The Bible Series - Visual Bible - Mathew & John

Matthew

15:1 - 28:20 - The year is about 62 A.D., and the aging apostle Matthew recalls the remarkable events he witnessed as a young man. As his story unfolds, the centuries melt away and we are intimately involved in the life of Jesus. We share the mystery and the wonder of His birth. We witness His baptism and temptation in the wilderness. We experience the compassion and hope of the Sermon on the Mount. Walk with Jesus through Galilee as He calls His disciples, performs the first miracles, and begins teaching His world-changing message of love and redemption. This deeply moving presentation of the most beloved of stories stars luminary Richard Kiley as Matthew and the passionate Bruce Marchiano as Jesus. This unique word-for-word presentation in the NIV brings to the screen a divine yet warmly human Jesus. "I've been a Christian for 25 years, but I never knew who Jesus truly was until I saw Matthew... He loves me!" In 1993, Christian filmmakers set out to make a Jesus film which would be Word-for-Word the Gospel. What emerged was a presentation of Jesus in exultant joy (Hebrews 1:9) and deep passion - a Man who was God on His knees in the sand, weeping over people's pain, reaching His healing hand into their broken lives; a Man who restrained all the power of the universe and allowed His blood to fall to the ground...for you. Come experience Jesus as never before! Word for Word Matthew (NIV), this film which has seen countless testimonies like that above is as arresting on this 15th anniversary of its USA release as then. Come experience God's Word afresh, and His promises for you anew. Come, experience Jesus!

John

There are four gospels in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark and Luke are referred to as the `synoptic' gospels. They see Jesus `with the same eye'. Their `eyewitness accounts' are remarkably alike. John is startlingly different in its details, style and tone -- so much so, that this gospel almost didn't make it into the accepted canon of New Testament books.

`The Gospel of John' purports to be a faithful retelling of the fourth gospel. It employs every single word of the text, as rendered by the Good News Bible translation. The film combines dialogue with narration by veteran actor Christopher Plummer. The result is an understandably wordy script. One of my friends used the term `verbose'.

Was it wise or foolish to adopt this approach? That depends on your point of view. It means that the actor playing Jesus must deliver lengthy speeches, especially Jesus' farewell after the Last Supper. This runs the risk of being a deadly bore in cinematic terms. I must confess, I kept nodding off during this segment of the film. To his credit, the director tries to compensate by cutting away to a montage of black-and-white flashback images suggested by Jesus' words. This gives the audience a much-needed visual breather.

On the other hand, and this is a good thing, using the integral text of John's gospel obliges us truly to listen -- to hear the Word. I lost track of how often Jesus said, `I am telling you the truth.' Some might find this annoyingly repetitive. But it certainly hammers home the theme of John's gospel. As if in counterpoint to Pilate's cynical barb, `What is truth?' we have Jesus' ringing declaration, `I am the Truth!' (This is often obscured by older translations, such as `Amen, amen, I say to you'.)

I found `The Gospel of John' highly instructive, not just for what it says, but what is does not say. I realized, for the first time, why John recounts events absent from Matthew, Mark and Luke, while ignoring those familiar to us from their accounts. It struck me that the author of the fourth gospel assumes we are already conversant with all this material. For instance, John does not describe the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, yet abounds in references to bread and wine. Again, John does not tell us what became of John the Baptist (he was beheaded by Herod) or Judas the traitor (he hanged himself). John takes it for granted that we know.

I also realized how often Jesus says, `I am who I am' (three times) and finally, `Before Abraham was, I am.' Jesus applies to Himself the phrase used by Yahweh in the Old Testament as His name. In other words, in John's gospel, Jesus clearly equates Himself with God (`The Father and I are one').

As represented in this film, Jesus is thoroughly human in that He suffers and dies. Yet He also radiates the power of divinity -- not so much in the form of miracles, as in a sense of righteousness, a certainty about His mission. Even Jesus' outrage at the commercialization of Temple worship seems more like the fulmination of an exasperated Old Testament God. We do not see Jesus tempted by Satan or agonizing in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knows exactly who He is and what He is doing, even though His followers may not.

The real `stars' of the film are Jesus' opponents, `the Jewish authorities' (Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes) and their hapless instrument, Pontius Pilate. The apostles, on the other hand, are curiously lifeless in this film rendering of John's gospel. Even Judas is given little in the way of motivation. John's explanation is that he was a thief who pilfered the apostles' common purse and sold His master out of simple greed. This explanation may have been enough for the evangelist, but it is far from satisfying in literary or cinematic terms.

The film portrays Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a woman of mature years. Her visual representation comes as something of a shock, compared to Olivia Hussey's incarnation of the Virgin in `Jesus of Nazareth'. I was reminded of Michelangelo's Pietà. Someone pointed out to the sculptor that the mother looked strangely younger than the son. Michelangelo replied that, since the Virgin had been pure and sinless, he could not imagine her aging and decaying. Jesus' mother in `The Gospel of John' thus runs counter to a certain iconographic tradition.

The other women in this film, as in John's gospel, get short shrift. We barely get any sense of Mary Magdalen, or Mary and Martha of Bethany. The most fully developed female character is the Samaritan at the well, played by an actress whose face and voice deliver exactly the right note of hard-bitten cynicism. One only wishes she were not so wild-eyed once she realizes she is speaking to the promised Messiah.

The same excessive theatricality is found in John the Baptist, Nathanael (whom Jesus saw beneath the fig tree before meeting him) and doubting Thomas (whose exclamation, `My Lord and my God!' rings hollow).

A film such as `The Gospel of John' cannot be judged entirely according to the usual canons of cinematic art. In other words, we cannot judge `The Gospel of John' simply on the basis of artistic merit or entertainment value. Ultimately, we must ask: Is the film theologically sound? Does it succeed in conveying the gospel message? How do we, the audience, respond to that message and especially the messenger, Jesus Himself?

In the final analysis -- and this is a question all filmgoers must answer for themselves -- would we heed the Jesus of `The Gospel of John' when He invites us to `Follow me'?
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45 out of 51 people found the following review useful:
Best portrayal of Jesus I've ever seen!
10/10
Author: Drewboy-2
10 November 2003

Henry Ian Cusick does a fantastic job of capturing the kindhearted, casual, loving Jesus any of us would want as our friend. It reminds me of that drawing of Christ laughing!

In some of the older portrayals, Jesus comes off as wooden, isolated and somehow above everyone else. Not here! Jesus smiles at others' limited understandings, but with compassion, as if he wants to teach them something by his very presence.

The best special effect had to be the walking on the water. Beautiful photography throughout - Filmed in and near Malaga in Spain, it does Jerusalem and Israel proud!

Please consider inviting your friends to see this film. It has so much to offer and it gets the point across - Jesus is the Savior of the world!

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37 out of 40 people found the following review useful:
the truth
10/10
Author: cubes007 from los angeles
28 March 2004

This film was surprisingly very good. Unlike Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" this movie can serve both Christians and non-Christians as a cohesive educational experience. But this isn't a boring, conservative Christian movie. All really good dramas are character-driven and the potrayal/interpretation of Jesus in this movie is so strong that if I were the crying type I very well might have. Jesus is very genuine, compassionate, emotional, yet self-controlled. At first I wasn't quite sold by Henry Ian Cusick's style, but his sincerity was really consistent throughout the movie and I was convinced about 20 minutes into the movie at most. Other users have commented on how they were surprised by Jesus's impatience with the discples or loud tone when speaking to the Pharisees but I have to say, if you've read the Gospels then you should expect Jesus to be demonstrative and uninhibited, as circumstances dictate.

As others have said, this movie is a faithful adaptation of the gospel of John. I thought that having every single word of the book either spoken by characters or narrated was a necessary and intelligent decision to make. To hear the Word allows you to consider the actors & director's interpretation of certain events & verses, and also to simply consider the Word for yourself in a comprehensive manner. After all, how often does one ever read straight through the book of John?

Watching this movie really helps the Christian understand Jesus' incredibly difficult situation. I'm not talking about the crucifiction, but the fact that Jesus as the Son of God is incarnated into a man and has to tell men who he really is. To put it more clearly, imagine if God incarnate stood before you as an average looking human being and said "I am the Son of God." Unless you saw a miracle it you would not be willing to suspend disbelief. I empathized with Jesus when he emphatically said, "I am telling you the truth!" so many times throughout the movie.

In conclusion, this movie is really worth your time to watch. Although it is very long and you may lose focus at times during the middle portion I would still highly recommend it. It isn't perfect but overall it's a fantastic piece of work.
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34 out of 36 people found the following review useful:
Henry Ian Cusick is brilliant portraying Jesus of Nazareth
10/10
Author: adykstra-1 ([email protected]) from Toronto, Canada
12 September 2003

This film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Amazingly, it avoided all of the mistakes made in most other attempts to tell this story. The Bible's presentation of the story of Jesus is based primarily on four narratives--each stamped with its author's own personality and unique perspective.

Many previous films have sampled more than one of the Biblical narratives on the life of Christ. Also, they needlessly added scenes not found in the original sources. The authors of those screenplays in merely sampling from several sources, lost the unique focus of each respective author and diluted the overall effect of the story.

This film is based on John Goldsmith's screenplay which deftly avoids all the laughably silly cliches of previous film versions. Goldsmith's screenplay is based on only one man's perspective, that of Jesus' disciple John. Many stories with which the viewer is familiar, such as the nativity, are missing from John's gospel and therefore also from this wonderfully complex and yet lucid screenplay. Jesus' words are not here presented as pious platitudes, but occur within a context where Jesus responded to those around him.

The dialogue is solely based on the Good News Bible (also known as Today's English Version) Christopher Plummer very ably supplies the verse by verse narration from the same source. His delivery re-enforces the clarity of what is on the screen. Most of the other actors were not known to me--which I felt helped. (What part could one give to an actor who previously portrayed a drug dealer?)

Jesus is brilliantly portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus the man with human emotions, Jesus the visionary resented by the religious establishment of his day. This Jesus did not refer to them for his authority. Cusick, convincingly portrays Jesus the carpenter as a handsome, masculine, very charismatic man. Cusick is very much equal to the task. I spoke very briefly with Cusick after the screening, thanking him for his portrayal of a part that is loaded with hazards--all of which he avoided. I hope we see a great deal more of this fine actor.

The music by Jeff Danna is wonderful--well beyond what I could have hoped for.

One friend of mine at the screening expressed his concern that this film in portraying Jesus' death at the hands of the Jewish establishment might make it vulnerable to accusations of Antisemitism. I reassured him that in its earliest days, Christianity was a sect within Judaism. Almost all the people portrayed in The Gospel of John were Jewish. It was not until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 that the Christian sect became predominately Gentile.

Director Philip Saville has done an enviable job directing a project that was fraught with artistic traps.