The Last Temptation Of Christ - Criterion Collection [DVD] [1988] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Anyone interested in religion and frightened off by all the negative hype when this was released should see this film. The first time I watched it, out of curiousity, and although quite lengthy, (stick with it) the last hour blew me away!
As a fan of Keitel anyway, (he plays Judas) and DeFoe, their combined presence is ample to engross the movie fan, add David Bowie's understated pilate and Peter Gabriel's score, Barbara Hershey (say no more), this is a film to be reckoned with. For those with religious views, I'd like to say that I'm a confirmed Christian, and this film played a part in strengthening my faith.
It's a profound experience...

A depiction of Christ's life including a vision of what his life might have been like had he not been crucified...(!)

As screenwriter Paul Schrader explains on the commentary track included on this disc, those who were horrified by "The Last Temptation of Christ" picked the wrong reasons. Most of the controversy focused on a scene in which Jesus and Mary Magdalene make love, but that, of course, only happens in the dying Christ's imagination, as Satan is tempting him with visions of the normal life he has given up. The real heresy in "Last Temptation" (which Schrader adapted from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis) is its depiction of Judas as Jesus' most loving and loyal disciple, chosen for the difficult act of betrayal necessary to ensure human salvation. Nobody noticed, and so a film intended as a reverent, deeply serious exploration of faith was widely understood, for better or worse, as blasphemous.

The story explores the real life of our world...

The Last Temptation of Christ is perhaps Scorsese's best film. True, it's rather tied to the story for the first fourth-fifths, but though it's an oft-overused claim hijacked by fanboys who've seen too few films, this film truly reinvented the way period epics and Biblical epics could be made, with startling visuals and imaginative and aggressive editing combining with real passion from its director. It makes a virtue of his limited budget, getting in close in a way religious epics hadn't, ignoring the spectacle (always a good idea when you only have five Romans) for the intimate and creates a convincing environment. It's set in a time and place where God and man, magic and the mundane co-exist, but pointedly the first biblical landscape on screen to really look like a Semitic country rather than a Christian one. There's a sense of pioneers in a harsh frontier. The sound, too, thanks to the crude clash of accents - his disciples are simple men concerned about their sheep or fishing and their accents are gratingly from the streets while David Bowie seems to be channelling a lazy Michael Caine doing posh as Pontius Pilate - and Peter Gabriel's superb world-music influenced score that has been often imitated but rarely given it's the recognition it deserves.

Sergio Leone may have thought he looked more like a serial killer than Saviour, but in Willem Dafoe, Scorse has an alternately angry and charming doubting Messiah caught between Man and God as he struggles to find His way to God's path. There's an added level of immediacy in the way He is shown actually engaging with his audience on a personal level rather than preaching AT them or holding a press conference, yet even then finding himself completely misinterpreted as some of his audience misunderstand his words as an excuse for violence. Even more daringly, it offers a Christ for whom God's mission is a secret even from him for much of the film, and one who leans on Judas as a friend and his conscience even in betrayal. And it goes against easily clichéd iconography - not only the scene where Jesus casts out demons emerging in slow motion from holes in the ground but most vividly in the way the crowds gathering at this crucifixion come not to mourn but, as has been demonstrated throughout centuries of public executions, to mock and to be entertained by the pain and violence. And it is painful and violent - this was probably the first film to bring home the horrible physical enormity of the pain of being crucified: everyone does the nails being hammered in, but here the horror of being left to hang for days until you suffocate is all too vivid (though it could have been more so: Scorsese noted that had his regular collaborator played the part, "De Niro would have wanted real nails").

If anything, the once controversial last act, that sees a normal life as the ultimate temptation that must be resisted - and is in a moment of genuine triumph - seems almost to pale into a Biblical version of Capra-esque It's a Wonderful Messiah compared to the visceral main body of the film by virtue of its comparative overlength. Yet it's a small price to pay for a film as daring and passionate as this.

Sadly Paramount's Region 2 DVD of the film is barebones - just the film itself - but Criterion's Region 1 NTSC DVD is well worth seeking out with a plethora of interesting extras - audio commentary by Martin Scorsese, Willem Dafoe, Paul Schrader and Jay Cocks, location production footage, interview with Peter Gabriel, research materials, stills and costume designs (though not, surprisingly, the film's striking trailer).