Just thought I’d let everyone know about this free offer from Voice of the Martyrs.

I just received an e-mail from Voice of the Martyrs promoting their new animated Jesus film, Jesus: He Lived Among Us. Now, I must say that I’ve not seen this film and the trailer on the website did not leave me particularly impressed. But, it may be good, especially for younger audiences, and it’s a way to support Voice of the Martyrs, a great organization which I wholeheartedly endorse.

If you’re not familiar with VOM, you can find out more at their website. Their overall mission is to raise awareness of and offer support to persecuted Christians around the world. If you’d like to order the free DVD for your church, you can click here or on the image below. You can also get a DVD by donating to VOM via the link at the top of the page.

If anyone sees the film, comment here or e-mail me and let me know what you think!

Click here to order the FREE DVD!

It’s available on YouTube, GodTube and Vimeo. Please share it freely! Thanks to my friend Brandon Moore for the great music!

The Passion of the Christ is a singular moment in the history of Jesus films. Since before its theatrical debut, it has incited heated criticism, lofty praise and long debates about issues ranging from racial bigotry to violence in film. In my latest column for New Identity Magazine, I offer some ideas on viewing this film apart from its reputation.

At Easter, many Christians engage in an annual ritual of watching Jesus films. In a short time, The Passion of the Christ has become a film that tops many people’s lists of Jesus films to watch – and to avoid. This article became the basis for my upcoming paper and conference presentation, “Blood and Spirits: Viewing The Passion of the Christ as an Action/Horror Film.” The title has changed, but it’s the paper mentioned at the end of the article. It will be available soon right here at JesusFilms101.com. Read the latest volume of “The Space Between” below, or on the New Identity Magazine website.

This is just a quick note to let my readers know that “Top Ten Jesus Films You’ve Never Seen” will continue soon. My computer with all my writing on it has died, hence the lack of updates. So, when that resurrection occurs, the series will continue.

I’m really excited about the next film, 1969′s Son of Man. It’s a unique and beautiful film and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you! Until then, there are more updates coming. Keep up with the news through the Jesus Films 101 Newsletter and through @JesusFilms101 on Twitter!

The Huffington Post is letting readers decide the “Best Jesus Movie.” What’s your pick?

It’s a bracket-style bout pitting top Jesus films against one another and it’s getting quite interesting. Jesus Christ Superstar has beaten out The Last Temptation of Christ (much to my disappointment) but there’s still one round left!

Which film will come out on top? The Passion of the Christ? Or Monty Python’sd Life of Brian? You can help decide!

But, while we’re on the subject, let’s ask the obvious question:

Which film would you pick?

Answers below, please.

When I decided to put this list together, I almost didn’t include this film. It is arguably the most popular and well-recognized film on this list. But, even though it is a favorite among critics and scholars, it is still unknown to most people, particularly in the United States.  That’s a shame because it’s one of the finest and most influential films on the life of Christ ever made.

Though it is known in English as The Gospel According to St. Matthew, the original title does not include the word “Saint” (or “San” in Italian). The word was added by distributors for the film’s English language release, a pious gesture that rankled director Pier Paolo Pasolini. The revered Italian director  was well known for his atheism, a fact which may seem at odds with the subject matter of the film.

But almost nothing about Il Vangelo is what anyone would expect from a Jesus film, especially in the 1960s. Filming on a very small budget in black and white, Pasolini cast mostly non-actors and scored the film with existing music from Bach, Mozart and Billie Holiday. In fact, Enrique Irazoqui, who plays Jesus, was an economics student who had never acted in a film before. While he has been in a handful of films since, he has never pursued an acting career and is today a chess champion.

Irazoqui was at first reluctant to do the film and only agreed because Pasolini convinced him that the film would promote their shared Marxist ideals. Whether it was intended solely as Marxist propaganda is questionable, however, since Pasolini gave an entirely different impression of his motivations in a letter to Lucio S. Caruso of the Pro Civitate Christiana of Assisi.

It was at the Pro Civitate Christiana that Pasolini decided to make a film based on the Gospel of Matthew. In his letter to Caruso, he states that he was so moved by reading the Gospels during his stay in Assisi that he wanted to make a film of the Gospel of Matthew “without making a script or adaptation of it.”

His expressed desire was to “translate [the Gospel of Matthew] faithfully into images, following its story without any omissions or additions” with dialogue that was “strictly Saint Matthew, without even a single explanatory or connecting sentence, because no image or word could ever attain the poetic heights of the text.”

If this all seems a bit pious for an atheist, it may be because Pasolini had a complicated relationship with faith. “If you know that I am an unbeliever,” he said, “then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief.

An atheist making a Jesus film is one thing, especially if he sees the story of Christ as an expression of his political ideologies. But, Pasolini’s telling of the Gospel narrative seems too reverent for such an explanation to suffice. Indeed, he could well have told the story of Jesus’ life and omitted all references to the supernatural, the miraculous and the Divine. Instead, however, Il Vangelo begins with Joseph’s discovery that Mary is pregnant

The scene proceeds silently, Joseph simply turning and walking away after seeing Mary’s protruding belly. But, as he stops and sits down to take a nap, he is awakened. A girl in white has replaced children that had been noisily playing nearby and the first words of the film come from the lips of an angel: “Joseph, son of David, take unto thee Mary, thy wife. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. She shall bear a son, and thou shalt call him Jesus. He shall save his people from their sins.”

The next line is narration over Joseph’s return walk to Mary. The words are those of the prophet Isaiah: “A virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us.’” And so, in its first scene, Il Vangelo includes the supernatural (the angel), the miraculous (the virgin birth) and the Divine (the references to the Holy Ghost and God with us).

Right up front, Pasolini takes a decidedly reverent approach that does not flag throughout the film. He shows us Jesus performing miracles, such as the healing of lepers and the demon-possessed, even walking on the water. He also continues to portray angels, including those announcing Christ’s resurrection at the empty tomb. When Jesus is baptized, the voice of God comes from above saying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” There are several Jesus films which omit any or all of these and more than one that seeks far more strenuously than Il Vangelo to humanize Jesus at the expense of his Divinity.

Pasolini’s Jesus is human and grounded, to be sure. One might expect Pasolini to agree with the words of Martin Scorsese, director of The Last Temptation of Christ, who said, “When my Jesus walks into a room, he doesn’t glow in the dark.” Yet, Pasolini (like Scorsese) makes no attempt to subtract from a view of Jesus as Divine, even if his own beliefs are at times at odds with the Scriptural dialogue of his film—specifically the many references to Jesus as the Son of God.

On his view of Christ, Pasolini said, “To put it very frankly, I don’t believe that Christ is the Son of God, because I am not a believer – at least not consciously. But I believe that Christ is divine: I believe, that is, that in him humanity is so lofty, strict and ideal as to exceed the common terms of humanity.”

Whether Pasolini’s beliefs were consistent with doctrinaire Christianity or not, it is this image of Christ as both human and divine, with neither edging out the other, that has probably been Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo‘s most enduring legacy.

Far from the grandeur and splendor of Hollywood Bible films, this simply constructed yet richly beautiful motion picture was a startling departure from its contemporaries and predecessors in the genre. Its vision of a human Christ in a real, unrehearsed world have influenced many Jesus films since, but its handmade quality, its earthy realism remains almost unparalleled.

Grounded in humanity but drenched in more unedited Scripture than any Jesus film before it, Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo is a stark presentation of the power of the Gospel to affect even one who claims not to believe.

The next film I’ll be discussing in this series will be Son of Man, a 1969 episode of the BBC Television series The Wednesday Play. It will bring us an even more radical portrayal of Jesus that is much more rarely seen. And, if you haven’t yet, check out the entire Ten Jesus Films You’ve Never Seen series.

I’ve chosen to cover my list of Ten Jesus Films You’ve Never Seen in chronological order. So, first up is Golgotha, a French film from 1933 directed by Julien Duvivier. It’s a splendid, though rarely seen picture which carries the unique distinction of being the first film on the life of Christ with sound. Alternately known (primarily in the United States) as Ecce Homo or Behold the Man, Golgotha is an outstanding achievement from a decade that saw little development in the Jesus film genre.

While one can only speculate as to the reasons behind the relative lack of Jesus film production in the 1930s, it may have something to do with The King of Kings. Cecil B. DeMille’s 1928 epic is a towering achievement of the silent era—a large-scale production that saw blockbuster success and remains to this day the most well-known Jesus film of the pre-sound age. Its scale may well have left filmmakers of the time scratching their heads as to what to do next. Duvivier, however, had an answer.

After the pageantry of The King of Kings, the acclaimed director takes a decidedly more realistic, down to Earth approach with Golgotha. The opening scene of the film is a long pan across the Jerusalem skyline. It’s a rear-projection shot with live actors passing in front, presumably on a conveyor belt, as if they just happen to be caught in front of the camera as we pass by. They are unaware of our presence, milling about their daily lives, having conversations, walking from place to place or just sitting about. It’s an impressive visual effects shot for the era and sets up two aesthetic threads in Golgotha that will set it apart from more spectacular predecessors. First, Duvivier wishes to show us people as they were, responding naturally and organically to the events that will take place. Second, he will use expert camera work and beautiful visual effects, not to be gawked at as spectacle, but to serve the narrative and bring us into the world of the film.

This scene is followed by an impressive sequence that takes us up to a window in the Temple, through a diamond shape in the grating covering the window and into a long tracking shot around the room, following the dialogue and movements of the actors as the Sanhedrin discuss this new teacher that has arisen. This style persists as long tracking shots take us outside to show people thronging outside Jerusalem’s gates, breaking branches off trees and passing them around, preparing for Jesus’ arrival. We see them from Jesus’ point of view as they bow down and call out praises, the audio very clearly live and untouched, raw and real. Duvivier wants us to experience the story of Christ as participative observers, not looking upon staged events, but surrounded, even engulfed by them.

He reveals Jesus from a distance, almost blocked from view by his disciples and never clearly showing his face until after he has driven the merchants from the Temple, a scene in which even herds of livestock are let loose. The camera movements throughout the film are exquisite, tracking through rooms and around characters with an immediacy that recalls Carl Theodor Dryer’s 1928 classic La Passion de Jean d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc).

Featuring powerful performances by Harry Baur as Herod and others such as Charles Granval as Ciaphas, the film almost pushes the character of Jesus (Robert Le Vigan) off to its edges as it focuses on the hysteria and confusion surrounding Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, followed by his trial and death. Le Vigan holds his own in the role, presenting a more stoic Christ, unmoved by the circumstances around him. But, in a film of passionate performances and engaging cinematography, Le Vigan’s performance almost gets lost in the shuffle.

This changes, however, as we get deeper into the Passion narrative. Le Vigan mostly maintains his stoic composure, but clearly communicates the humiliation of Jesus underneath his attempts to remain unresponsive. Le Vigan’s Jesus takes a terrible beating. Though his scourging takes place off-camera, we are in the room as it happens, watching the reactions of onlookers who are pressing their faces into a barred but otherwise open window. Their expressions of sadistic glee, shock and horror tell the story along with the sound of the beating.

We see soldiers bringing their whips down harshly, but laboriously, as though it is just another day’s hard work. We never see the whips touch Jesus’ body. We don’t have to. Le Vigan is physically committed to the role and shows us Christ’s exhaustion and pain. Later, as he falls and is crushed against a wall behind his massive cross, we are struck with both the brutal pain of the moment and the Savior’s complete inability to fight back.

Golgotha is an intelligent, engaging and excellently executed film. Though Le Vigan’s Christ is perhaps too distant, too lacking in humanity and dimension, the film overall teems with sweaty, complex humanity and seems to set the tone for many Jesus films that would follow. This first Jesus film of the sound era seems to have set down a formula that others since have followed, blending an almost too distant image of Christ with an immersive realism in the world around him. It is almost the proto-Jesus film of the next twenty or thirty years, seeming at times to have even influenced films as recent as The Passion of the Christ.

Whether its influence was direct or indirect, it is difficult to tell, but it seems to have had a far-reaching effect on the genre, even as it is largely unknown today. I’ll have more to say on this film in the future, particularly if I’m ever able to view it with English subtitles.

The next film I’ll be looking at in this series is Pier Paolo Paolini’s 1964 Italian film Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo. Look for my article here next week!

This is not a ranked list. It’s chronological. Check out my original article in catapult* Magazine for a brief overview of each film.

Golgotha (Ecce Homo) (1933)

Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew — US Title) (Italy 1964/U.S. 1966)

Son of Man (1969)

The Gospel Road (1973)

Il Messia/The Messiah (1974)

Dayasgar (1978)

The Day Christ Died (1980)

The Cross (2001)

Jezile/Son of Man (2006)

The Passion (BBC Miniseries) (2008)

 So, what do you think? Seen any of these films? Are there any rarities I’ve left out? Share your thoughts below and sign up for the Jesus Films 101 newsletter to know when new blog posts are published!

Top ten lists of Jesus films are a recurring theme and the usual suspects are pretty universal. So, when *catapult magazine was putting together its annual “Ten Things” list for 2012, I thought I might take the opportunity to offer a list of films in the genre that are a bit more under the radar.

Now, there are a lot of small, independent, foreign and silent films on the life of Christ that are rarely seen. So, my guiding criterion for this list was that the films had to be good.

In fact, this list includes (in my opinion) some of the best, most unique Jesus films ever made. Check out the full list in my article for *catapult‘s “Ten Things 5″ and keep an eye out here for a new series, featuring a full review of each film on the list.

I listed the films in chronological order and the series will follow the same order for the series, beginning next week with Julien Duvivier’s 1933 film Golgotha.

It’s always interesting to talk to people about why I study Jesus films. Beyond the pure cinematic interest, for me, there are two threads that run through the study of Jesus films: The historical and the liturgical.

I started out with the historical. My goal in seeing and studying Jesus films was to view them for their historical veracity. I’ve always been keenly interested in understanding as closely as possible what Jesus and his world were like.

I can remember getting into the car with my dad on a night when Jesus of Nazareth was playing on Television, asking him if what I saw depicted in the film was what things were really like in Jesus’ time. I wondered just how accurately we could know how people dressed, what they looked like, what the buildings were like, what people said and did. My dad tried his best to explain to me as a little kid how long ago those events took place and how difficult it was to know many things for certain. There were things we did know, but others we didn’t. I immediately became interested in the space between – the gaps left by history and filled in various forms by fiction in the films about Jesus. I wanted to know what belonged in those gaps as definitely as possible.

Jesus films became a doorway into history, as I felt that the goal of each film must be to try to reproduce as accurately as possible what the best research was telling us life was really like for Jesus and the Twelve. Of course, I learned that was not the case. I soon realized that there was at least as much invention as research that went into these films – often more. I was somewhat disappointed by this revelation. If these films weren’t aiming for historical fidelity, what was the point?

It was The Last Temptation of Christ that changed my perspective and showed me a new way to view these films – and a new reason to study them. Last Temptation was the most intentionally and unapologetically fictional portrayal of the life of Christ I’d ever seen, yet it was undeniably moving on a very deep level.

Once I got beyond my initial cognitive dissonance as I tried to reconcile the historical and fictional elements of the film, I began to realize why it affected me so strongly. The questions the film raised, the sacredness of time and place that it expressed, even as it showed me a messier, guts-and-sinew version of the Biblical world, were not about history. They were a liturgy.

When we think of liturgy, we often think of church buildings filled with incense, robes and candles. We think of ancient rituals like Communion, Advent and Lent. And those are indeed liturgical things. Their purpose is to engage us in an activity that captivates our senses and involves us in a tangible re-enactment of the Gospel and its principle concepts – like Grace, Atonement and Repentance.

We are probably already familiar with these stories and concepts when we engage in liturgy. But liturgy does something for us that we desperately need as humans. It reminds us of what we already know. Liturgy is a remembering – a re-membering – that is, a reconstitution of parts into a whole. It takes the elements with which we are familiar and reassembles, or re-collects, them in a new way in order to keep our forgetful minds and hearts freshly engaged with the most important of truths.

Jesus films can do that too. As I watched The Last Temptation of Christ over and over and learned more about it, I began to realize that it wasn’t a bad thing that many details were not historically accurate. In fact, it was essential to director Martin Scorsese’s purpose. What the film was doing was taking symbols and theological concepts I was familiar with and re-membering them – reassembling them and re-imagining them in new and even shocking ways. In so doing, it took the Gospel out of a comfortable context and made it once again unsettling, once again challenging and transformative.

I then began to look for this liturgical element in other Jesus films and found it ever-present, for each film is a unique vision of the Gospel that engages the viewer in remembering again. From the stark cinema verite of Il Vangelo Secondo Mateo causing the words of Christ to ring in an unadorned and almost maddeningly uncompromising fashion in my ears to Son of Man, which asks if we would truly accept a Jesus who appeared as insane, yet undeniably compelling to us as he did to many of his contemporaries, I’ve found in Jesus films endless opportunities for challenging, liturgical viewing.

Certainly The Passion of the Christ was intended and experienced by millions as a worshipful theatrical event, newly acquainting us with the harsh brutality and moving beauty of an old, old story with which we’d become a bit too comfortable. Similarly, Bruce Marchiano’s daringly joyous and emotionally expressive portrayal of Christ in The Visual Bible’s Matthew has been brought into countless homes as an oft-repeated meditation on the deep love of God.

Over one hundred-ten years have passed since the first cinematic representation of Jesus was filmed. So, again the historical thread of Jesus film studies comes into view. For now we have a liturgical history before us, a record of people’s attempts to express and understand Christ through the medium of the cinema. Learning more about Jesus films helps us to appreciate the many different ways in which people are affected by and attempt to connect with Christ.

Our church liturgies connect us, not only with the Gospel itself, but also with the generations of believers who have gone before us and have sought out these same mysteries through these same engagements of the senses. In the same way, the liturgy of the Jesus film can connect us with the history of modern humanity’s quest to understand God. These films are a liturgy and a legacy – of the Gospel, of Christ and of our striving to know him and make him known.

Click here to invite me to speak on Jesus films.