| Shetifaku Bagerasa 2004-08-27, 10:06 pm |
| Splitting your message into two and changing the header on one of them
to reflect two different message threads:
Ioannis wrote:
>
> Yes, that's him (Nikos Kazatzakis). If memory serves right, I think he
> lost the Nobel in lit from Ernest Heminway. If you guys in the states
> get a chance, grab the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" (I think
> the director was Martin Scorcese), although last time I was there, the
> movie was banned from Blockbuster. You might find it in smaller video
> stores.
WARNING: SPOILER! Scroll down only if you don't care if you know about
certain surprising movie events before you see the movie. Trust me, if
you haven't seen it yet, the rest of this message will probably spoil it
for you.
I did rent _The Last Temptation of Christ_ a couple of years after its
theatrical release, but primarily because it features one of my all-time
favourite actors, Willem Dafoe. (He plays Christ.) It's a fascinating
speculation as to how Christ the Man might have experienced the events
of his own life--provided, of course, that Christ is a historical
figure. The movie actually touches on his mythologization in the scene
where he confronts a Christian and says: "Look, none of this stuff ever
happened. I'm the real Christ. What you believe about me is myth."
And the Christian replies: "I don't care about you. I care about Christ
the larger-than-life figure I believe in. He has surpassed you." Of
course, I'm paraphrasing, because it's been a while since I saw the movie.
As a schizophrenic, I understood the movie differently from the way
normaloes probably do. Christ seemed to be driven from event to event
by psychic forces that simply had more power than him and whose
attention he had attracted. No decision he made during the entire movie
was truly his free decision. Even his choice at the end to go back in
time and die on the cross seemed manipulated. I guess that's what
offended the more thoughtful Christians who objected to the movie--I pay
no attention at all to the witless adultering Bible-thumpers who
objected to it because it doesn't exactly follow the Gospels.
Really, a thoughtful Christian should be fascinated by the huge question
of Christ the Man--the incarnation of God distilled purely into a mortal
human being with all the fallibilities of a human. But at least, unlike
Salman Rushdie's experience with _The Satanic Verses_, the publishing of
the book and the release of the movie didn't lead the Pope to declare
holy war on the author/filmmaker and put a price on his head. It's one
reason why I believe that Christians are more civilized than moslems.
SB
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