Review of King of Kings (1961) by Paul D — 05 Apr 2010

As directed by Nicholas Ray, still the coolest of all Jesus pictures - although its route up to Golgotha necessitates the kind of long haul that heathens might only undertake today on wet, eventless Bank Holiday afternoons.

.. Again, you're reminded how Hollywood storytelling and Biblical storytelling are subject to very different strictures: the "so it was" and "thus it came to pass" in Orson Welles' narration could easily translate as "look, just go along with me here", and even the most devout of cinemagoers might question the unexplained disappearances of Joseph, Mary Magdalene or - especially - Bazlen's minxish Salome from proceedings.

No-one (save perhaps Scorsese and Schrader) ever seems to have quite figured out how to put Jesus - traditionally less a playable character than a deus ex machina (or machina ex Deus) - at the centre of a filmed story; Ray and screenwriter Philip Yordan are simply more comfortable around those mortals affected by Christ's words and deeds, or conversely scheming to hang him out to dry - characters whose motives are graspable, human.

(You conclude maybe Islam has the right idea in forbidding representations of the prophet Mohammed: not out of any fera of blasphemy, but from a keen dramatic sense; if the Bible teaches us anything, it's that Jesus is a hard man to nail down.

) Still, the miracles are rendered in touching fashion, a lined and lived-in Robert Ryan makes for a stand-up John the Baptist, and - displaying exceptional forward-thinking - Ray casts Artie from "The Larry Sanders Show" as Judas (which really is cool).

The Sermon on the Mount - where Jesus's red smock/white undershirt vividly aligns him to James Dean's prophet of the Griffith Park Observatory in Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause" - goes on a bit; but it was ever thus.