La vie et la passion de Jésus Christ

Life and Passion of Christ, The (1903)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent telling of the story of Jesus from his birth up to the resurrection. This early French feature is full of wonderful imagination and the use of color is a real added bonus. The visual are all very nice and the set decoration is among the best I've seen in any silent film of its era. The biggest problem is that the feature runs just over 40-minutes and it seems like a bunch of short films edited together. There's really no consistent storytelling but instead just various segments from the Bible.

From the Manger to the Cross (1912)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Early Warner Bros. film is the typical telling of Jesus, as the title says, from the manger to the cross. This is a really boring, dull and pointless telling of the story but I guess the studio wanted to make a feature and stretched everything to the limit. The film uses quotes from the New Testament but this gets tiresome very quickly as well. The film was shot on location all around the world and from a historic standpoint, this here is interesting but the rest of the film isn't.

This is an interesting film in a few respects, if not necessarily a very good or entertaining one. It's an early filmed passion play and chronicle of the life of Jesus Christ and is of both religious and film history interest. It becomes more of curio because of its length and extravagance for a film made in the early 1900s. It seems to be the longest story film made to that date. There had been some actuality, or documentary, films already made that were longer, including some boxing matches and a series called "Army Life" (1900) by R.W. Paul. Nevertheless, film subjects lasting near or longer than 40 minutes were rare until the 1910s.

Jesus has been a popular subject throughout film history, perhaps nevermore so than in the beginning of its history. Before this film, quite a few passion plays had already been filmed. Moreover, these films were generally longer and more elaborate than were other subjects. In 1897, when the cinema was barely more than a year old and when nearly every film was one shot-scene and under a minute in length, a Frenchman named Léar filmed a passion play of 12 scenes, which received popular distribution in Britain and the US, as well as in France. George Hatot's "La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ" (1897/1898), produced by the Lumiére Company, had 13 tableaux. An American passion play, featuring Horitz villagers, was supposedly even grander and longer. Shortly thereafter, "The Passion Play of Oberammergau" (1898), which probably didn't have much of anything to do with the plays performed in the village of Oberammergau, contained over 20 scenes. Sigmund Lubin also made a passion play claiming, but lacking, authenticity to the Oberammergau performances. With a lecturer and magic lantern slides, these films would provide as long an entertainment as does the modern feature-length film. In 1899, Alice Guy made "La Vie de Christ" in 11 tableaux for Gaumont, and again, in 1906, made a passion play of, reportedly, 25 scenes. Pathé, in fact, had made a film on Christ before this picture; their 1900 release consisted of 16 scenes. They, too, would go on to make another one after this, in 1907.

According to film historian Richard Abel ("The Ciné Goes to Town"), there were a few versions of this film sold to exhibitors, and exhibitors may have had the option to purchase individual scenes and may have further edited various passion plays together (these were common practices back then, when exhibitors retained much editorial control over films). Abel says Pathé filmed this over three different periods; others say this production lasted from 1902 to 1905. Actors and styles changed during shootings. The version available from Image Entertainment seems to be complete, if not more than (with the title of "Passion and Death of Christ"). Abel says the longest version was 32 tableaux. Yet, I counted 35 tableaux separated by title cards and 46 total shots in the version from Image Entertainment.

In the beginning of the history of cinema as an international business, Georges Méliès was the most popular and innovative filmmaker, and, consequently, his films were the most often imitated. Supposedly, this film avoided any reference to prior theatrical productions, says Abel. Upon a second viewing of this film, however, I noticed that this Pathé production, like so many other Pathé films, significantly copies the féeries/fairy films of Méliès. This is especially evident in the soft, fanciful set designs, and the device of female angels guiding characters and events being a variation of the female fairies in Méliès's fantasy pictures. Additionally, the use of stop-substitutions and superimpositions for trick effects, moving props, and dissolves between scenes and trick effects were trademarks of Méliès adopted religiously by Pathé. The use in this film of many actors or extras to fill and decorate some scenes, which often serve no narrative purpose or biblical fidelity, was also done in Méliès's féeries. This imitation of Méliès's films makes this passion play stand out from the drab, realist set designs that seemed to have been used in other such early passion plays and the location shooting used in later films such as "From the Manger to the Cross" (1912) and the Christus films made in Italy. They're also in stark contrast to the more realist painted sets used by Ferdinand Zecca, the co-director of "The Life and Passion of Christ" and Pathé's studio manager for a time, in "Historie d'une crime" (1901).

Most of the technique and style in "The Life and Passion of Christ" is common of film-making in the beginning, but there are some notable exceptions. Not many prints from this period exist with tinting, which doesn't seem to have been a prevalent practice yet ("Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost" (1901) is another early example). It's also an early example of Pathé's patented stencil coloring, and their use of bold, red lettering and the rooster logo in the title cards. Pans are used often, including in the Nativity scene, where a pan and tinting changes move the scene between the indoor action of the nativity and the outdoor action of the approaching wise men and gang. Another example of three scenes in one via panning is the Mount of Olives/Kiss of Judas tableaux, where the camera follows Jesus into and out of the woodlands. I haven't seen this kind of extensive panning anywhere else in story films this early in film history (extensive panning was widely done by actuality filmmakers). The use of a window to show outside action is another example of early alternatives to scene dissection (of which there is very little here or in most early films). There's also a match-on-action shot in The Holy Family at Nazareth tableaux, and two medium insert shots later in the film, which are rather unexpected departures from the film's mostly fixed camera, head-on long shot framing tableaux style. I certainly recommend this for those interested in the history of Christianity and cinema.

The story of Jesus Christ from the proclamation of his Nativity to his crucifixion. Impressive scenes and dynamism of the actors prelude to the Italian colossal movies of the silent period.

Few people, I think, appreciate how the bible has been reinvented in the last century. Until this very film, what we had were words, stories in words. For centuries, those written stories were illustrated in static icons and symbols complex and simple. With this film, we began a new era, where religion is cinematic. American Fundamental Christianity and Indian neoHinduism are currently in the lead, nearly completely transformed by the moving icon and the ghostly eye. Prayer has literally been redefined and no amount of thumping will restore the imagination as a personal relationship with God again. Not one with an INNER eye.

Its why the Fundamentalist Film School down the road from me at Pat Robertson's empire is so interesting. They change the thing by bearing witness, in a sort of quantum effect.

It all started here, but you won't find much to indicate so. What we have with this first instance are two things. First is the implicit proposal that as "the greatest story," it deserved the greatest, fullest, longest treatment.

The second is the interesting stuff. This is literally closer to moving stained glass than films of today. Its quite beautifully painted if you see it that way. Its staged as tableaux, with little movement and none from the camera which is at eye level. There are "miraculous" appearances and disappearances, which is how the filmmakers would have seen the promise of film. The much noted fades are harder to notice. I'll take the historian's word that these French fellows invented the fade. It is remarkable how they worked it though with the color. Because you see the color fade, so they must have painted before optically splicing. Its a mystery to me.

I'll just take it on faith.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

With the invention of a new medium of narrative and communication, it was inevitable that the story of "the life and passion of Christ" (the film's original title) would immediately attract the attention of those seeking to dabble in the nascent enterprise. This primitive artifact is of historical value not for being the very first film to deal with these events but because it was later considered to be the first feature-length film ever released...despite the fact that, running just under 45 minutes, it isn't one technically and besides, it was originally shown in segments in serial-like fashion!

What I find more important, however, is the fact that for the next few years after its making, rather than setting up newer and more elaborate productions, it was being exploited by exhibitors by getting re-edited and distributed under various aliases. The version I watched, subdivided into virtually split-second re-enactments of the most famous incidents in Christ's life on Earth, was predictably bland on a technical and artistic level with the usual drawbacks of overly emphatic acting and stagey movement. What to say, then, about the extremely hirsute and curiously chubby actor chosen to portray the all-important central role?

Even so, it proved pleasant enough to watch given the sheer ingenuity (hand coloring specific objects, like angels' wings or soldiers' robes, for added effect) utilized to straightforwardly convey familiar material for mass consumption. Occasionally there was also the odd sparkle of inventiveness, with the angel literally obfuscating the Holy Family from Herod's pursuing soldiers in the land of Egypt. Also, I have to say the print was in much better shape than a century-old footage has any right to be. Divine intervention, perhaps?