If I were a director, "my" would-be film about Christ

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I want to say since the very beginning that is not my intention to provoke or tease nor offend. I think Christians urgently need to review history and learn DEEP the Judaism roots in order to understand the Messiah.

First of all I would take into consideration that out of 48 parables NOT A SINGLE ONE draws attention to his experience as a “carpenter”. Why so? Isn’t it strange? Not quite! Carpenter or bricklayer would’ve worked with stone in buildings at Zippori, 4 miles from modern Nazareth. Wood was scarce in Israel. This profession “carpenter” is just a tradition coming from Justin Martir at the end of 2nd Century, other translations could’ve been blacksmith. During the 5th Century, Jerome in his Vulgata version of the Bible used the Latin word “faber” meaning a manufacturer. In Latin the “carpentae” did chariots. The Greek word used in the Gospels was “tekton” and guess what? It’s the source of our modern word “architect” as in Greek “archiTEKTON” which was like a civil constructor or a MASON. Indeed, there’s an incredible revelation quoted in Matthew 6:27, the only sui generis version ever in a Greek text. What? Christ linked together a measurement of SPACE and TIME! It says “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” Is not linear length or formula for how to grow a 7-foot basketball star, but asking who can add one cubit of SPACE to his life span of TIME by worrying? Length equals age in this metaphor. Mason is also the definition of a master in spiritual terms. He was not a “carpenter” in the sense of the poorest of the poor in those days.
Indeed, the Roman citizens were taller than the Jews for several inches. Therefore the soldiers in my hypothetical film would be taller than Christ and the rest of Jews. Using an actor as tall as Sweden Max Von Sidow (1.91 mts.) is an error. Judas wouldn’t ever needed to betray Christ identifying him with a kiss if the Master were a giant wearing a hippy hair! There’s a long tradition Pontius Pilate was Scottish and considering the most amount of red hair people are from Scotland you can bet “my” Pilate would be red hair. the Roman Procurator of Judea at the time of the crucifixion of Christ. Curiously, one of the oldest military regiments in the British Army is the Royal Scots, who claim to be descended from Pontius Pilate’s bodyguard, thus providing another Scoto-Roman link with the Pilate Scottish enigma.
At Caesaria in Palestine is to be found an ancient stone slab which is called the Pilate Stone due to a Latin inscription inscribed upon it which appears to read “Hiberieum Pontius Pilatus”. At the time of Pilate the Gaelic northerly regions of the British Isles, including Ireland, were known to the Romans as Hibernia. Does this Latin inscription reinforce the story that Pontius Pilate originally came from Scotland according to the old Glen Lyon oral tradition? Fortingall, the land of the Yew-trees.
As an aside, could it be that Pontius Pilate was schooled in the Celtic Druid tradition so prevalent in Scotland at that time? The Druid motto was “Truth against the world”. Does this explain Pilate asking Jesus “What is truth?”, possibly a Druidic password given by one initiate to another? With His possible association with the Druids during His legendary visits to Britain, perhaps Jesus responded with a secret sign, hence His apparent non verbal reply as indicated in the Gospel of John.

If that’s the case, actor-singer David Bowie was the most accurate Pontius Pilate of the screen (The Last Temptation of Christ) and someone suggested him to talk with Scott accent but he refused and spoke as English man he is.

Yet, if Christ descended from David, the red hair king, according to 1 Samuel, is it possible Christ had red hair himself? David’s appearance is not known in great detail, however we do know that he was described as handsome, had red hair (i.e. “ruddy”), and was relatively short in stature (1 Samuel 16:12, 17:42).
Two thousand years ago the clothes worn by Jews were not as colorful as we see in Mormon or Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature. Purple, bluewere used by few rich people because it was too expensive for the rest of people who usually wore brown or red sort of colors in not-so-soft clothing. There was no orange. Probably my hypothetical movie would be filmed in brown color like those photographic albums from my grandparents or like Wizard of Oz with only some parts filmed in colors, just to enhance what is relevant. I do care the fact Catholic church selected just 4 gospels out of 20 and Protestants have followed that cannon without considering the solid evidence of at least 2 other gospels so-called apocrypha, mainly Gospel of Thomas which is very similar to the other ones but with some little utterances which are uncomfortable for the macho attitude of the elders of that time: mainly Peter and Paul. If Christians had read more the Bible than the magazines or books caressed by their own churches, they would’ve learned more about apostle Paul than ever in their lives, but it’s not my business if they think Paul’s statements were greater than Christ’s and filter everything he taught as seen by Paul’s view. After decades of listening superficial pseudo explanations of Christ’s parables I have to confess all of them from several churches were filtered by the brain and none touched my heart. The only one who explained Christ’s utterances in a way that made my cry for the first time (and curiously had the same effect on my dad and brother) was a Hindu guy who was recorded in his teachings and never wrote a book himself. But I won’t say his identity. He was poisoned little by little by the agents of USA who banned him out of the country and they even threatened other countries which could give him shelter. So much “damage” created a peaceful man who received people from all over the world in his ashrams and never created a church nor wanted followers.

The Bible mentions Christ stared the people so in a movie I’d focus on his penetrating eyes. Mystic like Hindu gurus can stare as if passing through your body and people feel like being sucked by a magnetic presence due to the gravitational effect of the very presence of the man. You either love them or hate them. In that sense, having observed people with all sort of eyes (and for that matter other alternative would be to film a black Messiah with blue eyes, just not to fit in the same stereotypes!)

I think the most striking are the green, hazel or almost yellow eyes of people in Afghanistan with Semitic features sometimes enhanced by dark skin because of the contrast. But I would like an actor with the features of Japanese, Arabian, Jewish, Hindu, Black Africans in order to make him “universal” as I imagine Adam himself. This is specially true because there are people who believe the tomb of Jesus is in Shingo Village (Herai) in Japan while others imagine it at Khanyar Rozabal in Kashmir, India. My would-be Christ could be a black Japanese with hazel-yellow eyes and brown-red hair or any other combo!

It would be like Hindu actor Kabir Bedi (though his features reveal everything but merciful attitude!)

Not like digital brown eyes (and prosthetic nose) of the actor Jim Caviezel (J.C.) in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ; neither blue eyes like Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings nor like English actor Robert Powell in Zefirelli’s version, nor as Sweden actor, Max Von Sidow in The Longest Story Ever Told. Actually Powell was gonna play Judas but they put him a wig and looked like the image we all know (blue eyeliner on the eyelids and white under his eyes -without winking- enhance the supernatural effect).

There’s another film with a Peruvian-Scottish actor Henry Ian Cusickwho is like a tall version of Dustin Hoffman. Could be, but we have already seen him. Jeremy Sisto in the tv version looks nice but his eyes are surrounded by a kind of darkness as if he were playing someone on drugs IMHO. It’s because his eyes seem to be plugged deep in the orbits within the skull. Certainly I wouldn’t hire a blonde actor (like we see William Defoe in Last Temptation of the Christ) unless I want to recreate the transfiguration vision (when Christ appears with Moses and Elijah and his face turns into a bright feature like the Sun) we seldom watch in movies, adding some incredible special FXs. Perhaps rather than a blonde actor I would use an ALBINO or the same actor with white contact lens and wig.

Now, Christ wouldn’t have a long hair forbidden by Law unless he was an Essenian. I doubt he was one of them though he maybe related with their mysticism. Only they wore white tunics, therefore forget all films showing people wearing white unless you want to portray the burying of a dead body because for the Jews white was equivalent to our black clothes when mourning the dead!

In a famous Italian movie Passion According to Mathew, we see an aggressive Messiah played by Basque-Jewish actor Enrique Irazoqui who has a unique eyebrow which reminds an ancient document describing Christ like that (but the Jews and specially a Rabbi, wouldn’t wear a one-week beard but one which was forbidden to be cut or untreated, not to mention his hair looked like Roman’s style which wasn’t really the case because though the hair wouldn’t be as long as a woman’s it wouldn’t be as short as Roman’s either) :

Thus, the so-called recreation of the Jews (like Christ) from ancient times with wider, heavier and more robust skulls is also rendering the artists’ (or forensic) personal views (with a wrong too short haircut and assuming all Jews had curly hair). This one here looks like Brutus :

If thewritersof the Gospels allowed themselves to “edit” Christ’s quotes, as a director I would allow myself to gather some of Christ teachings in the proper context but not exactly as people imagine they were spoken. There was no tape recorder at that time, see? The writers used their memory of the accounts as seen from different angles.
Zeffirelli was based on the paintings of Renascence (and perhaps in Dane C. Bloch’s art) and Gibson in the darkness of Caravaggio’s art (which is why almost half of the film was filmed at night). But I prefer the likeness of the Italian movie, The Gospel According to Matthew. I hate Deacon’s wig (or is it a haircut?) in a tv film:

 

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In the translations there are things that should be corrected. For example, in Greek we read in Mark 10: 25 the word “camel” which is “kaunlov” and was confused with the word “rope” which is “kauilov”. Thus the famous dictum that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God should be translated more in the sense of being easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle.... In John 18 Christ must not say simply the equivalent of Greek “ego eimi” (I am) but indeed he was mentioning God’s forbidden name and we know this because of the reaction of the ones who listened him withdrawing and kneeling before him and the very context of John 17 when Christ reveals at least a fistful of times that he taught God’s name to his disciples.

We have not seen the scene in which the chained and possessed one with extraordinary strength is exorcised by the Messiah and the demons enter the body of pigs to be thrown into the abyss. This kind of thing was known since ancient times. In Egypt, demons were connected to the black pig. I’ve known a family who were not lying when they told me they saw the hand of a possessed person being twisted like the head of the girl in the film The Exorcist. Those special effects would be more impressive than others. In that sense, the film The Greatest Story Ever Told is more akin to what the Gospels teach because the miracles are not done in a fantastic manner but usually triggered by the faith of the cured ones.

There’s a text in Mark admitting Christ couldn’t perform miracles in his town due to the lack of faith of the people suggesting the miracle (like the woman who touched Christ’s garment when he was not even aware of it among the crowd or the Roman who was convinced just by the saying his slave was going to be cured) the faith was always involved and if there was no faith the placebo Tai Chi magic wouldn’t work. But churches hate using that text. Faith in Greek is linked to “metanoia” which is also a change of mind attitude but you won’t listen this explanation in your church too often.

They don’t say either the word in Aramaic for “repent” (teshuva) has nothing to do with that feeling of sadness which is like a burden but gaining AWARENESS (like the prodigal son) and going inward. Consciousness not just about a single act of momentary stupidity which you can repeat and repeat ad infinitum but awareness of the whole life living like a zombie! Let the dead ones bury their dead.For the same reason churches like Jehovah’s Witness awfully explain that statement “the kingdom of God is among you” when actually the Greek was saying something totally different: “entos humoon” meaning the kingdom is within you and me, all of us. Therefore the parables talking about the tiny seed of mustard, the pearl of good price in the sea, the seeds in good soil are all reference to ourselves, with the help of angels. Spirituality is not becoming a member of a club listening speeches twice a week for decades or giving speeches. Christians love to count the millions in their flock and seem to forget the path to the kingdom is narrow indeed and a privilege for a few ones, not the mass.
Christ message is Hindu Vedanta but most of the Christians never learned that. For the Jews the admission he was one with God was blasphemy but this is not as sensational statement in India because whomever saying that left out the “self” or ego, hence is not an act of cockiness or selfishness. It’s not a preaching but a state of the person. Only few ones have had this experience and I have just seen a reflection of that which allows me to believe but I’m not a chosen one. I’m not a “bride” in that sense. There was no fusion with the unnamable or unspeakable experience in my case. Even God’s name meaning is suggesting that and all translations are wrong because the Hebrew is complex in that sense. I’m not naïve. If Christians failed to comprehend the very Bible message due to wrong translations of Hebrew and Greek or just caressing their own dogmas because they already have too much involved in the new revelations-package, it’s doubtful they would care to study Hindu or any other culture assuming everything is pagan and coming from the demon. Moses learned the “wisdom of Egyptians” says the New Testament but usually people think all aspect of Egyptians was devil worshipping. The devil is quoted too often in Christian churches as a curtain of their own ignorance. Devil exists without doubt but not everything is polluted by him and sometimes the pollution is inside the very churches.
Hence this would-be film could focus in texts never too-often explained, like when Christ says to pray to the HIDDEN FATHER, not to worry about tomorrow (pay attention to NOW), etc. “My” Christ on the screen wouldn’t talk like a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness or any other evangelist EVER but very slowly, almost unbearable. People would really have to shut up and pay attention or get off. All films go in the other direction: they want to convince us with superficial parrot-repetition of things they never understood; trying to make us digest in 2 hours statements he did in 3 years like a memorabilia or collection of fairy tales. Not at all, folks! Do you really think the writers of the Bible were counting the pieces of fish or bread as leftovers from the miracles? Or was a hidden code of another sort? After all “fish” in Greek was almost exactly like saying Christ (anointed one). and Christ taught they were Fisher of men! That could be a code of people “fished” in the congregation, new ones baptized as Christians in times of persecution. Ishta — a variant of the name of Christ as the Ichthus (or “Fish”, in Greek) — means “the Sacrificed One”. That’s the real source of the Catholic ritual of eating fish rather than lamb or red meat during Eastern Passover.
Last but not least, the Christ of this would-be movie couldn’t ever be called “Jesus” with a letter “j” (jota) invented by a French humanist (de la Ramée) about 1.600 years after Christ due to the Medieval habit of curving the “i” (iota) to the left. Jews altered the names of the people consider blasphemer in order to hide it forever as a cursed one. The name was to be forgotten.

Christ’s name began with the same letters “I” and “S” like Israel and Isaiah (I bet you never asked yourself or to the linguists why Israel and Isaiah sound like EE while Egyptian Isis sounds like AY and I won’t do homework) and the short version is ISA (sounds EEsa) just as Muslim remember it in their Arabic language so close to Hebrew and Aramaic but without the alterations of the controvert “Hebrew” which is Aramaic from Babylon. If you never asked yourself why both so-called Hebrew names Yeshua and Yehoshua end with “A” while Jesus adds a second “S” at the end is your problem.

In Zeffirelli we see Christ curing a blind man making mud in his hand but we should see the hypnotizer and miracle man doing at least 2 miracles with mud that was made WITH HIS OWN SALIVA and that is something the audience could be shocked but it's part of the Scripture many people are unaware 'cos they simply haven't read!!!!!! It would be good if writers take a look at the Bible, when Eliyah and other prophet rose people from the dead: there was a rite like walking several times spinning around the corpse and lay down upon their bodies, touching lips and eyes. Perhaps Christ did the same after he closed the door and resurrected a girl only in the presence of some of his disciples and the parents.

Gospel of John with that Peruvian/Scottish actor Ian Cusick, Jeremy Sisto Jesus tv series and Genesis, Project Luke and Gospel According to Matthew with Enrique Irazoqui, all 4 show Christ walking on water but it's a good scene to repeat again.

When Christ wrote something on the ground (when the woman was going to be stoned) it's needed to reveal to the audience it was forbidden even to write 2 letters UNLESS they were made with dust meaning Christ knew their traditions and defied them. One Pharisee or scribe should mention that in a scene like that and it has to be written by script writer who knows. At least in a couple of films we watch he is drawing a fish (equivalent of his name in Greek). He was probably writing the magic name of God and the pronunciation which is the biggest secret of Judaism! He could write the name in vertical manner in Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew Phoenician better.

When Christ is talking about Pharisees clothes (which used at least 18 pieces) we have never seen the revelation of all those things which Christians usually ignore. Maybe Christ could actually point them out to his audience (and the viewers of a film): the box they enlarged with the scriptures, the ropes they tied to the arms or maybe holding the schawl in purple or blue. It's more dramatic if those words go along with showing them because it will remember the Protestants wearing necktie and suits or Catholic & Greek Orthodox priests (not to mention modern religious Jews) who wear those things NOW to give an likeness of neatness, false morality façade or dedication.

The BAPTISM had to be shown as it was, not just a rite but a process to rise again after dying (completely UNDER THE WATER) that is John the Baptist almost DROWNING the receiver of the Holy Ghost like in the scene of the schizophrenic guy in THE CELL in a Christian rite. Not just merely sparkling some drops of water on people's heads.

Except Gibson's Passion & The Last Temptation of Christ , the movement of the camera sucks in these kind of productions. Now they know better.

Don't hire actors with 2 weeks beards! Beards were important and had to be treated with respect and honour. That's an error when we see Thomas and Barrabas in Zeffirelli's work or even Christ in Gospel of Matthew made by Piero Paolo Pasolini. And yet that film is good presenting AMATEUR people as extras, ugly people with aweful teeth as probably they were 2.000 years ago. It gives authenticity we rarely see except in films like The Name of the Rose in which director hired the ugliest possible people.

It's really sad, Christians ignore Judaism. For instance, rather than watching Satan dressed in black Armani modern suit as we see tempting Jeremy Sisto/Jesus, why don't focus in Apocalypse 12 admitting the same thing mentioned in Genesis 3: Satan is a dragon-snake. As a matter of fact in Hebrew this was not a literal snake as we see in John Huston's The Bible...in the beginning, but it was a SERAPHIM (not archangel as we see in The Last Temptation of Christ). This interdimensional 6-winged snake dragon apparently was changed into a lesser entity called cherubim. Christians imagine a cherubim like a baby with butterfly wings or long hair androgynous boy/girl. If you read Ezekiel you will understand a cherubim is a hybrid HUMANIMAL with 4 faces in a single head (bull-lion-man-eagle) as in all civilizations. In that sense, or you put that monster like ghost in the Temptation or a beautiful person or use animals like lions (read Mark account) as they did in The Last Temptation of Christ with those wonderful scenes in the desert like a true YOGUI. After all Essenes did a hole in the ground and sat there to meditate as well so it's not too far from the truth. Christ enjoyed to isolate and meditate, and we don't see that too often in the films. They just insist on preaching!

That horrendous Star of Bethelem mistake is repeated ad infinitum. That's because they mix Matthew & Luke accounts as if they were the same. Herodes did CALCULATIONS about WHEN DID THE STAR APPEAR and then he decided to kill kids from 2 years old down. The Bible never mentioned 3 kings neither their names. That's Catholic tradition only. They were "magoi" magician and took at least 2 years in that trip. Trip where? To Jerusalem. Who was in Jerusalem? King Herod, the one who wanted to kill the baby boy. Why would God alert HIM sending magician to Jerusalem? Isn't that odd? The star moves from East to Jerusalen during a couple of years. Then remains still there, then it goes from there to Bethelem. Now, by that time the baby was not a baby no more 'cos IT PASSED TWO YEARS ALREADY and then the star STOPS RIGHT ABOVE... above what? A HOUSE where Mary was with the kid (apparently Joseph is not there any more). Well, that star certainly didn't look like Halley comet nor supernova explosion neither alignment of planets! That looks more like a UFO send by a deceiver. And what else? Ah yes, since the star was sent to alert Herode of the 2-years old kid whereabouts, then THEY RECEIVED A WARNING DREAM not to get back to the same path. So, what we see here is the one who sends the dream is in opposition to whomever guided the moving star, right?
The movies waste too much of a time in that which was only mentioned by Matthew anyways! Why wasting 40 minutes or an hour in such a thing?

 

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I welcome if you disagree with anything I wrote or say something afford. I welcome any questions or if any wants to discuss deeper whatever I mentioned. You have to remember the written dialogue could be sometimes tougher than a face-to-face chat (which is already difficult sometimes!) thus I recommend a double-check B4 being offended easily. Perhaps you need me to clarify something not completely understood. Don't cry 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of war as I did in my salad days when I was green in judgment. My attitude used to be: if you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?. It's different now, I'd rather say "out, out, brief candle...life's but a walking shadow....

 

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Robert Powell on his role as Christ in Jesus of Nazareth:

"I asked what his first thoughts had been when he heard he had been
given the role of Christ. He laughed. "I wished they hadn't asked me,"
he said. "But, having been asked, I couldn't possibly have turned it
down.

"I was apprehensive. You see, with any other role one has a chance to
turn in a faultless performance. With this particular one I knew there
was no chance at all. A man can't play a god."

"Aside from your misgivings," I asked, "did you enjoy playing the
part?"
"No," came the short, sharp answer. "That's a question not many people
ask and I'm glad you did because it's important. It was the hardest
thing I've ever done. It was also the most physically exhausting. I
lost a stone during the filming. There is no other part where in every
scene you are it. There's no other part where I've had to learn seven
foolscap sheets of script every day and there's no other part where
I've been unable to use any of my own personality.

"For example, if I arrived on the set one day feeling a bit irritable
or fed up, normally I could use those emotions, but with Jesus I
couldn't. But, although I didn't enjoy it, I don't regret having done
it.

"Of course," he added, "now that I've seen it, I would like to do it
all over again - and do it better."
Excerpted from:
'I feel like I'm king of the remakes'

"'Thank God Babs was there,' Powell says of the long months he spent
filming Jesus Of Nazareth in Morocco and Tunisia. It was a
star-studded cast: Lord Olivier as Nicodemus, Ralph Richardson
(Simeon), Peter Ustinov (King Herod), Anne Bancroft (Mary Magdalen)
not to mention James Mason, Anthony Quinn, Christopher Plummer, and
Ian McShane as Judas. 'But it was an extraordinarily boring experience
for most of the actors,' he admits, as they spent weeks on stand-by
awaiting dramatic weather effects for their scenes. Then there was the
food and Tunisian wine. The camera crew's joke was to beg Powell,
please, to change it back into water.

Deliberately, he says, he tried to avoid being emotionally moved by
the part. He wasn't a religious man, and still isn't. 'Particularly
when I was on the cross, it was incredibly cold. And rather than bring
me down between the shots, they left me up there, gave me a dressing
gown and a pair of slippers, and my wife would hand me a cigarette. In
fact, it got so cold I think I was handed a brandy too.'

Almost despite himself, though, there were moments when he was
touched, particularly filming the Sermon on the Mount. 'There were
several thousand extras, shafts of the setting sun over the hill. I
saw these thousands of upturned faces who I don't think could
understand me because they were Moroccan. I thought I'll pitch it to
them, so I raised my voice and, across the valley, I could hear it
coming back and so could everybody else. And it just had a very eerie
effect. The crew were all in floods of tears. It was as if one had
been slightly touched by an external force. Jesus Of Nazareth never
made Powell a rich man, he was paid a flat fee of 20,000 for nine
months work and not a ha'penny more for repeats all over the world.
And he wasn't tempted by a business offer to market Jesus sandals and
jeans: 'Good god, no. I wanted another 50 years of being an actor. If
you capitalise on things like that, who's going to take you
seriously?'"

I looked in the mirror and realised I was looking at the image of
Jesus I had retained from my childhood. It was the image English
people recognise as Christ: Holman Hunt's Light Of The World. Except I
wasn't blonde. But my silhouette could only have been of one man -
Christ. It was extraordinary."


The film was shot in Morocco and Tunisia. Laurence Olivier, Rod
Steiger, James Mason, Anne Bancroft were co-stars. It appeared - six
compendious hours of it - to respectful approval. "The secret to the
success of the film is down to the fact that it's not idiosyncratic.
We were trying to reach thousands of people, all with the same image,"
says Powell. "But the 10,000 letters I got from viewers all said the
same thing: 'It's exactly how I imagined Him.' That's because I did
nothing. It's a blank canvas on which the audience paint their own
image and think their own thoughts. Which is why I was angry with
Dennis Potter."

"At first, Powell says, he tried to make Jesus sparkier, more of an
individual. He stopped when he realised that "the more I made him a
man, the less I made him divine". Didn't Olivier give him any tips on
how to act the part? "Yes, he gave me the best note I have ever had. I
was doing the 'spirit is willing - pause - but the flesh is weak'
line. He said: 'Bobsy, do you mind if I say something? Never pause if
the audience know what you are going to say next.'"

On another
occasion, the director asked Powell to shout "I am" when Jesus is
asked if he is truly the son of the living God. He duly yelled. After
the take, Olivier opined: "Bobsy, I think Jesus would have been
quietly proud of being the son of God, don't you?"


In this, my own comment is: I don't think so. Christ abandoned his self or ego. He was aware of the adoption or fusion with God like Hindu experience. Neither he needed to shout nor be cocky.


If one experience
from playing Jesus - aside from the hell of the crucifixion - is
seared into Powell's mind it was hearing his own voice echoing off the
mountains during the Sermon On The Mount and actually listening to the
words - "There was me, the extras and crew in a flood of tears, rapt
at what is, I am convinced, the most profound piece of writing in
history."


-- The film is a remake of Cecil B. DeMille's 1928 classic
-- Filming took place over 9 months in Morocco and Tunisia. Most of
the extras were locals.
-- The film's budget was $25 million, a sum considered extravagant in
its day.
-- Originally cast as Judas Iscariot, it's said that when Franco
Zeffirelli looked into Robert Powell's eyes, he knew that he was
better suited for the role of Jesus. Mr. Powell accepted, and later
received more than 10,000 letters from viewers telling him that he was
"exactly the way I thought Jesus would be".

About his EYES:

‘I wore nothing at all on my eyes (except the eyeliner makeup). All actors discover over the years things that work and don’t work, physical attributes that can be a help to you and the ones that aren’t. And I found out fairly early on that I was able to express a great deal through my eyes alone. But I did something in that which I’m not aware of having done before. I’m not even sure now how it came about, but I discovered that with a little practice I could keep my eyes open without blinking for anything up to three or four minutes. So I don’t think at any point in the film do I blink. One had to find technical ways, coldly and consciously, of expressing something different. I’m a mere mortal and I just grasped at anything to make me slightly apart from the other actors. By keeping the gaze not as a stare but just steady, it was possible to sustain a thread between me and the camera, a thread which would be broken if I blinked for only a fraction of a second. And by maintaining that thread, the eyes become virtually hypnotic for the audience. That’s all it is. It’s a trick.’