This is the time of the year that The Passion of the Christ starts flying off the shelves. Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the final hours of Jesus and the brutality of His execution is lauded as one of, if not the greatest film on the life and death of our Lord. It bested tried-and-true classics as Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth and Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings among many credible critics.
Then there are those interpretations that have left many Catholics scratching their heads: Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, though its ultimate point stressed the necessity of Jesus’ death for our salvation, it portrays Him in ways that are contradictory to the Church’s teachings. Even the musicals Godspell (Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak) and Jesus Christ, Superstar (Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber) have many questioning the unconventional medium in which the gospel is delivered along with the anachronisms and inconsistencies written in for entertainment value. And of course, there is Monty Python’s explicitly blasphemous Life of Brian, whose 1979 release had the Catholic Church, as well as other Christian groups, calling for a boycott.
Apart from inspiring filmmakers to retell His story, Jesus’ example of love and self-sacrifice has pervaded into other popular films that do not have an overt religious slant. The Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix trilogy comes to mind: the audience is constantly bombarded with Christian themes and allusions that an informed viewer would instantly make the connection that Neo (who in the film is often referred to as “The One”) is modeled wholesale after the Messiah.
But let us look at some other mainstream films that at first perusal do not obviously invoke our Lord. It is only towards the end, after experiencing an image uncannily similar to a scene from the Gospel, that one suddenly draws all the connections for the film as a whole. Scenes once dismissed as superficial and purely expository reveal their deeper significance. This epiphany is what makes watching films enjoyable.
If you have not seen these titles, do not read further, as the endings will be disclosed.
There is a scene in Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated The Wrestler where Randy “The Ram” Robinson’s back could be seen—there is a tattoo of the suffering Jesus. Many parallels have been made to Gibson’s Passion: presented is a man who subjected himself to extreme pain and suffering for his faithful followers (both directors give us a healthy helping of squirm-inducing scenes), and here is a man who has willingly chosen the path to his certain death. The final scene of The Ram flying through the air is reminiscent of the outspread arms of Jesus crucified. On the side, the character of Cassidy calls to mind Mary Magdalene—a woman reduced to a sexual object properly given her dignity.
Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko has stirred much debate regarding its many underlying themes—one of them being self-sacrifice. In the end, we see the title character realizing it is his actions that has caused the domino effect of consecutive tragedies, and having been privy to the secrets of time travel, chose to return to the past and die instead from the event that started it all. Midway through the story, Donnie goes to the theater. Displayed prominently on the marquee is The Last Temptation of Christ. This is fitting because in Scorsese’s exploration, his Jesus chose to eschew death on the cross. Realizing later the necessity of that death for salvation, Jesus returned to Calvary to die, just like Donnie did.
All of Scripture, in essence, is like any film: our Bible tells us the story of where we came from, how we got lost, our struggle to return home, and in its climax shows us how we all came to be saved. It is like most every film in that we know—and expect—there will be a happily ever after.
