Walsh, Richard. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,
2003. 209 pgs + xi pp. $23.50 (CAD). ISBN: 1-56338-387-X.
[1] Walsh’s book is part of a growing trend within academia
to take seriously the art of film in relaying religious meaning. Of
particular interest has been the genre of Jesus films, which Walsh
approaches as a conversation between gospels (canonical and non-canonical),
film (Jesus films from The King of Kings to Life of Brian),
and scholars. Recognizing the inherent danger of attempting such
a task from the perspective of a Christian scholar, Walsh sets out
to read the gospels “in the dark” of the theatre, and
not in the oftentimes blinding light of ecclesial or academic readings
of the gospels. All too often Christian scholars take from film
only that which supports their ideology and discard or ignore the
remainder; Walsh recognizes this danger and distances himself from
it from the beginning.
[2] For all intents and purposes the first two chapters are the
most significant of Walsh’s book. The first (“Telling
Sacred Stories in Cathedral Cinemas”) sets the various Jesus
films in their historical, cultural, and ideological contexts, while
the second (“Films without Heroes”) puts each of the
Jesus films in their cinematic and literary (narrative) context. As
America’s own religious identity has evolved, so has the way
that Americans culturally portray religion. Walsh shows that in
the Jesus film genre portrayals of Jesus have evolved from the reluctant
depiction of Demille’s The King of Kings to the nostalgic Jesus
of Nazareth to the demythologizing of directors such as Scorsese
and Arcand.
[3] It is the charts in both chapters, however, that are most helpful
in illustrating Walsh’s argument. For example, under
the heading of “cinematic and literary focus” (figure
2), Walsh notes that Pasolini’s The Gospel According to
Matthew has a cinematic focus on peasant life and a story focus
on the destruction of peasants by institution. Zeffirelli’s Jesus
of Nazareth, on the other hand, has a cinematic focus on special
effects while the story focuses on the conversion of the apostles. Under “genre” Walsh
locates Ray’s and Steven’s films (King of Kings and The
Greatest Story Ever Told, respectively) as biblical epics, while
Krish and Sykes’ film (Jesus), as well as Pasolini’s The
Gospel According to Matthew are labeled “documentary.” Another
category that Walsh adds to his genre chart (figure 3) is that of
the epithet. The footnote tells us that this follows the “tags” used
by W. Barnes Tatum (Jesus at the Movies, 1997) to distinguish
between the different portrayals of Jesus in the various Jesus films.
Walsh notes that the Jesus of film, like the epic heroes (e.g.,
Odysseus, Achilles), is reducible to mere epithets—the innocent
victim (as in D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, or Terry
Jones’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian), the modern
hero (as in Young’s Jesus)—reinforcing his argument
that Western culture, including film, makes of Jesus what it will. It
would be interesting to see where recent Jesus films such as Mel
Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Philip Saville’s The
Gospel of John would fit in Walsh’s schema.
[4] In the next five chapters Walsh puts into practice his goal
of reading the Gospels in the dark; that is, reading them in the
light of the Jesus films. His “dialogues” include Jesus
of Montreal and the Gospel of Mark; Godspell and the
teachings of Jesus (namely in the gospels of Q and Thomas); Pasolini’s The
Gospel According to Matthew and the Gospel of Matthew; King
of Kings and the Gospel of Luke; and The Greatest Story Ever
Told and the Gospel of John.
[5] It is in the chapters, where Walsh brings the Jesus films
into dialogue with the gospels, that his book fails. This is so
for two reasons. First, it is almost impossible not to read the
Jesus films in the light of the gospels since the films are based
on them, however loosely. It is very hard to separate the
two. How can one not critique Pasolini’s film if one
does not mention its similarities and discrepancies from the gospel
on which it is supposedly based? Second, Walsh inevitably
reads the Jesus films as a biblical scholar. He views Jesus of
Montreal in the light of apocalypse; he sees in Godspell parallels
with Q and Thomas; he points to the Gospel of Matthew as a precursor
to The Gospel According to Matthew in the same way that the
Old Testament is a precursor the Gospel of Matthew; he notes the
fourfold structure of both Luke’s gospel and Ray’s King
of Kings; he claims that both the Gospel of John and The
Greatest Story Ever Told have Gnostic tendencies. Although he
tries not to, Walsh inevitably reads into the Jesus films what he
knows as a biblical scholar; he views the Jesus films in the light
of the gospels.
[6] This book is probably not suitable for an introductory course
on Jesus in film. At times Walsh is hard to follow, and the beginner
in this field may get left behind. Advanced students, though, will
be greatly rewarded for their labors. Any scholar interested
in Jesus films and their relation to their New Testament precursors
(to borrow a term used by Walsh and George Aichele, with whom he
co-authored Screening Scripture, 2002) must read this book.
It is a well researched, well thought out, and challenging presentation
of the portrayal of Jesus in film.
Robert Cooke
Queen’s College
St. John’s, Newfoundland
cooke@mun.ca
