Franco Zeffirelli's Classical Christ for Prime Time

By Richard N. Ostling

When Cecil B. DeMille undertook to portray Jesus in his 1927 film King of Kings, he established a style of reverential spectacle that endured for decades in such religious pageants as Ben-Hur, The Robe, the remake of King of Kings, and The Greatest Story Ever Told. In recent years the interpretations have become broader. Jesus was a fierce champion of the oppressed in The Gospel According to St. Matthew, a crucified clown in Godspell, a befuddled mystic in Jesus Christ Superstar, a well-intentioned charlatan in The Passover Plot. A Danish producer is even trying to turn out a pornographic flick about the Galilean.

Next week the classical Christ-on-celluloid comes back full force in Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, created not for the movies but for television. For sheer spectacle and expense ($18 million), nothing like it, religious or otherwise, has ever been attempted on TV. The two-part film will fill three hours of prime time on NBC on both Palm Sunday and Easter,* and it is well worth viewing. Director Zeffirelli, an Italian and a Roman Catholic, has brought to the project a rare combination of religious sensitivity and film expertise (Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew). Novelist Anthony Burgess has written an intelligent script, and the notable cast includes Anne Bancroft (Mary Magdalene), James Earl Jones (Balthasar), Stacy Keach (Barabbas), James Mason (Joseph of Arimathaea), Laurence Olivier (Nicodemus), Christopher Plummer (Herod Antipas), Ralph Richardson (Simeon), Rod Steiger (Pontius Pilate) and Peter Ustinov (Herod the Great).

Under Fire. To make sure the film was as accurate as possible, Producer Lord Grade consulted experts from the Vatican to the Leo Baeck Rabbinical College of London and the Koranic School at Meknes, Morocco. But the film nonetheless came under ideological fire from Protestant right-wingers, led by Bob Jones III, president of South Carolina's Bob Jones University. Zeffirelli had told an interviewer from Modern Screen that he would portray Jesus as "an ordinary man--gentle, fragile, simple," and Jones leaped to the conclusion that the portrayal would deny Christ's divine nature. Without seeing the film, he denounced it as "blasphemy." Others picked up the cry, and soon 18,000 angry letters descended on General Motors, which had put up $3 million toward the cost of the film. The auto company backed out of sponsorship, sacrificing its investment. Said Lord Grade dryly: "General Motors found the program so sensitive and beautiful that they think it would be wrong for a commercial company to take advantage of it."

What makes the protesters off-target is that Zeffirelli's Jesus is very much the familiar run of DeMille. Jesus of Nazareth matter-of-factly presents a man, born of a virgin Mary, who rises again from the grave and appears bodily to his disciples. Nor does the film shy away from the miracles. It unquestioningly depicts the feeding of the 5,000, the raising of Lazarus and several healings. It does avoid some miracles, e.g., the walking on water, that would be difficult to portray realistically. At the trial before the Sanhedrin, the High Priest Caiaphas asks Jesus if he is indeed "the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." Jesus replies flatly, "I am," an act of blasphemy that leads directly to his execution. Zeffirelli could have used Christ's indirect answer in Matthew and Luke: "You have said so," but he preferred the direct statement from Mark.

The TV version generally follows the Gospels, but with some variations. Jesus tells the Prodigal Son parable not while debating with scribes and Pharisees but while he is scandalizing the Jewish folk by eating at the house of Matthew the tax collector, and he uses the story to reconcile Matthew with Peter (James Farentino). Some scenes, like Jesus' debate with the Zealot Barabbas about political violence, are not in the Bible at all but are faithful to Jesus' teachings.

Labor Pains. English Actor Robert Powell handles the impossible role of Jesus with considerable skill. The script enables him to present a complex personality who chats amiably with the rabbis on whether "the Sabbath is made for man," but who also swings a heavy club to smash the money-changers' booths in the Temple. Olivia Hussey, who at age 15 played Juliet for Zeffirelli, is a winsomely girlish Virgin Mary who suffers real labor pains and is the object of respect, though not veneration, during Jesus' lifetime.

Each Jesus film or novel creates its own twist, and with Zeffirelli's version it is the recasting of the great betrayer Judas Iscariot (Ian MacShane). Far from the calculating hypocrite of tradition, the TV Judas is a confused young man who leads the soldiers to Jesus so he can clear himself, never realizing that a trial will occur. He is the innocent tool of Zerah (Ian Holm), a fictional priest who is the villain in the Sanhedrin.

Zeffirelli has an eye for historical detail, and one of his major achievements is to place Jesus solidly within the ethos of 1st century Judaism. At the wedding feast of Mary and Joseph, men perform a chaste dance of celebration. During Jesus' bar mitzvah, Mary gazes with the women from behind the mechitzah (barrier) at the Nazareth synagogue. There are also some deft touches from everyday life. One of the soldiers gripes, "I can hardly wait to get back to Rome," as he ambles down the cemetery path to discover an empty tomb that will change the course of history. Richard N. Ostling

* Also to be telecast in Britain on the same two dates and in Italy in five weekly segments starting March 27.

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