THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

The Last Temptation of Christ-Review



The Last Temptation of Christ-Review

Introduction

Martin Scorsese's controversial 1988 film “The Last Temptation of Christ” is one of those perilous movies, like Titanic or Dogma, that the critic reviews at his own risk: It is he himself, not the film, that is really being judged. In one way, of course, this is quite reasonable; the reader naturally wants to have a sense of who the critic is, and reviews of controversial films can provide a convenient index of his approach and style.

However, when passions run high enough, inevitably some readers make a litmus-test out of the critic's conclusions, too often in the process ignoring the actual substance of the review, the reasons given for those conclusions. In particular, a critic who faults a movie like The Last Temptation of Christ can expect to be dismissed as a Fundamentalist and accused of judging the film on doctrinaire grounds rather than approaching it aesthetically and on its own terms; while a critic who defends it can expect to be dismissed as a Modernist and accused of condoning blasphemy and heresy (Gabler, 2008).

Discussion and Analysis

The film opens in Judea with Jesus Christ (Willem Dafoe), already aware of the spiritual mission God expects him to lead, building crucifixes that will be used by the Romans to execute Jewish revolutionaries. After convincing Judas Iscariot (Harvey Keitel) that he is the messiah, Jesus puts together a team of disciples. From that point on, we see a series of high points of the Jesus legend. Jesus saves Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) from public stoning. Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist (Andre Gregory). We see Jesus embrace his role as messiah wholeheartedly, literally ripping out his heart with his bare hand to show his disciples. Soon he is performing miracles, including resurrecting Lazarus (Tomas Acana). Before long he is viewed as a threat to the Roman Empire.

The Last Temptation of Christ looks very impressive. The image is sharp, especially when compared to the previous standard DVD released in 2000. That earlier Criterion release was good for its time, but by comparison that transfer had a slightly washed-out look during the bright daylight scenes. This is not the case with the film , which offers accurate, realistic colors and flesh tones. The color palette is restricted primarily to light earth tones, so there isn't much to show off. But the blue sky contrasts wonderfully with the beiges and browns of the desert landscape. Expert didn't notice any scratches or dirt specs throughout (also an improvement over the earlier DVD). Criterion has achieved a very strong update for Last Temptation (Lorenzen, 2008).

Most of the films detractors - namely the few who had seen it - must have missed the disclaimer at the front of the film. They could not bring themselves to wrap their narrow minds around the fact that the last thirty minutes of the film are an illusion. To some, the humanity of Jesus is incredibly disturbing because of all ...