I have never seen The Last Temptation of Christ. That is changing tonight.

A Scorsese V.O. off the bat.

Jesus fuck, Harvey Keitel's Judas is a flaming antisemitic caricature.

"I struggle. You collaborate" is a good line though.

The motif of Jesus carving his own cross is inspired.

Baffled by Jesus collaborated with the Romans. The Gospels often position Jesus as ambivalent to Rome, but I'm not quite sure what Scorsese is doing here.

Jesus' response to the hypostatic union being predominantly human and a rebellion against God is Apollinarist or patripassian in some ways.

Really uncomfortable with the orientalist coding surrounding Mary Magdalene.

Scorsese and Dafoe's Jesus is a 19th century Catholic.

The Father gets positioned in a demiurge role. Jesus is the Nephilim.

Yeah this has Scorsese's usual problems with women compounded by everything wrong with Mary Magdalene hagiography.

The flesh versus spirit angle is very 19th century. Attitudes to sex in 1st century Judea were far more utilitarian than this depicts. Even the Desert Fathers weren't vehemently opposed to sex.

Scorses nails the torment of navigating a relationship with God in a material world. But he does so in a way that says more about contemporary Christianity than Jesus' own times.

Curious how this goes for Jesus as a completely abjective figure. Dafoe plays him as sinister at times.

Jesus' subjugation to the Father is quite muddled. Contradicts his identity as the Son.

The crux of the problem is that an orthodox biographical view of Jesus as true God and true Man is impossible to construct as third person omniscient drama.

Judas' loyalty to the Jewish people is the cultural grounding the character needs. His apocalyptism is pleasantly Borgesian too. But the fucking anti-Semitism spoils that.

The director of Empire Strikes Back plays Zebedee.

This has a rather Johannine approach to Judiasm as a relic Jesus supplants, which blows.

Scorsese definitely doesn't know what khumra is. This definitely suffers from divorcing Jesus from Judaism.

Christ's theological call for restorative justice and Dafoe's charisma are the high points of this portrayal.

Kind of annoyed by Jesus calling after the people who run from his side. More a pet peeve than a dramatic problem though.

Judas as a vexed seeker and political insurgent (and hot take Jesus' resentful boyfriend) isn't a bad characterization of him.

John the Baptist sure is. Um. Hrm.

Holy fuck Jesus' Baptism is homoerotic.

Jesus' love as the antidote to anti materialism is. Err. Hmm.

"Come into my circle so I can rip out your tongue" is a flex.

"Even if he didn't say that, the words are important"

Judas calling Jesus "Adonai" is hmmmm.

The exorcism scene kicks ass though

The wedding feast at Cana is fun too.

Dafoe basically winking to the camera and raising a cup of wine OWNS

Aspect of Jesus this gets 100% right that's normally overlooked by Biblical adaptations: Jesus is really, really fun.

"This is what happens when a man doesn't marry: the semen backs up into his brain" lmao

I fucking hate turning Matthew 12:49 into an occasion for Jesus to disown Mary.

Jesus trashing the temple contends for the title of "most misinterpreted scene in the Gospels" and Scorsese fucks that.

The Pharisee grabbing the coin is EEEEEEEK.

Jesus fuck this scene is a mess.

And Harry Dean Stanton as Paul is inspired casting.

Fuck, asking Lazarus about the difference between life and death rules too.

This movie really is a Johannine work in the most troubling ways.

Judas' skepticism of a Messiah who dies is grounded in an awareness of ancient Jewish understandings of what a Messiah was. But again, distorted by Judas being goddamn Fagin.

Jesus's arrival in Jerusalem stands in stark contrast with the Jewish Revolt of 66 AD.

Judas' destiny to be damned as Jesus' Messiah is 1) dramatically compelling, 2) gay, 3) Borgesian, and 4) basically Calvinist and kinda fucked.

Scorsese does The Last Supper well. The scene devotedly earns that title.

Anyone who's interested in the history of competing Jewish and Christian Christologies should read Amy-Jill Levine's The Misunderstood Jew, an amazing book which I've liberally pillaged for this thread.

The Agony in the Garden has me in tears.

Don't take my word on anything in this thread apart from media criticism, BTW. I'm a zealous acolyte, not a Scripture scholar.