Man Alone (2005)

Today I’d like to comment on an obscure student-film by someone who became famous for something else - ‘Man Alone’ is an ambitious piece of juvenilia directed by Jonathan Higgs, lead singer of British art-pop/electronic-rock band Everything Everything.  If you’re not familiar with the band, I can only recommend them: I harbour a burgeoning enthusiasm for their three albums, and I was fortunate to get along to one of the concerts of their current tour this weekend.  It’s prompted me to revisit this film, which my aunt passed to me about six years ago.  In those days the band had only put out their debut album, the similarly-titled ‘Man Alive’ (2007).

The director co-wrote this with Tom Astley, who I’ve found to be mysteriously ungooglable.  It shares quite a bit with senor Higgs’s musical career: for one thing, it regards humanity’s violence, self-destruction and numbing materialism - familiar topics from 2009 single ‘My Kz Ur Bf’, (which juxtaposed the America of war with the America of soap-operas), and large tracts of their 2015 album ‘Get to Heaven’; for another thing, the film contains a number of songs, some of them featuring fellow band-member Jeremy Pritchard, (presumably on keyboards, bass and backing vocals).  These songs are sadly few and far between, but they show off the singer’s ingenuity and falsetto, albeit in fairly crude forms.

Some Scottish monks rebuke God's second son.

The story opens with a song - one of five, which acts as its main info-dump: after world war 4, culture has become homogenised, and history has been banned.  The story begins after about 40 minutes, when God turns up, with an appearance which I will not attempt to describe for you.  He arrives in an extended flashback to a Scottish monastery in Roman times.  God speaks like a vocoder - sometimes beautifully, sometimes like an 80s Cyberman.  He occasionally uses ‘thou’ to mean ‘thee’, and declares that Jesus has failed, and that His second son, Timorous, must be raised in utter silence.  But as narration tells us, ’Timorous had a dark secret, the discovery of which changed the future for all mankind'. After a few minutes of monastic backstory, the story returns to the future, and switches to a hunt for a lost holy tune (like the lost chord, but hidden in a Roman latrine under a Horse of Truth), and God’s second son is ignored entirely - not so much as a mention - for the next hour.

Once the lost tune is found, it isn't really clear what we should hope for or expect from the remaining half-hour.  The main character goes on a bloody rampage for reasons that I didn't quite grasp.  Like a lot of the film, it reminded me of  ‘Na Srebrnym Globie’ (1977), a bleak, violent Polish sci-fi - in both cases I didn’t really understand what was happening, but knew that was probably my own fault for not paying close enough attention, but that was the film’s fault for being very long and difficult.

“Holy Hell!  The goddamn mainframe laid out before me like a kids’ playpen area on the back of some Kellogg Seafood Matey Cakes circa 1978.  Hell, a long time ago - but jeez!  No time for reminiscing!” - the director, as Jean Baptiste de Golde

The movie is two-and-a-quarter hours long, which is astonishing for a very-low-budget amateur work.  Back in the early 2000s, I knew a lot of people (some of whom were me) who talked big about shooting and editing a feature-length movie, so senor Higgs and his production team deserve credit for sheer persistence.  There are, of course, problems with very-long films by the bold and ambitious.

The film does astonishing things, but rarely in a way that any audience would ask for.  It achieves this on some fairly basic equipment - the sort of sound and picture quality you might expect from the end of the last century, compounded by some audacious colour-grading in post-production.  However, in contrast to most student films, it’s all splendidly focussed.  Individual shots show great promise and style.

An immortal monk (Tom Astley) reveals the truth.

There are genuinely interesting ideas behind the story, and a good ending.  I get the impression the thing was made in a very different order to the way that they're presented, and that the writers and cast had a change of heart about the kind of film they were making part-way through - at times, the script and performances believe themselves to be in a very broad comedy; at others this is a dour monastic horror to be taken as seriously as possible. Scenes of the delicious and delightful are interspersed with full hours of exposition, wondering and impotent crossness.  I wish the tone could have been more consistent in one way or another.  When it was all working, it reminded me slightly of 'Southland Tales' (2006), with its bizarrely satisfying mix of styles to present an action-packed near-future satire.

I do think there's a fantastic shorter film to be had here feature to be had here.  Jonathan Higgs went on to direct his own music videos, so we can be sure he has the necessary talent and vision, when he doesn't have to fill this kind of duration.  If it had been made a bit later, further into the Youtube age, this could have been broken into episodes; it's a fairly episodic storyline, and would be easier to palate in smaller chunks, and it could have made a merit of its developing tone.  Then again, perhaps I'm missing the point, and wanting an avant-garde film to be more accessible.  At this level, it's hard to know what parts of the production are deliberate art, and which are just convenience.

Mason Coop (Mike Carswell) plays out humanity.  A little googling tells me Carswell
put acting behind him and started making rustic furniture and besom brooms.

I'll reiterate the good points - the songs are excellent, and their proto-Everything-Everything sound is the film's great merit.  There's some good comedy, and some memorably bizarre scenes, as when the hero is beaten-up by a giant egg.  The film's very existence is impressive, and the film contains some good ideas and reveals.  The end - in which the hero suffers agonies for the chance to redeem humankind, but chooses not to - is a strong, well-presented concept, and I can see why so much of the rest of the film was produced to give it context.


P.S. To the best of my knowledge, this film is available to watch nowhere.  I've written about it here largely because it's a curio, and I think some people might like to know that it exists, or existed, even if they can't see it.  There's little or no information online about this film - perhaps it's been deliberately blotted out.  According to the closing credits, the soundtrack used to be available on CD.

P.P.S. I'm still unsure whether the film is 'Man Alone' because a man is alone, or because man, alone, is responsible for such depravity, or because the casting is overwhelmingly male.  'Man Alive' is much easier to grapple with, and much more rewarding.

The Robe (1953)

There was, in the olden days of fifties cinema, a brief fad for Biblical films and, what's more, for Bible spin-offs - adventures about characters who don't appear in the Bible at all, or who only get cameos in the gospels.  Thus we have 'Quo Vadis' (1951), about Peter and the early church, 'Ben-Hur' (1959) about a young Jewish Prince, and 'Barabbas' (1961) about the murderer Barabbas who was freed by Pilate on the eve of Jesus' crucifixion.  Since the stories only need to touch very briefly on Biblical events they're freer to be more visual, less religiose, and where possible allow the heroes to be violent, deceptive and all-in-all conventional heroes before last-minute conversion to Christianity, whereupon they renounce their (hitherto very useful) violent ways.  Crucially, if your main character is Jesus it's hard to have him kill the villain at the end, and movie-goers like to see the villain trounced.  In an adventure story, forgiveness looks less exciting than revenge.  'Ben-Hur' probably does it the best, but 'The Robe' is shorter, so gets plenty of TV repeats.

The film follows a Roman soldier, Gallio, who turns out (eventually) to be the centurion who crucified Jesus.  Here, he happens to inherit Jesus's robe (it's red, as per the gospel of Matthew); anyone who's read the book of The Trial and Death of Pontius Pilate (Bible fanfic from the second century, and plenty of fun) may recall that Jesus' robe was considered to be a relic of unpredictable magical powers (with, as they say, hilarious consequences).  It's similar here, though that makes the film sound considerably more entertaining than it actually is.  What we get is a film about a soldier sent to destroy the early church, who, seeing God's work in the lives and hearts of the early Christians, comes to faith.  At points its rather too earnest, but at times it's rather exciting, as the loving pacifists find in Gallio a mighty defender, skilled with sword and political rhetoric.

Turns out this widescreen thing is really good for sword-fighting

The film is one of the earliest examples of anamorphic widescreen, and was shot in the super-widescreen of Cinescope which leaves ample black bars even on a widescreen TV.  It gives impressive scope, especially to landscapes and crowd scenes.  It's still not quite right, with long shots looking rather distorted around the edges.  Unlike the later 'Ben-Hur' (1959), there seems a reluctance here to use facial close-ups, meaning we're never really given actors expressions to scrutinise.  (The first time we get to see the pores in anyone's skin cones after two hours and two minutes).  Coupled with Richard Burton's habit of wearing a helmet in as many shots as possible, we get to see far too little of his performance, and his dialogue is too functional to allow him much freedom of expression.

His opponent, the Emperor Caligula, is, as they say, worth the price of admission.  I've seen him described as 'unforgettably camp', and he has an amazing delivery, rendering 'Christians' as 'kress-chuns', and getting more vowels out of Gallio than one might think believable.  This is Caligula as he might have been played in sixties 'Batman'.

The film makes slightly too much use of characters being inspired by simply
looking at Jesus, rather than being inspired by (say) his words or actions.

The real surprise, which I mean now to spoil, is the ending of the film.  The genre would seem to expect a daring escape, and Caligula defeated.  Instead, the villainous Caligula prospers and sentences our heroes to death, and they are taken outside to be executed, and this martyrdom is treated as a happy ending, with the hope of resurrection the real reward.  I was taken aback to see an adventure film, and a schlocky, campy one at that, giving us life in Christ as the true prize, rather than something's more tangible, crude or conventional.  I can't imagine a modern film presenting such a martyrdom as a happy triumph.  I suppose 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928) and 'The Last Temptation of Christ' (1988) come close, but we know those stories so their endings seem inevitable.  As it is, Caligula has to wait for the sequel, 'Demetrius and the Gladiators' (1954) to get his comeuppance.


P.S. This film has the rubbishest Pontius Pilate.  My Pilate of preference is Frank Thring, but I'll also speak up for David Bowie.

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Lilies of the Field (1963)

One of the regular listeners to my weekly radio show - though to my great discredit, I can't remember which listener - recommended this as a film I might enjoy watching.  I'd been talking about The Penciltonian, and this recommendation, while the synopsis sounded rather unappealing, filled a 1963-shaped gap in my plans.  It's a significant year, as it marks the midpoint between 1913, my earliest limit, and the present day.  Thinking about it, it may also be the last year when I'd expect films to be in monochrome.  Oh, there've been plenty in colour, including an unlikely outlier in 1903, and in earnest since about 1939, but colour has always seemed an exception to a rule, a mark of something expensive and glossy.  From 1964, though, everything will be in colour unless it has a good reason not to be.

So anyway, there's this guy called Homer.  He's driving through the wilderness of America when he's stopped by a gaggle of East German nuns, who tell him they've been praying for a man to come and work for them.  He just wants to continue on his way, but the nuns are very insistent.  And after the first day of roof-mending, they tell him they want him to build them a chapel.  He doesn't want to build it, of course.  He wants to drive on, get on with his life.  Every character he meets agrees with this, and tells him to move on, not to get involved with the sisters.  But every time they tell him he should leave, Homer finds himself more compelled to stay and do the work.  The complicating factor is that the nuns can't pay him, and the Mother Superior, an extremely stubborn woman with a tragic history, won't even thank him.  Homer just wants to do an honest day's work in exchange for a decent day's pay.  Or perhaps it's slightly more complex: he wants to do something worth doing, build something worth building, and have his work properly recognised.  He's a jobbing contractor, but not without artistry and pride.

There's something excitingly liberating about Homer Smith's predicament - the idea that you could stop in the middle of nowhere and work there as long as you want to, be employed and fed, and sleep on the ground each night, with nobody awaiting your arrival at the far end, no obligations to tie you down - with nothing to your name but a car, a set of tools and an eagerness to work.  Sidney Poitier plays the part scintillatingly, and won the year's Oscar for best actor, though he apparently believes he didn't deserve it.

Inevitably, Homer is persuaded to work on the chapel - that's never really in any doubt, or there would be no film.  The question is really how he and the nuns can come to some compromise.  He's a man of action, a Southern Baptist, an American, and he takes his Sunday as a day of rest, and a chance to have a damn fine breakfast (which he describes in exquisite detail), while the nuns are strict Roman Catholics, keeping their silences and singing in Latin.  He buys them lollipops, teaches them English and livelier worship songs in the Baptist style.  It's a very enjoyable relationship that grows up between them, and I particularly enjoyed a scene in which Homer and the Mother Superior leaf through a German and an English Bible, using scriptures to argue over whether or not he deserves to be paid for his labours

They need him a lot more than he needs them, and this leaves the film with something of the feel of a Western, with Homer as the stranger who rides into an isolated community and fixes the problems before disappearing off into America more-or-less unchanged.  It's a fine film, heartwarming and with some excellent dialogues and really nice scenes.  I can well see how a listener might think it would suit my tastes, as it's really very Christian, in that it's a conflict between two denominations who both celebrate God but express their faith through remarkably different lifestyles.  Homer is very casual but very passionate, his relationship with God personal and joyful, while the nuns are far more formal, but entrust their whole lives to the power of prayer.  It isn't an aggressive message, nor does it come across as twee, though either could have been possible in a less competently-made film.  As it is, I found it a pleasure to watch.  And it's not a minute too long, either, which is always to a film's credit.

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The film on a disc.  Don't be put off by the charmless front cover.

Das Security Bathroom (2006)

So, in 2006 I made a short movie about a rival to Noah's Ark.  Today I present the first ever video edition of The Penciltonian, regarding that motion picture.


You can't tolerate viewing a video, and yearn for text?  Well, in short the story's a bit of a mess, my camerawork and editing were unduly haywire even compared to the films of my peers (if I could find an online copy of Tom Hagley's 'The Invisibility Hat' from the same year, I'd give it as evidence).  The resources were there, the cast were good and the set was beautiful, and with rather more thought and more imagination put into its script it would still be worth watching today.  As it stands, the thing's almost all talking and fighting, and the pictures aren't allowed to tell the story.  It also verges on misogyny, which just doesn't do, you know.


P.S. With this entry, I've covered every year of the Noughties - my first complete decade.  Congratulate me, please!  Here's a list of every film viewed, if you're curious.  It's as clear a picture of the Penciltonian as you could really hope for.

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An assortment of relevant items on Youtube:
• 'Das Security Bathroom' (2006)
• 'Pencilton and the Giant Spider' (2012), my only more recent foray into writer-directing.
• 'Der Tod Des Viel Verfluchten Buckligen' (2004), a short film by Tom Hagley and Johnny Sidle, featuring several of the same cast as 'Das Security Bathroom', and in general a more pleasingly visual piece.

Dogma (1999)

Alan Rickman IS Metatron, God's messenger to humankind

YellowToast, my fellow Radio KoL DJ, suggested I watch 'Dogma' for 1999.  The year came down to either this or Gilbert & Sullivan biopic 'Topsy-Turvy' (which is very good), but I'd only seen 'Dogma' once, long ago, and was curious to revisit it.  Happy coincidence meant I found a copy in a charity shop almost immediately.

So, it goes something like this.  There are two somewhat fallen angels, one of them the erstwhile Angel of Death, who have been living on Earth for millennia, but find a loophole in Catholic doctrine which would allow them to return to Heaven, from which they were once banished.  (In short, all they have to do is walk through the archway of a certain reconsecrated church, and then die.  It sounds theologically iffy, but they're counting on an obscure and arcane piece of church dogma, and on Jesus' promise to St Peter in in Matthew 18: 18 that what is bound on Earth will be bound in Heaven, meaning that blessings, however bizarre, affirmed by the church will count in Heaven too, at least by the interpretation here).  The angels are played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and this big-name casting initially makes them seem like they must be the main characters; indeed, their scheme sounds reasonable and their plight sympathetic, but their schemes for salvation soon begin to look destructive, even villainous.

This is what God looks like, sometimes

An unlikely saviour is found in Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a Catholic abortionist on the cusp of losing her faith entirely.  This being a Kevin Smith film, Bethany eventually finds herself accompanied by those two excellent churls Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself), a pleasingly unlikely pairing for the crusade to New Jersey.  Along the way there's wealth of adventure, action and comedy, and a particularly starry guest cast including Chris Rock, Salma Hayek and a surprisingly good performance by Alanis Morissette.  Perhaps predictably, my favourite casting is Alan Rickman as the pallid, sarcastic and coolly British messenger of God.  God himself is in a coma in hospital, which complicates matters somewhat.

Silent Bob, Jay and Bethany regard a naked apostle.

The film opens with disclaimer that it's only a comedy, and shouldn't be taken seriously.  To my mind it sells itself short here.  For all its whimsy and crude comedy, 'Dogma' is a rare, mature discussion of faith, its purpose and its loss.  I don't necessarily agree with its findings, but I'm glad of the discussion, so it's a pity writer/director Kevin Smith felt a need to include a slide telling us not to give it much credence.  If it stopped extremists burning down cinemas, I suppose it's worthwhile, but I don't feel that the film lacks theological merit.

It's a pity there aren't more comedies about God.  There are some, I suppose, but usually not funny ones, and rarely do they cast Him in a positive light without making Him seem tedious.  The only other well known Christianity-flavoured comedy that comes to mind is 1979's 'Monty Python's Life of Brian', but that's more a satire on religion and politics, and the existence of God is never explicitly discussed.  'Dogma', though, is surely as agreeable to an atheist audience as to a Christian one, and this without refraining from crudeness and offensiveness.  Having twice enjoyed this and the two Clerks films (1994, 2006) I'm quite tempted to seek out Smith's other View Askewniverse movies - though I may wait until the end of this Penciltonian project to do so, lest I overburden you with movies of similar flavour.

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Hey look, buyable things.

Persepolis (2007)

Of the animated films I've so far watched - 'Yellow Submarine' (1968), 'Up' (2009) and this, 'Persepolis' is comfortably my favourite in animation style and in content too.  This is an adaptation of Majane Satrapi's graphic novel, and co-director Vincent Paronnaud borrows her occasionally Hergé-esque 'ligne claire' style and puts it in motion.  Most of the film is told in monochrome flashback.  The individual shots are clear, handsome and often striking.

I understand the original book was at least semi-autobiographical.  It's a story of young Marji growing up in Iran of the 70s and 80s, a country torn by war and revolution.  The children don't take it especially seriously, accepting only that people get arrested, soldiers march around with guns, and it's a fine time to lark around.

Things get grimmer as she grows older.  People die, or are imprisoned, and nobody can openly speak the truth.  It's still not a bad place to have a party, but it can end badly.  The revolution makes matters worse, not better, and the new government obliges women to wear veils.  A lonely education in Europe seems the only escape.  She grows up, endures a number of unenjoyable romances, and is left without any clear idea where she can call home.

It's sad, and difficult, and often great fun, so feels very much like real life.  The animation style is excellent, fascinatingly watchable, giving a stylised, childlike view of the world.  It's a very good film, and I found it to be quite an education.  'Persepolis' gives a picture of an interesting country of real, ambitious people, marred, oppressed and set back by a theocratic government of extremely conservative Islamic fundamentalists.  I've realised my knowledge of modern Iran is terribly limited, and though I used to work for an Iranian woman, I never really asked about the country she seemed glad to leave behind.

I'd be curious to seek out the original comic from which the film was adapted, and Marjane Satrapi's other writings, to learn more.  Since she co-directed the film, I can well believe it captures the spirit of the original.  I'd recommend it to almost anyone, though some of the language is sufficiently strong, and the themes mature, that I'd err away from showing it to a weakly child.  And since it's animated, you have the choice to watch it with either French or English audio.  Both seem equally legitimate, and I only went with the French because so much was actually set in France.

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I'd say it was worth your time.  Someone's borrowing my copy at present, or I'd lend it to y'all myself.

Ben-Hur (1959)

Ben-Hur is my favourite film.  I don't think I'd claim it as the best film I've looked at, or even as the film I think is the best, but it's the one I'm closest to, and love the most dearly.

I saw it as a child, but forgot almost everything about it except that it was long, exciting, and that it spans enough time for the main character to grow a beard.  I rediscovered it almost by accident in 2004, when I stayed up all night writing an essay for university, then realised I had just enough time to take in the movie's three-and-a-half-hours duration before breakfast.  I did so, and was overwhelmed.

What I'd entirely forgotten about this ancient epic was that it's about Jesus of Nazareth.  By most standards, he's a very minor character here, as he only appears in about 5 or 10 per cent of the film, and we never see his face or hear him speak; nonetheless, he's at its heart.  The film's oft-forgotten subtitle, 'A Tale of the Christ', probably tipped me off ahead of time, but since he appears only very briefly at the one-hour mark, then disappears until the film is almost over, the climax featuring his trial and execution caught me unprepared.

Judah, Messala, Judah's mother and sister.  In very widescreen.

So, what's the story about?  Charlton Heston plays Judah Ben-Hur, a young Jewish prince in Jerusalem, AD 26.  His boyhood friend, a Roman called Messala, returns to the city having been placed in charge of the garrison, and tries to persuade Judah to give up the names of Jewish troublemakers and those who oppose the Roman rule.  This invitation to treachery mars their friendship sufficiently that, when a lose slate falls from Judah's home it's wilfully misinterpreted as an attack on the new Governor, who was passing at the time, and Messala condemns his friend Judah to become an oarsman in a Roman galley - a very terrible form of slavery - and locks up his mother and sister.  So, as with 'Die Nibelungen' (1924) or perhaps 'Julius Caesar' (1950), the first half of the film shows matters getting worse and worse, and the second half is about revenge.

The thing is, when Judah is struggling across the desert towards his fate in the galleys, he meets Jesus.  Or rather, he meets some guy, who gives him water as he's perishing of thirst.  We've already seen a brief glimpse of the nativity in a (somewhat religiose) scene before the opulent opening credits, and seen Joseph the carpenter, so the long-haired bloke is obviously Jesus.  This moment comes back to Judah at various times on his adventures, and on his return to Jerusalem he meets Balthazar, the wise man (you know, 'We Three Kings' and all that), who saw the Christ as an infant, and has come back from Alexandria to find him again before he dies.  Balthazar can see Judah's murderous intent, but urges peace and forgiveness.  From this point the viewer, or this viewer at least, knows Judah Ben-Hur needs to depart from his anger and find peace with his erstwhile friend Messala, but we also want to see him revenge himself with appropriate violence for his years of great suffering.

This excellent conflict drives the film's second half - the call to forgiveness and the need for bloody vengeance.  Charlton Heston, an actor I've grown to like very much since seeing him in this (I have most of a foot of 'Heston section' on my DVD shelf, next to, and dovetailed with, the Biblical epic section), performs this sort of conflict very well.  I find his scenes of anguish, distress and obvious internal torment very affecting, though I can see it's an acting style that's less popular these days, and that his egregious firearm politics of later life have marred him in many people's eyes.  If you're not familiar with him, know only that he'd make an excellent Indiana Jones or a damn good Batman, and that the sort of roles once written for him now go variously to Swarzenegger or Will Smith.

Judah resolves to have his revenge

I was a bit wary of going back to 'Ben-Hur' this year, after watching all these many films for this blog.  I've been so impressed by the quality of film-making in general and special effects in particular in films from the 30s, 20s, 10s and even 1900s that I worried this magnificent epic would seem less impressive in comparison, now that I was judging it less ignorantly.  I'm delighted to say that it's an excellently shot film, the sets huge and believable, the famous chariot race is real and the sea-battle tense rather than embarrassing.

The two big action set pieces are astounding things.  The chariot race was done for real and is about as good a chase or race sequence as you could ever hope to see.  Parts of it are shot-for-shot lifted from the 1925 film of the same novel (which has also lent its-self to the storyboards of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg) but Ben-Hur seizes the inspiration and adds rich colour and the widest widescreen you've ever seen.  The chariots really do go at thrilling pace, there's the thunder of hooves and the roar of a real excited crowd.  The sequence runs for almost twenty minutes without any sign of flagging - as the horse-drawn chariots thunder nine times around the vast arena, with many catastrophic accidents along the way.  What makes the chariot race yet better is the complete absence of incidental music.  Often, as here or in some of the Roger Moore bond films (to give an unlikely example), edge-of-your-seat sequences become far tenser when the music stops, and we're just given the sounds of the environment, loud or quiet as they would be.  The music can blare in once the action is through.

It's no great surprise that it won a lot a lot of Oscars at the time, and I could happily single out all eleven of them for special praise, but I'll settle here on two.  First, the film editing, which allows a tremendous, if hardly plot-necessary, tension builder as the hortator of the galley hammers out the increasing speeds for the the oarsmen: battle speed, then attack speed, then ramming speed - with the pace and urgency of shots rising with that of the hammers, the oars and the music.  Second, the wonderful performance by a possibly-slightly-blacked-up Hugh Griffith as Sheikh Ilderim, who shines as the film's comic relief, a man of gusto and gleeful intelligence, who laughs along so graciously and patronisingly with the Romans' slurs against his ethnicity, knowing the joke is turned round against them, and who shows a great kinship with his four white horses, who ought to share his Oscar for best supporting actor.

A reflection in a bloody puddle

The end of the film is the part that stunned me when I watched it early one morning in 2004.  Judah learns that his mother and sister live, but are lepers, and are dying.  Esther, the rather wet romantic lead (though she's better and stronger in an argument toward the end) has persuaded him that the wondering Rabbi (oh, you know who) can heal them.  He takes them to see him, but finds the streets deserted, as everybody is away watching Jesus' trial.  Judah tries to help Jesus carry the cross, and tries (unsuccessfully) to offer him water as he thirsts, realising then that this is the man who once saved him.  Jesus is crucified, and everybody looks on helpless.  It's miserable, seeing this man who's done nothing wrong, has only acted kindly and gently in this film, nailed up to die.  He hasn't even said anything, anything - this isn't, as some imagine, and as I had imagined back then, somebody in any way judgemental.  He's a man who, by his actions, has cared, saved, and challenged.  Balthazar, who has come so far to see the man he met as a child, sees him executed, 'taking upon himself the sins of the world'.

Judah's family departs and hides in a cave from the rising storm, but find themselves, in the moment of Jesus' death, healed physically, as well as given hope and reason to live.  This is what confused and alarmed me back then.  For years I'd thought of the atrocity of the crucifixion as a failure, or at least as a dark and terrible thing, a reason for Good Friday to be bleak, with Easter the only associated hope.    It seemed obscene to see the family of Hur given reason to rejoice and be glad, to be healed in the moment of Jesus' death.  It was only then, having been ostensibly but half-heartedly Christian for most of my life, that I realised the Good Friday was the day that sin was conquered.  It was then, not at Easter, that Jesus declared 'it is finished'.  It was accomplished, as it was for that sin, our sin, and in this film Judah's violent anger as much as that of the crucifying Romans, for which Jesus was executed.  This is why the Friday is counted good, and though death was shown to be defeated on Easter Sunday, the more important barrier, the sin which had so long stood between humanity and God, was broken down in that moment.

Since seeing this in 2004, I've watched the film every year on Good Friday, or as close as I can manage, and to me it marks the real end of Lent.  It carries me in to see why Jesus' mission was important, why the crucifixion, and how we can be saved.  Once the film is over, once I'm relieved and have dried my eyes as necessary, it's practically Easter already, and hope can burgeon.  The film doesn't reach as far as Easter Day.  It needn't.  Judah returns to Esther and tells her he was there til the end, and heard Jesus forgive his executors from the cross, and that 'it was if he took the sword out of my hand'.  Reconciled with Esther, Judah learns that his family are safe and well, and we see the sun rising with the cross in the background and an (apparently unscripted) shepherd leading his sheep.

There are surely greater films, better made or more innovative - even, perhaps, more epic - but there are none I value more highly than 'Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ'.

A Roman who can't bring himself to berate Jesus for watering Judah.

P.S. I could probably end the blog here and be content, but the numerically obsessive part of me says I should plough on and do all hundred years - and so I shall!

P.P.S. When people say 'film adaptations are never as good as the original book', William Wyler's Ben-Hur is a great counter-example.  The book is very good, but the story-telling and the dialogue are notably superior in the film.  This also means other adaptations are never a patch on this version, though the 1925 silent film is quite something.  Incidentally, each of the adaptations (I've sought out other film, TV and radio versions) tell completely different stories about Simonides, Judah's former slave, all quite incompatibly.

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Unless the prospect of long films or 50-year-old films is utterly inimical to you, you should totally see this film.  For various reasons, I have several Ben-Hurs on my shelves, so you're welcome to a lending copy.

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

This film was exceedingly controversial when it came out in the late eighties.  It's based, not on the gospels, but on a novel about Jesus, and does the two things one can always expect from New Testament fan-fic: Jesus is romantically linked to Mary Magdalene, and he asks Judas to betray him.  And then, of course, there's his last temptation, but I'll get to that.  In spite (or even because of) this portrayal of a remarkably weak, human and troubled Christ, this is an excellent film and worth the watching, both for style and content, and one that I'd recommend with the warning that the crucifixions (of which there are several) are very unpleasant indeed (hence its inclusion in this blog's 'horrible films' tag).

From the off, this Jesus is not the confident and charismatic crowd-winner we're used to.  He's wracked by conflict, as God calls him to fearful duties and Lucifer puts to him, again and again, the idea that he's mistaken, that he's no messiah and should simply live his life.  The crowds simply aren't convinced by his speeches, and familiar sermons meet with derision and doubt, rather than open-eared adoration.  As it becomes clearer to Jesus that he really is the son of God, he's dismayed and terrified, as he knows where it will lead.  This Jesus is the only carpenter who'll make crosses for the Romans, and he's despised for it, by himself, as much as the other Jews.

Judas, comforted by Jesus

Rather than praise everybody involved in the making of the film for their style and quality of their performances, I'll save time and name some names.  Martin Scorsese is directing, Peter Gabriel composing, with Willem Dafoe as the Christ.  His lack of physical beauty and easy charm probably makes him the closest screen Jesus to the one Biblical description of Jesus' looks, which crops up in Isaiah: 'he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him'.  Harvey Keitel is a flame-haired and muscular Judas, the only person Jesus can really rely on.  As usual, it's a fairly white cast for something set in Israel, but unlike most Jesus biopics, the Jews here look and sound Jewish, Jewish-American, to be precise, which works very well.  I feel obliged to mention that there's a single scene cameo by David Bowie as Pontius Pilate, and he's good, quiet, pensive, but is given very little to do here, so my favourite screen Pilate remains Frank Thring in 'Ben-Hur' (1959).

What of the Last Temptation of the title?  It's the whole point of the film, but is constrained to the final fifth of a two-and-a-half hour movie.  I'll be sauntering somewhat into spoiler territory here, but since you may have already seen that screen-cap down there it's already sort-of too late, but this really isn't a film that relies greatly on twists, so I don't think your viewing experience will be diminished.  So, as you may know, Jesus goes out into the desert for forty days to fast and meditate, and while there is thrice tempted by Satan.  It's brilliantly realised in this film, which paraphrases events as well as words, and so makes both dialogue and visuals engaging and surprising.  Satan says that Jesus will see him again, and it's at this point that Jesus takes up the main body of his mission.

Aged Jesus and his guardian angel

As per the Bible, after the Last Supper, Jesus begs God to release him from his fate, to save him from dying on the cross.  Despite this, he's nailed up to die, but just as he's on the cusp of perishing, he cries out, asking why he's been forsaken.  At this point, a young English-accented girl, his guardian angel, tells him God has had mercy and released him from this terrible fate.  He climbs down from the cross, though the crowd still see him there, and he goes on to live a long and mainly happy life.  He marries, has children, grows to old age.  This, though he doesn't see it, is his last temptation.

It's highly likely this film inspired 'Human Nature' that Tennant-era Doctor Who classic: in each, our hero is offered a vision of a normal human life, the delight of love, family, and a good, natural death of old age - and each has to choose whether to live the life they yearn for, that they've certainly earnt, or to die unjustly and save the world.  Eventually Jesus begins to hear people condemn him for failing to be the crucified and resurrected Jesus they're preaching, and who the people need to save them.  For me the film's highlight is a scene in which old Jesus runs into a highly animated Paul of Tarsus, given the film's most enjoyable performance by Harry Dean Stanton, and condemns him pretending that there had ever been a crucifixion, let alone a resurrection.

I suspect the film's ongoing controversy arises largely from the idea (all in the fantasy of this last temptation, and largely, though not wholly, implied rather than shown) that Jesus had sex.  With, y'know, women.  The weakness and doubt shown in this presentation of Jesus is likely another factor, as well as the role of Judas and the notable amount of casual nudity. (My friend Tom Hagley described this as a 'nipple film', venturing that a high percentage of shots contain at least one visible, often Willem Dafoe's).  I don't think these things should count against a very good film about Jesus, which really gets to the core of why the crucifixion was necessary to reconcile man to God, and why God didn't relieve Jesus of this burden even when he begged for another solution.  If you want a modern, well-shot and horribly bloody film about Jesus, his mission and his death, 'The Last Temptation of Christ' is a far more interesting, enjoyable and helpful film than 'The Passion of the Christ' (2004).

Pondering it over the week, I'm tempted to venture that this might even be the best film yet made about Jesus of Nazareth.  Feel quite at liberty to disagree in the comments.  For another film of a novel about Jesus, albeit one in which he hardly features, tune in on Easter Sunday for my comments on my favourite ever film, 'Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ' (1959).

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Winstanley (1975)

It so happens that I like the message and the style of the occupy movement, whose camps could be found in most every city in late 2011, most conspicuously in New York, allowing the city to finally cast off the gloom of 9-11 and be about something new and more positive.  They were a visible sign of the people's dissatisfaction with the growing gap between the rich and the poor - heck, between the uber-rich and everybody else.  They made novel use of public space to oppose corporate personhood, made myriad inequalities harder to ignore, and put a public face, indeed many public faces, to those angered by certain unpunished or unpunishable villainies committed by banks, managers and ostensible 'wealth creators'.

They still do these things, though the camps are gone.  They're considered less newsworthy, but haven't gone away.  In their prime, I did what I could to furnish the movement with both moral and material support, here and in the States, and I'm trying to keep an eye on their continuing operations.  This 1975 film regards the Cromwell-era occupy movement, the Levellers, or the Diggers as they became known, led by the charismatic Gerrard Winstanley.  It's a true story, by the way.

Gerrard Winstanley burns a court summons

Just to give a very brief bit of historical context: this is shortly after Henry VIII, Queens Mary and Elizabeth, William Shakespeare, Kings James (of the Bible translation) and Charles I (of the decapitation).  The Civil War has just happened, and Oliver Cromwell is on the throne, sort of.  Despite this new age of kingless Puritanism, society hasn't really been levelled at all.  There's still a despot at the top of a hierarchy of lords, with the poor no better off than before the revolution.  (When Cromwell dies, some decades after the events of this film, Britain, rather embarrassingly, asks to have its monarchs back, and it's as if nothing has changed, but that's another century for another movie - probably with a lot of wigs in it).

So anyway, it's 1649, and Gerrard Winstanley has published a manifesto, 'The New Law of Righteousness', and has set up a camp, a commune of sorts, on common lands.  The lands sort-of belong to everybody (hence 'common'), but actually belong to Sir Francis Drake (who isn't that Sir Francis Drake, before you ask).  As we see, Drake doesn't like the idea of social levelling because (so he says) if there are no poor people, then he won't be able to keep to the Biblical precept of charity.  And while the lands are meant for common grazing of animals, the Diggers, led by Winstanley, are digging to grow their crops, and have built huts.  And this sort of thing is just not on.

Gerrard Winstanley again, because I like his face.

Winstanley's vision is simple and sensible: there's enough land in Britain for everybody to have some, so by farming the common land, nobody need go hungry; everybody just needs a little bit of land, and there's enough to go round.  This was apparently still true by the 70s, and unless the population is very much higher today, may still hold.  'Unemployment' as we think of it now didn't exist back then, and all you needed was a bit of space to plant barley, cut down some trees and build a hut and you had all the food and shelter you needed, like Minecraft or 'The Good Life'.  Despite this commendable aim, however, the camp is in terminal decline almost as soon as we see it.  Disgruntled locals, incited by a local parson, keep destroying the crops, meaning the camp cannot prosper.

I find there to be something compellingly watchable about the face of Gerrard Winstanley, at least as he's played here by Miles Halliwell.  He exudes a goodness, a niceness that I don't think I've quite seen anywhere else, and, though this is not a cheery film, every time the hope-filled Winstanley appears on screen everything seems brighter and better.  Though it all ends badly, I think I could probably pull myself out of a glum mood by watching this film for this performance.  Halliwell, like most of the cast, is not a professional actor.  His only other screen credit is for 'It Happened Here' (1964), by the same writer/director, in which he played a Nazi apologist teacher.  It's a pity he never got to play Jesus, as he would have been the best.

General Fairfax drops in.  Men ought still to style themselves so.

The only professional actor in the film is Jerome Willis as General Fairfax.  If you know your Pertwee Doctor Who, you'll recognise Willis from 'The Green Death' (1973) in which he played the manager of Global Chemicals.  His performance here as Fairfax is quite different, and the sight of him with the sharp beard and magnificent hair of the 17th century upper crust is an image to treasure.  Fairfax is an interesting character (and, I suppose, was an interesting person).  He's the highest authority seen in the film, and seems both wise and intelligent, not joining with the general condemnation of the camp, but listening open-minded to everything Winstanley has to say.  He comes across as gracious, like a good headmaster who has a genuine knowledge of all his pupils, an understanding of their motives and a love of fairness.

While there are no real villains here, as everybody seems to have a fairly reasonable motivation for their actions, David Bramley's Parson Platt is fairly close to the stereotype we hold of the puritans: the dearth of humour, the sexual jealousy and repression, the gaunt face of a sad panda; Gerrard Winstanley is far closer to the actual Puritan ideal, that of keeping God at the centre of every action and motivation, of breaking down clericalism, sacerdotalism and human hierarchy and making a beautiful and simple society in which to live and worship.  Platt, if understandable, is a horrible jerk.  The Christianity Winstanley espouses and practices is very appealing, honest, humble and gladdening.  The impression is very much that his society would have worked if those frightened by such proto-communism hadn't repeatedly taken to violence to suppress it.  Winstanley's Diggers movement collapsed, in the end, but was resurrected in the 1960s.  Noted '60s and '70s protestor and digger Sid Rawle appears in this film as a ranter, who joins Winstanley's camp mainly to mess around, burn Bibles and harass women.  Just as the story is tilting toward its bleak conclusion, Rawle's character takes his clothes off and runs around naked making a hulaballoo, and gives the characters a good laugh, at last.

An old woman laughs at a penis.

What is often said about the film, and rightly, is that it feels like it was really shot at the time it was set.  There's a documentary realism to it, and there's nothing here to tell you this is a mid-seventies production.  While a lot of Winstanley's dialogue is lifted from his writings, much of the dialogue and action has the spontaneous feel of improvisation.  Sights are seen that I expect far more from real life than from the movies: time is taken while trees are cut down and huts constructed, and when one of the men is trying to construct the side of a building a friend of his bothers him by repeatedly touching him on the head with a long piece of grass.  When it rains heavily, we have a lingering shot of one of the Diggers with a damp bogey dangling from his nose.  In the early and brief sequence of a Civil War battle, the directors borrowed real Civil War armour from the royal armouries, as it was cheaper and more convincing than making it new.  It feels very genuine, under all that fine word's meanings, and it's a real pity that there aren't more films with the feel of 'Winstanley'.

I really like this film, and having seen it a couple of times and read a little further, really like Gerrard Winstanley too, so am failing (as I may when I come to write up 1959's 'Ben-Hur' at Easter) to restrain my enthusiasms.  I suspect I've gone on for more paragraphs than I ought, and shall stop here so as not to try your patience any further, dear reader.

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Available on DVD, or as one of the rather fine BFI flipside releases which contain both a DVD and a blu-ray disc, and so are ideal if you want to watch these fine pictures in the highest quality while retaining the ability to put a DVD version in your computer to extract screen-captures.

Faust (1926)

The three horsemen of the apocalypse!

Perhaps there was no room for famine, or is it pestilence.

The missing one, whoever that is.

It's a magnificent and wonderfully visual film, so I'm once again going to tilt this toward pictures and captions, with bursts of comment between each.  When the pictures move, of course, they're far more ominous, merry and exciting, but I didn't want to enter the strange world of the animated gif, so let's enjoy what we have, shall we?

Mephisto looms over the town and blocks out the sun with his wing.

Plague issues from his loins

So Mephisto and the Archangel have a bet.  Can this demon tempt Faust, and so become Master of the Universe?  Probably, yes.

Elderly Faust looks on the dying, but cannot save them

Marlowe's Dr Faustus is a favourite character of mine, and one whose flaws I share.  The Faust of this film, and of the old German legend, has relatively little in common with him.  I do think this is what I'll look like when I grow old, though, and possibly long before that.

If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing with loads of fire and smoke.

Under these terms, everything in this film is well worth doing.

Here Mephisto rejuvenates Faust

Faust's attempts to use Mephisto's superpowers for good go pretty badly.  He tries to heal the sick, but can't bear to look on the holy cross, so people throw stones at him.  We've all had days like that, but Faust takes it really badly, and in a fit of pique flies all over the world being young and lusty.

Young Faust imagines his Heimat

Faust yearns to go home, and falls in love with a young lady called Gretchen.

Flirtatious Mephisto gazes through a window

Mephisto, meanwhile, flirts with her aunt.  They have cocktails together, and chase around most merrily.  Emil Jannings's Mephisto is the real stand-out performance here, because he gets to be so evil, so terrifying, and then so whimsical and ridiculous, before being utterly evil again.

Mephisto fixes himself a drink.

Gretchen's aunt looks on, smitten and bedevilled.

Mephisto fixes it for Gretchen's brother to have a sword-fight with Faust, then helps Faust win, and cries 'Murder' to the whole town.  What a jerk!

"MORD!   MORD!"

German films so often come down to this little word, shouted aloud.

Honestly, why does Faust hang out with this guy?  Obviously evil character is obviously evil.

The condemned Gretchen's cry stirs Faust to action!

Faust goes to the rescue of Gretchen and renounces his youth (handily his aged self has been trapped in a mirror all the while).  And then this happens:

No, no, Erzengel!  That's far too much text for one intertitle!

The above is, I should note, an exception.  Most of the captions are concise and beautiful, but the Archangel really lets rip at the end, telling Mephisto exactly where his evil scheme has failed.  The temptation has not destroyed all that is divine in Faust.  Not on your nelly.  It all comes down to one word, and I'll give you three guesses what that word is.

An excellent and exciting piece of cinema, though perhaps it sags just a smidgen (or perhaps just moves away from the story I wanted or expected to watch) when it turns into a (somewhat dubious) romance in its second half.  Very pleasing performances all round, and the thing that constantly surprises me in 20s films, tremendous special effects.  Clearly I need to raise my expectations.

P.S. From here on, I want to post two regular updates a week on Thursdays and Sundays, occasionally using Tuesdays for wild novelties (as you'll be seeing this coming Tuesday) or for films that don't fit my hundred-film-hundred-years thing, so films from too long ago, or from years I've already assigned to particular films.

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Exciting stuff, and here it is on DVD, should you be seized by a compulsion

The Birth of a Nation (1915)

This entry may sum up with the greatest purity one aspect of this project: I've watched this film so you don't have to.  I've dreaded 'The Birth of a Nation' fro some while, having tried it in 2004 and given up bored after half an hour.  Here's a film that's way racist, way long at 190 minutes, and not especially engaging or rewarding to a modern eye.  I considered other options for this year, 'Der Golem', for instance, but 1915 simply is 'The Birth of a Nation' and to skip it out would be simply absurd.

The first half of this sentimental and differently-exciting melodrama shows two American families, one Northern, one Southern, divided by the Civil War.  We see the war, in all its glory and tragedy (the South were the heroes, by the way), and the ensuing reconstruction under the Neanderthal-faced Abe Lincoln, whose assassination is lavishly reconstructed at the film's mid-point.

John Wilkes Booth, after assassinating the president

The more notorious second half tells the tale of the liberated 'negroes' (as the film insists on calling them) and ruthless carpetbaggers (who are a cross between carpet slippers and teabaggers) oppressing the 'helpless White minority'.  The Ku Klux Klan is formed, apparently to seek something like good and equality through 'fair trials' and diabolical fancy-dress, and to quash these (obviously blacked-up) rascals who are, we are told, degrading America.

'The organization that saved the South from the anarchy of black rule'.  It's a very ugly piece of propaganda, but it seems to have worked.  The release and popularity of this film was almost wholly responsible for the re-emergence of the KKK in 20th Century America, a vigilante mob still exercising its brute force well into the 1950s.  The heroic young colonel of the film's first half is the instigator of this gang of terrorists, and the film would very much like us to admire him for it.  At the end, the spectral form of Jesus Christ puts in a cameo to lend it a little credibility.

The household servants are presented as benign (in short, they're submissive),

presumably as the one example with which to say 'this film can't be racist'.

All this is set to a rich orchestral score, which may be a more modern addition.  It's rather odd to see such American scenes of alarm overplayed with Grieg's characteristically Norwegian Peer Gynt music, or 'O Christmas Tree' (though it may have been the equally irrelevant 'The Red Flag').  Colonel Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant was apparently made to the strains of the British national anthem, a tune which may have a different meaning in the U.S., but I felt compelled to stand up in salute to her majesty in any case.

One of the most striking discoveries in the 100 films experiment is how competent, stylish, ambitious and advanced films were a century ago, a time we think of as their infancy - and how the advances from then until now have been slow, gradual and constant.  The adventure from 1913 cinema until 2013 isn't marked by milestones and watersheds (except perhaps the arrival of talkies, which so far seem to have emerged over-night fully formed), but by seemingly seamless development.  The more films I view, the more I can see how cinema got from the 1910s to the 1920s, from there to the 1930s, and so on.  Technically there's little between this and 'Die Nibelungen' (1924) bar a honing of special effects.  Decades famed for their distinct flavours - the 60s and 70s, for instance, flow smoothly from one to the other.

The North marvel at the South's bravery in war

To bring this back to 'The Birth of a Nation', here are superimposed images placing models ablaze in the same short as fleeing crowds; a camera clearly fixed to a moving vehicle to keep pace with actors on horseback; shots are juxtaposed with the understanding that viewers will know how to read the links between images; intertitles introduce scenes (as they did a decade earlier) but also provide excerpts of dialogue or context within the scenes.  In 1915, the movie and the movie audience are both highly advanced.  This is a flm wholly confident of its ability to use all cinema's techniques to tell any scale or complexity of story.  Of course, it looks crude and ancient now, but who was to know back then how far cinema might develop.  If director D.W. Griffith didn't anticipate the coming of sound and colour, then the epic scale of this achievement, with its cast of hundreds, its historical re-enactments and battlefields filled with smoke, horses and explosions, must have looked like the greatest film it was possible for humanity to produce, the eventual pinacle of the medium.  I wonder what film holds that title now.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

There was a film about Bob Dylan a few years ago (I'm Not There, 2007) in which a cast of fairly notable actors played different aspects of the real man in different settings and eras.  Cate Blanchett seemed to me the most obviously excellent, though since the Bob Dylans also included Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and Christian Bale it seems wrong to single only one out for praise.  It seemed a very good format for a biopic about anybody complicated, or who gathered many stories.

I thought afterwards that you could use a similar set-up for a film about Jesus - except, I thought, dividing him up (as he were Earth in the time of Peleg) and relocating his portions throughout time and space would necessarily mean telling the stories of various Christ-like people (which is already done in the movies, lots), as to do it properly you'd end up showing your audience several only-son-of-Gods in places less appropriate than 1st Century Jewry, and it would just look odd (or, you know, really Mormon).

'La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc' (to give its French title, though it seems to be claimed equally by the French and Danish, with the actors silently voicing one language while the intertitles use the other) would fit well into such a biopic of myriad Jesuses.  As a glimpse at the title and screen-caps will tell you, this is a story with an extraordinary similarity to Jesus' last hours before his crucifixion.

With its script drawn from contemporaneous reports of the trial, this is the story of Joan of Arc's condemnation and execution by the fifteenth century version of the Sanhedrin.  She's questioned, mocked and condemned, and she holds to the truth, or to silence, refusing to speak the answers that would easily save her life - holding tight to a hope of the resurrection.  It's a harrowing film of extreme close-ups, as we watch horror, fear and alarm creep across Joan's gaunt face.  There's really no hope that the trial will end anywhere but death.

When I was watching German talkies of the 1930s, I wondered at the static shots, and speculated that moving cameras may not have caught on so early as that.  It was a surprise, seeing this film from half a decade earlier, to find the camera moving ceaselessly, tracking over the long bench of the prosecutors, pursuing faces, swinging up and down to follow maces thrown down from a window in the violent finale.  It's a visually interesting film, with the trial conducted and guarded by scowling lawyers and characterful grotesques, set against the plain, androgynous face of the suffering Joan.  Though the locations and characters are few, the camera never shows us anything that isn't worth seeing and examining.  An extraordinary performance, and a horrible occurrence.

P.S. I worry sometimes that my posts are growing unreadably lengthy - and since this is one of the first I watched and wrote about (though held off in a backlog) it's mercifully shorter than some, though it occurs to me I've only dedicated two paragraphs to the film itself.  Whoops!

P.P.S. The next film I'll post about here will be 'The Lord of the Rings' (2001-2003), and the next film I watch?  Gosh, I've no idea.  I'm spoilt for choice.  'King Ralph' (1991), perhaps?  Yes, I like that idea.

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It's a fascinating film, and in pretty good nick.  If you fancy trying a silent film I'd recommend this as a fine start.

La Vie et la Passion de Jesus Christ (1903)

I first saw this film a couple of Easters ago, and recalled it last week thinking it might have belonged to the hard-to-populate 1910s.  As it is, it hails from 1903, and is thus a full decade outside the terms of this blog's purpose.  The film is so extraordinary, though, that I don't feel I can neglect it.

For one thing, despite being a hundred and ten years old, it's in colour; hand-coloured at the time, I hasten to add, rather than being daubed more recently - and in highly exciting and thus pleasingly stylised tones.  The boy Jesus in radiant yellow, maturing to an earthy salmon (if there can be such a thing as an earthy salmon), and the angels standing out in monochrome.  It's easy to forget that colours existed at all in the early 1900s, but the hills here are such a vivid green, the characters each carrying their allotted tint.  It's a very different experience both to watching a film in monochrome and to watching a film shot in colour.

The only Jesus biopic I've seen to feature the Transfiguration

I first became interested in Biblical films in 2004 after watching Ben-Hur (1959), and realising how much pictures and performances could do to bring 1st Century Judea to life, and, crucially, to help me get my mind around the order of events of a several-thousand-year-long story.  Six or seven biopics of Jesus, films about Moses, Solomon, Brian, Noah and the rest.  If you want to locate the time and place within the world you know, it's cheaper than visiting Jerusalem.

Despite its short duration (either 44 or 52 minutes, depending on the speed it's screened - but then any film could run for either of those if you screened it fast or slow enough), this one manages to cover a lot of material longer films neglect -  it spends most of its first half on Jesus' nativity and childhood, before giving us a number of single scene tellings of Jesus raising Lazarus, the Last Supper, and Jesus talking the Samaritan woman at the well, for instance, and more special effects-heavy pieces as Jesus walking on water, the transfiguration (an event I've never seen depicted in any other film), and Jesus' baptism (brilliantly described in the Dutch-language intertitles as 'DOOB VAN JEZUS'), with a gleaming pigeon superimposed as the Holy Spirit.

Amazing special effects from 1903

The scope and ingenuity of the thing is amazing for its era.  A complex film replete with effects shots - lots of superimposition and roll-back-and-mix to let characters appear from thin air, lighting effects and cunning use of scenery and cranes.  When cinema came into existence, the theatre was already so advanced that even with crude cameras, the directors and technicians had the experience to make such improbably ambitious works as this.

Despite this film's up to-the-minute techniques and  bold use of the medium, the close-up had only been invented a few years previously, and had yet to catch on.  The vast majority of this film lets the scenes play out in a single shot (the intertitles principally being used to introduce the scenes rather than report dialogue), with the actors all visible in full-frame, head to foot, and with ample empty space above their heads for us to admire the sets, stars, angels and the occasional Sphinx.  Only twice are we blessed with a medium close-up, and I reproduce both here: Christ regarded by Pontius Pilate, and (since this is a French film) St. Veronica and her famous tea-towel.  Women have been rather neglected in my screen-captures so far - though I'm content to blame the films for this more than my own bias in selection - but I'm glad that a hundred and ten years ago a film with only two such shots got something of a gender balance in there.

Behold the man

The patron saint of laundry-workers and photography, apparently.

Though it's a French film, the copy I found on Youtube (and you can watch it here) has the intertitles in Dutch, so it helped that I had more than a little familiarity with the events shown - though I'm sure you could enjoy either guessing or making up your own interpretations, peace be upon them.  Confusingly these intertitles called the film 'Van de Kribbe tot het Kruis' (a translation, not of this film's title, but that of a different and slightly less exciting film on the subject from 1912), while the Youtube page called it 'La vie et passion de notre seigneur Jesus Christ', which isn't quite right either.  Some research to make sure I wasn't confusing two or more films assured me that this is indeed 1903's 'La Vie et la Passion de Jesus Christ'.

So, despite its strangely watchable quality, its innovations of colour and effects, it is truly ancient - made only two years after the Victorian era came to a close, and in the cinemas just before Peter Pan reached the stage, before Dr Seuss, Greta Garbo or Albert Speer were born or the Panama Canal was begun, and during the life-time of Dvořák, Chekov, Jules Verne and Calamity Jane.  Almost everybody alive on Earth when this was in the cinemas is now dead.  So, isn't that exciting.

P.S. 'Doob van Jezus' sounds like it needs to be a band name, or at least a pseudonym.  'Jezus', perhaps because of its novelty, is immediately a more exciting spelling.

P.P.S. In past I've given early films far too little credit.  I'm sure when I reach the 1910s I'll end up using the innovation and quality of this movie as a stick with which to beat backwards and technically wretched pieces which ought to be as good, if not a full decade more advanced.