JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR 1973lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/jesus-christ-superstar-1973.html

From Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943):Joseph Cotten- "How was church, Charlie? Did you count the house? Turn anybody away?"Teresa Wright- "No, room enough for everyone."Cotten- "Well, I'm glad to hear that. The show's been running such a long time I thought maybe attendancemight be falling off."

When it comes to movies based on the final days in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, Hollywood has been running anear-nonstop show on the subject since 52 year-old H.B. Warner portrayed the screen's first grandfatherly Jesus inCecil B. DeMille's 1927 silent classic, King of Kings. Since then, the movie industry has cranked out a new Jesusfilm every couple of years or so. Sometimes just to make use of new technological advancements (sound, color,Cinemascope), other times, merely to keep in step with the times, theologically speaking.Thus, with so many iterations of the same tale already committed to celluloid, it's fair to assume that by 1973, whenthe 1971 Broadway rock-opera Jesus Christ Superstar was ultimately adapted for the screen, no one involvedharbored any illusions that audiences would be flocking to the film eager to find out how it all comes out.

The major selling-point of Jesus Christ Superstar was not the story, per se, but its telling. This was to be the screen'sfirst all-singing, all-dancing Jesus, and its daring, once-controversial, "hook" was to have the Passion Play told (witha decidedly youthful slant) from the perspective of, and in sympathy with, the apostle Judas. In Jesus ChristSuperstar Judas sees Jesus not as a God, but merely a mortal man guilty of believing his own publicity. Whatdistinguishes the film version is that it is not as decided on the fact of Jesus' mortality as the stage production, andthat uncertainly has been presented in such a manner as to provoke questions more than provide answers.

Ted Neeley as Jesus

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Carl Anderson as Judas

Yvonne Elliman as Mary

Barry Dennen as Pontius Pilate

In a significant stylistic departure from the glam-rock roots of the Broadway show, film director Norman Jewison(who so memorably sliced, diced, and bisected theater screens in the stylish crime caper, The Thomas Crown Affair[1968]) went the realist route. Taking a multiethnic cast of young singers, dancers, and actors to Israel and filming onactual locations (some sites breathtakingly dressed by production designer Richard Macdonald with Romanremains and ruins), Jewison lights on a visual concept that, with surprising effectiveness, blends the ancient with thecontemporary. An aesthetic choice rich with tonal and symbolic anachronisms, perfectly suiting the neoclassical,pop/rock musical score by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

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Contemporary symbols of military power provoke and bedevil the morallybesieged Judas

Armed with machine guns and spears, Roman guards march in tank tops andbattle fatigues.

The angel Judas descends from heaven by way of an industrial crane.

America's hippie-inspired Jesus movement of the late 60s (Jesus was, after all, the first long-haired, counter-culturerevolutionary) which fueled pop-culture works like Jesus Christ Superstar and its off-Broadway cousin, Godspell(1971), greatly influenced my perception of religion during my teen years.

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June 1971

Between the years 1971 and 1974, I attended Saint Mary's College HighSchool in Berkeley, Ca., then an all-boys Catholic school. These werethe years when the Catholic Church was all about making itself relevantand hip to us youngsters (Bay Area residents of a certain age recall theregular 60-second radio broadcasts of Father Harry of "The GodSquad"), so the Christian Brothers that taught at the school escheweddark robes and clerical collars for colorful wide ties and bellbottoms,and assembly sermons were apt to be kicked off with a pop song likeThe 5th Dimension's "Working on a Groovy Thing" blasted over the P.A.system.Add to this the fact that virtually every citizen of Berkeley at the timeseemed to look exactly like the flower-children cast of Jesus ChristSuperstar (Saint Mary's custodian/caretaker was a ringer for TedNeeley's Jesus Christ, only taller, muscular, and with really tight jeans—can't tell you all the spiritual inner-conflict that little teenage crushinspired) and you get a good idea of why looking at Jesus ChristSuperstar today feels for me a bit like watching a home movie.

The troupe arriving by bus to enact the Passion Play in the desert brings to mindall those

Catholic School weekend retreats where we kids were encouraged to "rap" and"tell it like it is"

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMIn spite of my Catholic upbringing, I confess that I find it difficult sometimes to become emotionally moved byreligious films. I can enjoy the spectacle, the performances, and the moral of the narrative; but few things are moredisconcerting and distancing than having ethics-challenged Hollywood try to convince me of the value of a virtuouslife, simply led. Thus, one of the great pleasures of Jesus Christ Superstar is its ability to be be enjoyed from either asecular or spiritual perspective. Jewison achieves something rather extraordinary in having devised a timeless,utterly cinematic approach to the material (the past and present keep bleeding into one another other) that doesn'tmerely "open up" the play, but rethinks and re-imagines it in a profoundly fundamental way.

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The Last Supper - hippie style

The hippy-dippy / flower child look of the film, which so many revivals of the show are so quick to discard, is ideallysuited to the time-mashup approach of Jewison's vision. It strikes me as ingenious that we are invited to makeparallels between Jesus and his followers and the youth of the '70s. It's a concept which gives the eventsa timeless appeal while encouraging us to take subliminal stock of the way the hairstyles and modes of dress of'70s-era hippies and college students harken back to the look of ancient Israel.In stressing the contemporarily familiar, Jesus Christ Superstar establishes a narrative point of view which asks usto question the difference between the myth and the man. And it does so in a way that manages to be bothimpassioned and reverent, yet refreshingly free of the kind of fervent self-seriousness that mars many films aboutreligion. The non-traditional score (orchestrated pop/rock) and refreshingly ambiguous nature of its visuals (whattime is all of this taking place in?) invite the re-examination of over-familiar events and characters.

PERFORMANCESIn listening to three decades' worth of covers, revivals, and re-recordings, I still find this version of Jesus ChristSuperstar to be the best sung of the lot. This has a lot to do with the era in which I grew up and the pop sound I'maccustomed to, but the arrangements, orchestrations, and vocal performances here are just top notch. This isespecially true of the late Carl Anderson, whose powerfully clear and expressive voice can still give megoosebumps. Every singer in this role has had to live up to Anderson's standard, and in my opinion, not a single onecomes close. His Judas was more than just a great voice, he was a passionate actor, as well.

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Carl Anderson's show-stopping rendition of the propulsive title song is one ofcinema's great musical moments. And who can resist the envisioning of an

angel's wings as the fringe on a Vegas-era Elvis Presley jumpsuit?

Oh, and as every rule has its exception: when I wrote earlier that I'm not easily moved by religious films, that stillstands; with the exception of Ted Neeley's performance of the song "Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)." It's the onlypart of the film that can consistently bring tears to my eyes. Dramatically shot and emotionally intense, it is a reallybeautiful bit of filmmaking aided immensely by Neeley's wrenching vocal performance. It's the dramatic centerpieceof the film.

THE STUFF OF FANTASYWhere Jesus Christ Superstar truly shines is in the stark freshness of its visuals. It's a stunning-looking film fromevery angle. At turns, whimsical, epic, theatrical, and poetic, it is one of those rare adaptations of a stage successthat achieve multiple moments of pure cinema.

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When I first saw the film, glitter, disco, and Elton John glitz was all the rage, so I was a bit disappointed that JesusChrist Superstar didn't look more like the stage production, As the years have gone by, I'm glad the film didn't mireitself in a look that would have given it the feel of a '70s variety show. Sure, the hippie style employed maybe labeled "dated," but for me it's a look evocative of the time which created this show's perspective (the '60s) - andsomehow that feels more than perfect...it's ideal.

THE STUFF OF DREAMSThe dancing in Jesus Christ Superstar is phenomenal. And all those thin, lithe, 70s bodies are a welcome change

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from the earthbound, often clumsy-looking, gym-puffed bodies of so many dancers today. My absolute favorite number in the film is "Simon Zealotes." It hits me from the opposite end of the emotionalspectrum of Neeley's "Gethsemane" soliloquy. It's joy and energy personified, given vivacious, eye-popping life bysome of the most fantastic dancers doing dazzling choreography ever filmed. It has the power to bring me to a stateof childlike elation in a single viewing. Even now, all I can think when I look at it is, WOW!!! Now that is what I calldancing! (Watching it makes me feel proud to be a dancer, although, if I were to try any of these moves now, I'd likelybreak into a million pieces like Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her.)

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Jesus Christ Superstar is yet another one of those motion pictures that grows better with age. Itsthemes nostalgically remind me of my youth, yet its enduring innovativeness as a film makes me appreciate NormanJewison's commitment to making this particular "long-running show" one that will hold timeless appeal for newgenerations.

Judas Kiss

Copyright © Ken Anderson

About Ken AndersonLA-based writer and lifelong film enthusiast. You can read more of his essays on films of the ’60s & ‘70s at DreamsAre What Le Cinema Is For.

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