time to watch jesus christ superstar. will livetweet, which may also serve as notes for a future essay

This movie was shot on location in the Israeli desert, and you can tell, because everyone is sweating in an unintentional but incredibly attractive way in every single shot of the film

In fact I would argue this movie has one of the best visual depictions of being sweaty. this is a weird opinion. but it's mine.

the conceit, of players going to the middle of nowhere to perform their show to no one that was somehow captured on film, already puts this above and beyond basically every musical adaptation ever in terms of translating between mediums

it lets the film lean into the absurditity and artificiality of a filmed musical in a way that pretty much no musical adaptation before or sense even tries. fuck realism yo

also this Overture rules

my third eye just opened https://twitter.com/adurdin/status/1249525732742660096?s=20

The overture ends with the other players, some still out of costume, helping Ted Neely put on his Jesus robe. Ted Neely makes a very good Jesus--distant, a little flinty, but always quietly tragic.

This movie features almost all its key players spending at least some time scrabbling over sheer rock and it's a wonder no one seriously injured themselves during filming.

Judas.

As I've said before, Carl Anderson, who plays Judas here, was one of the best vocalists to sing anything, ever. He's stunning in every scene he's in.

The film was shot lip syncing to the original soundtrack, but it is constantly inserting additional sonic touches--claps, pauses that weren't in the composition--that make it feel very intimate and in-person.

There are shepherds in the backgrounds of some of these scenes. These were actual shepherds, reportedly. Apparently not many people on the production spoke any local languages.

"What's the Buzz?" takes place in this wild open cave that they just, like, scouted in production?? Seriously this movie uses its locations so well.

Judas is constantly stumbling into scenes like he's from another world.

Jesus is ethereal, distant, separate in nearly every scene with other people in the movie. Except for when Judas is around.

"Then We Are Decided" was added for the movie version of the musical, one of two songs that was. The other is... bad.

The way "Everything's Alright" is staged is so good. There's this palpable tension between Jesus and Judas played out in the lighting, the physical positioning. There's this sense that they both just want to talk to each other, alone. But they can't. So they fight.

This movie is a love triangle between Jesus, Judas, and Yvonne Elliman's singing voice.

Folks, it's gay

The Sanhedrin rapping with their hands on the metal of this, frankly, terrifying scaffolding thing they use is inspired.

Basically no one wears a shirt in this movie. It gives this weird, like, physicality and eroticism to everything? Extremely '70s.

The Roman guards all carry machine guns. This movie thinks anachronism is fun and hilarious.

Alongside its portrait of Judas, this movie also has one of the most compassionate takes on Pontius Pilate on film. He's sad, tortured. And has great hair.

"I am way too pretty for these problems"

Yes! All the key players in this show have an awareness that they're caught up in a big story--players in a play. And none of them can do a thing about it. https://twitter.com/LeafTilde/status/1249538300983029760?s=20

Usually, Jesus is the fatalist in a Passion Play. In this version, the fatalism hangs over the whole production, a bind that no one can fight or sing their way out of.

In fact, the point is clearly made that Jesus is the *only one* with agency here. But he decides to give it up anyways.

"I Don't Know How to Love Him" threatens to pull the whole production apart by introducing elements that pull away from the other core conflicts. But it's also the show's starmaker, the only song on the OST to chart, and it launched Yvonne Elliman to a decent singing career.

Also, please, understand: I don't know a lot about musical theater. I just know *a lot* about this specific movie.

Also I was obsessed with the New Testament in high school, so I know a lot about that, too.

If Mary Magdalene's plot works in this show, it's as another element of subdued fatalism underscoring the core tragedy of the fallout between Jesus and Judas.

Y'all, the good parts are coming. We cut to Judas, again, moping in the sand. He's very good at this. It's time for some anguish.

Tanks--honest to god, real tanks--drive up behind him, symbolizing--fate? Roman might? The impending doom of everyone and everything he knows if Jesus's movement foments revolution? It's not, like, subtle.

It's funny. The climax of most Passion Plays is, y'know, the Passion--the trial, death, and resurrection. Here, the climax is somewhere in Judas's betrayal, either in the Last Supper or his death, right before the trial. Everything after Judas and Jesus separate feels foregone.

Yes, it's just Da Vinci. But coupled with the only non-desert set in the whole film, the staging of The Last Supper works beautifully.

This movie has a really profound contempt for all the apostles who aren't Judas. Seen from a Judas-sympathetic perspective, they are bumbling rubes, too drunk and naive and simply devoted to have any idea what's really going on.

To be fair, the Gospels don't... entirely disagree on that point.

Jesus and Judas arguing at the Last Supper is one of the only textual moments in the show that is entirely an invention of the show itself, with no NT antecedent and it's also the best. Nasty breakup.

Also, can we just notice the way Judas's red clothes make him stick out in every scene he's in? The film keeps using this to great effect.

I love that Jesus brings Judas his coat.

Folks, it's still gay

Judas runs out with a herd of... sheep? Again, who did no one hurt themselves on this production?