Some odd clashes of style but still a distinctive and unique musical, if not a triumph
Director: Norman Jewison
Cast: Ted Neeley (Jesus Christ), Carl Anderson (Judas Iscariot), Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene), Barry Dennen (Pontius Pilate), Bob Bingham (Caiaphas), Larry Marshall (Simon Zealotes), Josh Mostel (King Herod), Kurt Yaghjian (Annas), Philip Toubus (Peter)
A bus rolls up in the West Bank and a bunch of excited, hippie actors and singers bundle out. What else are they going to do but replay the final days of Jesus Christ – with songs! Thus begins Norman Jewison’s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s rock opera musical, a hodge-podge of interesting ideas, stylistic nonsense and touches of the bizarre. Some of it works, some of its doesn’t – but at least it’s having a stab at doing something different.
I’ll assume you are familiar with the final days of Jesus Christ (Ted Neeley) as Jesus Christ Superstar ticks off the arrival in Jerusalem, the money lenders in the temple, the last supper, Gethsemane, Pilate washing his hands and the crucifixion (but not, pointedly, the resurrection). Jesus is at the centre of this but, as is so often the case in films, is an enigmatic, unreadable figure. The real lead is Judas (Carl Anderson), worried that the Messiah is running the risk of provoking a brutal smack-down from the Romans and letting the worship of his follower’s rush to his head. Perhaps he should do something about it?
First the good stuff. Douglas Slocombe’s photography, on location in a sun-soaked Middle East (the cast must have been grateful their flowing, hippie robes translated into such light clothing) looks gorgeous (the final shot of the cross at dusk – with a shepherd and sheep just visible in the corona of the sun’s glare, a happy on-the-day accident – is sublime). The locations are bravely selected to stress the sweeping vastness of desert: Pilate’s home is a rocky mountain, the apostles dance among abandoned Roman pillars, Gethsemane is the only splash of green we see. A cave with a circular hole in its roof, casts a striking shard of light over Jesus with his disciples. There is gorgeous stuff here.
It’s mixed in with some successful modern touches. Turning the money lender’s stalls into a trashy marketplace, rife with everything from tourist tat to heavy weaponry works as a striking image of commercial corruption. Jesus’ final vision of Judas takes place in a Roman amphitheatre decked out like a concert carries a nice dream-like quality. The idea of having the priest’s temple being a piece of bare-bones scaffolding is a nice visual image of their ambition. At the centre of the film is a very striking, excellently sung performance by Carl Anderson as Judas. Pretty much dominating the film, he brings the part just the right amount of spark, frustration, anger and self-pity and best manages to invest the songs with character.
Unfortunately, Jesus Christ Superstar mixes this with plenty of modern touches that either land flatly or whose intention becomes almost hard to work out. When Judas is chased through the desert by tanks or buzzed by fighter planes, is this a sign of the conflict that would come, the sense of destiny forcing him into his assigned role, or just an excuse to see the budget put into effect on some military hardware? Moments like this feel they are trying too hard against the more subtle modern touches.
There’s also the rather mixed bag of inexperienced performers Jewison fills the film out with. Ted Neeley can certainly hold a note, but he’s no actor, turning Jesus into a blank void who frequently feels like he’s watching the action around him while waiting for his cue. Yvonne Elliman similarly is an excellent singer but doesn’t really manage to convey the complex feelings of love and worship in Mary Magdalene. The rest of the cast give it an enthusiastic go, ranging from the decent (Barry Dennon) to the over-emphatic (Philip Toubas – who later became a hugely successful porn star, not exactly the expected career path of St Peter).
The mix of hippie-ish costumes also only works in places. While Jesus is of course dressed pretty much as any Hollywood film had ever dressed him (white-flowing robes), others wear a mixture of that, flower-power garbs or the sort of in-between strangeness (I’m looking at you Roman soldiers) that makes it look like they have wandered in from an episode of Star Trek. The brightly coloured costumes do however stand out extremely well in the vast blankness of the desert.
Jesus Christ Superstar’s main problem is its lack of narrative drive. Co-scripting with Melvyn Bragg (surely the easiest paycheque ever for one of the UK’s leading public intellectuals), Jewison doesn’t really provide any dramatic meat or force between the songs. There isn’t really a sense of moral and narrative development, with the film instead feeling rather like the concert album it’s based on, a series of songs staged one after-the-other without really linking together in a full narrative arc.
Saying that, Jewison’s effectiveness with the camera comes across well. “Hosanna” is crammed with a full-blown, very well-shot Busby-Berkely style number where Jewison rather effectively uses freeze-frames to punctuate the beats. “The Temple” sees Jesus disappear under a swarm of lepers like a zombie victim. A shot of the Judas’ purse of thirty pieces of silver dominates the frame at one point like it’s drawing him in. Some of the frantic tracking shots of Judas through the desert have a real elemental force to them.
But there isn’t quite enough of that to bring Jesus Christ Superstar to make it a triumph. Its episodic song structure, it’s odd mix of styles and the wildly varying quality of its performances never quite gel together. However, it’s perfect for turning this into a sort of camp spectacular, a cult oddness that stands out as quite unlike any other musical or film Jewison made.
Movie Musings 