David Bowie – Movie Musings

Willem Dafoe plays the Son of God in Scorsese’s supremely controversial The Last Temptation of Christ

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Willem Dafoe (Jesus Christ), Harvey Keitel (Judas), Barbara Hershey (Mary Magdalene), Harry Dean Stanton (Saul), David Bowie (Pontius Pilate), Verna Bloom (Mary), Barry Miller (Jeroboam). Irvin Kershner (Zebedee), Victor Argo (Peter), Andre Gregory (John the Baptist), Nehemiah Persoff (Rabbi), Tomas Arana (Lazarus), Gary Barsaraba (Andrew), Juliette Caton (Girl Angel)

There are few films as controversial as this. Scorsese’s earthy adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ has lived its whole life under the shadow of the parade of traditionalists, conservatives and evangelists who have called for everything from the negative being destroyed to the death of its director. All this is rooted in the film’s quest – as in the book – for the human in Jesus, the saviour who was both mortal and divine. As part of this, it showed him expressing anger, doubt and of course, presented him with temptation and threw him into the dirty, working-class world where he made his ministry.

The film follows the life of Jesus (Willem Dafoe) pretty much as per the Gospels, with several interjections and reinterpretations (some of which seem designed to piss off the faithful). We meet Jesus as a carpenter who crafts crosses for Roman crucifixions by day, plagued by voices and fits at night. He knows he has a purpose but is scared of what it might be. Eventually he finds it, encouraged by Judas (Harvey Keitel) his most faithful disciple and a passionate campaigner against the Romans. The last temptation itself fills the final act of the film. On the cross, a disguised Satan comes to Jesus and offers him the chance to leave behind being the messiah and live a normal life: marriage, children and content old age surrounded by family.

The Last Temptation of Christ is Scorsese’s wrestling with his faith. It’s a highly personal, defiantly modern and daring version of the gospels that strongly invests in the notion that true faith is only possible if we also have doubt to overcome. And it applies this logic to Jesus, who is shown here as far more grounded, human and flawed than He has ever been in the movies (or anywhere else). Voiceovers communicate His constant doubts and insecurities – and even His resentments about not understanding what God intends for him.

Where other Biblical epics are old, stodgy and stiff, The Last Temptation profoundly challenges its viewers. This is not a picture postcard world. Jesus’ surroundings are humble and dirty. His disciples are simple men – Judas, the only one with any form of intellect, attacks them as clueless yes-men. But it’s a film that stresses the humanity of Jesus. It wants us to admire him even more, because He needed to overcome the same internal demons we all confront. This is not a saviour unbent in purpose, but battling always. It asks us to try and relate ourself to Jesus in a new way, to ask how we might have felt and whether we would have been strong enough to take on that mantle.

Played with extraordinary passion and fire by Willem Dafoe, this is a Jesus who is scared, reluctant, shows flashes of bitterness and anger but struggles to put all this aside to embrace His destiny and purpose as the Messiah. On other words, He’s far more human than we’ve seen before. He’s also rough and unprepared, in many ways, for His ministry. We see His first attempt at preaching – having, with half-confidence, half-apprehension told Judas He’s sure God will give Him the words – which is carefree, impassioned and amateurish but full of inspirational fire. He doesn’t quite convey the message He’s aiming for, but it is enough to win the devotion of several of the men who will become his disciples.

Scorsese shoots this, as he shoots many of the scenes among the crowds, with an immediacy and urgency, using a mobile camera and throwing us in among those listening to Jesus’ words. John the Baptist’s ministry by the lake is a near-orgy of religious ecstasy (with added nudity), full of wild emotion and jubilant singing – all of which drops out on the soundtrack to just the lapping of the river, as Judas and John meet. (It’s a brilliant moment that shows the world-stopping impact of revelation). Scorsese mixes this with scenes of a spiritual stillness and gentle mysticism. During his time in the desert – during which Jesus sits inside a perfect circle, which He draws free hand in the dirt – He encounters, in scenes of haunting unknowability, temptation from Satan in the form of a snake, a lion and a jet of fire.

It’s a starting point for Jesus’ embarking on a series of miracles and world-changing preaching. Controversially, even now, He is still uncertain of what He is meant to – he tells Judas (who remains a constant confidante) that God only gives Him small parts of the total picture as He needs them. He comes from the desert inviting his disciples to war – against Satan, and to bring God’s word to the world. It seems another provocative image – Jesus brandishing an axe in one hand, His own heart (plucked from His chest before the disciples) in the other – and it’s one of the points in the film where I feel Scorsese overplays his hand. I’m not quite sure what he is suggesting here, as Jesus calls his disciples to war, unless it’s a campaign of muscular Christianity.

It competes with several other images and sequences that infuriated many. Some of these are too much: Jesus crafting crosses and even helping the Romans (in the film’s opening) nail a victim too one is far too much, a tasteless attempt to show a flawed man. Waiting to apologise to Mary Magdalene (a delicate Barbara Hershey) for his part in this, He sits while she services a roomful of men one after another. Moments like this always feel a little too much, even if it’s a more genuine insight into what Mary Magdelene’s life was actually like than we normally get.

But the Temptation itself is fascinating and moving – if a little too long. There was of course outrage at seeing Jesus marry and make love to Mary Magdelene, rejecting his purpose for a life of normality. Surely, if Jesus could be tempted by anything it might have been this: the man who never knew a moment of the life you and I lead, given a chance to experience it. With Satan – passing himself off as a young female guardian angel – guiding him, the vision sees Jesus age into an old man. Satan presents a plausible argument: man and Earth can live in a simple happiness, if they forget the demands of God in heaven.

The very idea of Jesus either deceived by Satan for a time – or seriously considering abandoning His divine purpose – is anathema to many, but again it re-enforces Scorsese’s view that doubt is essential for faith. That we can only commit the supreme act of commitment to God, if we are uncertain about doing it in the first place. And Jesus’ re-devotion at the end to his mission truly gives a sense of “It is being accomplished” in a way few other films have managed.

Ideas like this – and the earthy, vigorous nature of Jesus’ world – dominate the film and dare and push the viewer. Dafoe is superb – and Harvey Keitel excellent as a politically committed Judas, here not betraying Jesus, but taking on the harder role (that of betrayer – Jesus even tells him he is not strong enough for such a role, so has the easier part in dying). It’s shot with a brilliant modernism and has a superb score from Peter Gabriel, stuffed with lyrical etherealism and making use of several contemporary instruments. It sometimes overplays its hand, but as a personal work of a director juggling his own doubts, fears and faith on screen, it’s perhaps one of the most extraordinary religious films ever made.

Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper trapped in Twin Peaks nightmare halfway house between this world and the next

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer), Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Phoebe Augustine (Ronette Pulaski), David Bowie (Phillip Jeffries), Eric Da Re (Leo Johnson), Miguel Ferrer (Albert Rosenfield), Pamela Gidley (Teresa Banks), Chris Isaak (Special Agent Chester Desmond), Moira Kelly (Donna Hayward), David Lynch (Gordon Cole), Kyle MacLachlan (Special Agent Dale Cooper), James Marshall (James Hurley), Frank Silva (BOB), Kiefer Sutherland (Agent Sam Stanley), Grace Zabriskie (Sarah Palmer)

Twin Peaks was a mystifying, but very short lived, sensation. Its first series gripped America with its whodunit mystery around who killed Laura Palmer: it was an early 90s Broadchurch with added mysticism and twisted Lynchian psychosis. Just like Broadchurch, the second series stumbled from disaster to disaster as the answer to the mystery was revealed. Though this plot line was dark, disturbing and haunting, effectively contrasted with the surreal humour of the rest of the show, large chunks of the episodes were, to be honest, terrible. As Lynch’s attention turned elsewhere, the show fumbled through half a season of increasingly bizarre, pointless, laughable and plain rubbish episodes, before rallying at the end with a return to the mysterious dwelling on the nature of evil that the series is now best remembered for.

Twin Peaks is a rare anomaly – a show whose most die-hard fans would probably admit at least a quarter of the episodes were terrible. Ratings had dropped off a cliff as the series went on (sure enough it was cancelled). The cast and crew knew the show had lost something – several actors, most notably Lara Flynn Boyle (here replaced by Moira Kelly) refused to appear in the film. Even the show’s star, and Lynch surrogate, Kyle MacLachlan only agreed to return for this film for a few brief scenes (requiring an urgent re-write). However, Lynch’s interest in the concept had clearly been awakened during his writing and filming of (what would become) the final episode, surely one of the most surreal, unsettling, bizarre, intriguing and disturbing episodes of TV ever screened.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was Lynch’s final reclaiming of the series from the toilet it had dropped into. It also served partly as a “retcon” to tie the foundations of the original series plotline into the mythology the show had deepened in its final few episodes (built upon many surreal elements Lynch had introduced in the first episodes, otherwise hinted at rather than explored). As much of this mythology was unsettling, this movie very much follows that mood, losing much (if not all) of the dark, surrealistic humour that contrasted the darkness so well in the series. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a strange movie that is more like an expanded extra episode of the series, rather than a stand-alone. It makes no attempt at all to appeal to anyone who hasn’t seen every episode of the series: I’d go so far to say it’s almost completely impenetrable without having sat through all of Twin Peaks.

The film explores two plot-lines: the first an investigation by FBI Agent Chester Diamond (Chris Isaak) into the murder of Teresa Banks, a plotline referred to many times in the series. The film then flashes forward a year to cover the final few days of the original murder victim Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and her relationship with her father Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), who is possessed by a demonic presence known as BOB, driven by it to perform acts of sexual and physical violence. Laura is aware – and terrified – of the existence of BOB (a greasy haired face from a thousand nightmares) but seems unable to recognise that BOB and her father are one and the same. It’s the discovery of this in the film that will help to tip her over the edge into despair.

If the film is about anything other than expanding the mythology around BOB and the mysterious “Black Lodge” between dimensions, where evil and violence abound, it’s about the damaging impact of domestic abuse. The film intensely explores the personality damage Laura (an excellent and fully committed Sheryl Lee, leaving nothing in the locker room in a performance of fearless intensity) has suffered as a result of years of sexual abuse from her father (Ray Wise equally good as his personality veers wildly between gentle father and possessed evil rapist). Laura’s fractured psyche is the root cause, Lynch makes clear, of her sexual promiscuity, drug addiction and flashes of cruelty. She’s even aware of the damage, as seen in her desperation to protect others (especially the gentle Donna) from being sucked into the nightmare of her life.

The unremitting bleakness of Laura’s disastrous life is intermixed with the horror of the scenes where we witness Leland’s destructive behaviour to her, while the final scene of her eventual murder is haunting in its skilful nightmare imagery and suggestive editing. Lynch’s direction remains humane and tender, and despite putting Sheryl Lee through the ringer she never feels exploited. Instead, the film has an incredible empathy for both her suffering, and the confused, damaged actions she is driven to carry out. It gives us an understanding of the damage that can be done to even the strongest seeming people by abuse.

Alongside this, Lynch unleashes the full range of dark surrealism through a series of disturbing images to build up his mystical backstory. This is a flat out horror film, with twisted images of monkeys, blood and forests guaranteed to haunt your dreams. Nearly every scene in Twin Peaks re-positions the often quirky town of many of the episodes as a nightmareish world of neon, darkened rooms and twisted sexual and physical violence. The portrayal of Laura Palmer’s fragile heart is as intensely moving as it is intensely filmed, while the views behind the red curtain into the hellish underbelly of Twin Peaks’ mystical mythology will stick with you for some time – and is sure to be central to the new third series.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was met with intense hostility when it was released: “It’s not the worst movie ever made,” the New York Times review read, “it just seems to be”. David Lynch publically stated he had clearly done when the network couldn’t do, and successfully killed Twin Peaks. Of course that wasn’t the case – with the new third series finally coming to the screen 25 years after the screening of this film. The re-evaluation of the film has only grown in the intervening period. The nightmarish content (and the final scenes of the series) – the wicked BOB, the nightmare of the Black Lodge and the Red Room, the elements of psychological horror – these are the things that Twin Peaks is remembered as being about: the rotten core of the sweet pie of the town.