In October of 1988, terrorists set fire to the Saint Michel cinema in Paris. Thirteen people were burned, four of them severely. Far-right Catholic separatists were to blame, and the Archbishop of Paris called the perpetrators “enemies of Christ.” Why was this cinema targeted? Because it was showing The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese’s biblical epic. Scorsese also faced death threats, and for years needed armed security escorts at public events. The film was banned in several countries. One influential televangelist called it “the most blasphemous ridicule of the Eucharist that’s ever open perpetrated in this world.”
This must have all been extraordinary to Scorsese, who has been public about his Catholic upbringing, and whose film has genuine spiritual rigor. He has the temerity to take a foundational tenet of Christianity – that Jesus was both God and a man – and explore what that could have meant for him in practical terms. By framing Jesus’ life as a plausible human drama, naysayers thought the film was blasphemy. In fact, this is the rare biblical epic that makes theological principles more palatable for secular audiences.
Willem Dafoe plays Jesus as a man who struggles with belief and doubt. In the opening scenes of the film, he works as a carpenter and God’s voice plagues him, to the point where he sometimes cowers in agony. Perhaps it is offensive to imagine the voice of God depicted this way, and yet isn’t there an element of truth to this portrayal? We accept Jesus talking to God on the cross, so the burden of his responsibility must be found in other episodes from his life. Succumbing to the visions and messages, Jesus grows more zealous and develops a following. He talks about love, and how the spiritual necessarily must separate from the corporeal. Dafoe can be one of our most intense actors, and here he leans into whatever extreme Scorsese and co-screenwriter Paul Schrader require of him. He does not look right for the part – in one of the film’s few missteps, Jesus is a white man with blond hair and blue eyes – but there is an edge and sensitivity to the performance that makes us care.
Before the film begins, a title card explains that Scorsese and Schrader do not adapt the Gospels, and instead draw from Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel of the same name. It is important distinction because two elements are significant departures from the Bible. The first is his relationship with Judas (Harvey Keitel), who is his closest friend and sharpest critic. Amidst thrilling desert vistas, the pair quarrel with a mix of affection and hostility. Keitel’s performance is crucial to the film’s overall effect, since this Judas is not a betrayer, but an accomplice (Jesus asks Judas to betray him, a complex act of sacrifice). This is not an arbitrary decision. Instead, it comes out of curiosity and necessity. How else can we make sense of a dear friend who followed Jesus through the desert, and whose own ideas helped Jesus sharpen his even further? The Last Temptation of Christ depicts a primal, harsh environment, a realist aesthetic that looks so unforgiving that traditionalist versions do not withstand much scrutiny.
The second departure – the one that caused so many protests and threats – is the nature of the final temptation. It happens late in the film, then lasts longer than you might expect: for nearly 30 minutes we see an alternative history where Jesus survives the cross, then lives an ordinary life with Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey). They marry and have children, which yes, necessarily requires that Jesus had sex. It is all a ruse: it turns out the child who offers this alternative to Jesus is actually Satan in disguise, a kind of nuance that was lost on the film’s detractors. Still, the pastoral tranquility of Jesus as an old man leads to intense reckoning, one where Israel falls to war and Judas spurns him for breaking the promise from their last conversation. Again, the revision is that Judas takes the point of view of the True Believer, an acolyte who loves his friend but loves his beliefs even more. Jesus imagines this temptation, and does not succumb to it, leading to a powerful final line: “It is accomplished!” Unlike Mel Gibson, who depicts the depth of Jesus’ sacrifice in terms of visceral violence, Scorsese imagines a deeper, more emotional pain, and so his reward is all the more fulfilling.
After all that controversy, it is interesting how The Last Temptation of Christ fits into Scorsese’s body of work. He clearly identifies with Jesus as a man, insofar that Jesus fits in with other protagonists from different films. Though it feels weird to write, Travis Bickle and this Jesus Christ have significant things in common, as do the heroes of The Departed, Silence and even The Aviator. All these men suffer from psychological pressure, and though Jesus literally suffered the greatest, that does not make the pain of the others any less profound. Maybe that is why so many people recoiled at this film. Scorsese correctly figured Christianity’s spiritual foundations are strong enough to withstand psychological and intellectual interrogation, whereas others equate interrogation with critique. If Jesus spent most of his life trying to figure it all out, then he probably has enough patience and love for us work on it, too.
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