed with a stained glass portrait of Jesus over his shoulder), the scene makes one think of The Last Temptation of Christ and how Nikos Kazantzakis imagined Jesus’s simultaneous humanity and divinity as a source of unrelenting torment.
That also means that the tone of the movie is akin to The Last Temptation of Christ, and a little more funereal than most.
He may be the first comic-book superhero in film who suffers the same doubts about his divine humanity as Jesus does in Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel The Last Temptation of Christ and the controversial 1988 movie made from it.
I can think of religiously themed films more profoundly oppressive to Catholic sensibilities (e.g., The Last Temptation of Christ), and more searing indictments of corruption and abuse within the Church (e.g., The Magdalene Sisters).
But Mr. Brown has gone much further in what the church fathers would consider sacrilege than did Nikos Kazantzakis with The Last Temptation of Christ, which Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader adapted into a commercially unsuccessful Biblical film in 1988.
This is not "The Last Temptation of Christ," after all.
If you're looking for much smarter religious revisionist movies, try Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) or Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999).
Advertisement
Bale's Moses, despite the miscasting, is a conflicted, sometimes compelling figure, but the rest of the actors recall John Wayne's cameo as a Roman soldier in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" more than they do Willem Dafoe in "The Last Temptation of Christ."
Moses (Christian Bale) and Ramses (Joel Edgerton) are equals in many ways and revered both within the walls of Memphis and on the battlefield where they prove themselves as generals for the Egyptian Pharaoh Seti (John Turturro, barely skirting Harvey Keitel/The Last Temptation of Christ territory).
Strangely, Scorsese was inspired by -- and dearly loves -- those humongous pageants made in the 50's and 60's like The Robe, King of Kings, and The Bible.
His experiments have been hit and miss, from Leonardo DeCaprio’s The Aviator to Shutter Island and even The Last Temptation of Christ.
Harvey Keitel, now 80, was Scorsese’s De Niro before De Niro came along – they made four pictures together in quick succession, with Keitel playing Scorsese’s alter ego in Who’s That Knocking At My Door and Mean Streets – but then nothing until The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988 (Keitel was Judas) and now The Irishman, in which he is the boss of bosses, seated motionless at a restaurant table.
Drawn by ace screenwriter Steven Zaillian from Charles Brandt’s 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses (a euphemism used throughout), it’s easily Scorsese’s most polarising movie since The Last Temptation Of Christ, and much has been made (at interminable length) regarding its lack of female characters, de-ageing CG tricks, 209 minute running time, and more.
From character-based psychological thrillers ( Taxi Driver , Cape Fear ) to bombastic biopics of eccentric moguls ( The Aviator , The Wolf of Wall Street ) to Daniel-Day Lewis costume dramas ( Gangs of New York , The Age of Innocence ) to deeply meditative religious pieces ( Silence , The Last Temptation of Christ ), Scorsese is continually flexing his storytelling prowess.
It’s arguably closer to Scorsese’s faith-based trilogy, “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Kundun” and “Silence,” asking the big question: What does it all mean?
It actually has more in common with Scorsese's faith-based trilogy, The Last Temptation of Christ , Kundun, and Silence .
The prerelease ballyhoo is in the tradition of The Last Temptation of Christ's, Martin Scorsese's 1988 adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial novel, in that it is not directly linked to the picture's content but to rumours of heresy.
The consistent message that has come from the Catholic protests against "Dogma" (just as it did from the Catholic protests against Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" or Jean-Luc Godard's "Hail Mary") is that it's a sin to question Holy Mother Church.
Advertisement
The Last Temptation of Christ 's Willem Dafoe actually gets to speak extensive dialogue, unlike Kiersey Clemons, Robin Wright, and David Thewlis.
Juliano Dornelles: We talked a lot about Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.