2 of 2

Hints of subjectivity begin to crop up in From the Manger to the Cross (1912), the first feature-length film about Jesus, produced by the Kalem company and filmed in the Middle East. The shots remain fairly simple and static, but director Sidney Olcott makes greater use of depth, sometimes putting the camera behind characters' backs so that we can see what they are looking at. For example, in one early shot, Joseph stands in the foreground and mulls over what to do, now that he has learned Mary is pregnant, while Mary passes by in the distance. Joseph turns as he paces and pauses—and as he looks at her, so do we. Similarly, the camera is positioned behind John the Baptist when he addresses his followers, sees Jesus far off in the distance, and points him out. On both occasions we are invited to identify with a person who is looking on someone who embodies a divine or mysterious quality.

However, the camera is also positioned behind Jesus's back as he regards his disciples sleeping in Gethsemane. The Gethsemane episode, in which Jesus asks God to take the cup of suffering away from him, is one of a handful from the Gospels in which Jesus expresses emotions and desires that lend themselves to a more human and subjective interpretation. Thus, on this occasion at least, the film invites viewers to identify with Jesus as he anticipates his arrest.

The filmmaker most often credited with first realizing the unique power of film—its ability to combine different sorts of shots from different perspectives and to pace these images in a way that involves the audience in the lives of the characters—is D. W. Griffith, whose Civil War epic, The Birth of a Nation (1915), advanced the art form but also generated controversy for its positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith responded to those criticisms with another film, Intolerance (1916), which cuts back and forth among four stories set in four different eras, to show how intolerance has plagued the world down through the ages. One of these stories concerns the life and death of Christ, and one of the striking things about Griffith's treatment is that, in contrast to the more subjective mix of shots and rhythms that he uses in the other stories, he stands back and regards Jesus with an otherworldly objectivity. In contrast to the other story lines, the camera never comes very close to Christ; in fact, it seems to move farther and farther away from him, until the crucifixion is so far off that we can barely make it out.

In sharp contrast to Griffith's reticence, Cecil B. DeMille made bold use of a point-of-view shot to introduce audiences to his Jesus in The King of Kings (1927), the last of the silent biblical epics. For the first 15 minutes or so, we do not see Jesus at all; instead, we see characters talk about him, until finally a blind girl approaches him—at this point, Jesus is still offscreen—and asks to be healed. A title card declares: "I am come a light into the world—that whosoever believeth in me shall not abide in darkness." Then we are introduced to Jesus, his face briefly framed by a halo, in a tight close-up that fades into view as the girl gains her sight.

But while DeMille brings his camera much closer to Jesus, he remains fairly objective in his treatment of the character. Jesus is someone to look at, not someone with whom we are to identify, and his gaze does not reveal anything about his character as much as it is intended to effect a change in the lives of other characters. Shortly after Jesus heals the blind girl, Mary Magdalene arrives, haughty and proud, but something about the way Jesus looks at her makes her uncomfortable, until finally he casts the seven deadly sins out of her.

Click to read page 2

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  2 of 2

Related Elsewhere:

Jesus at the Movies	Printer view