When someone forbids you from either seeing a movie, reading a certain book or looking at a particular work of art what’s the first thing you are going to do? You do just the opposite, correct? You are going to watch that film, read that book and gaze proudly at that artwork whether you like it or not. You are going to view it just because someone told you not to. In other words, you do it out of spite.
That’s what my response was to my dad when he forbid me to see a little movie directed by Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese called "The Last Temptation of Christ" in August 1988. I was 18 when that movie came out and fresh out of high school. In my opinion, I could watch whatever the Hell I wanted, and just because I was raised a Catholic in which my parents paid good money to send me to both private grade and high schools doesn’t mean I subscribe to everything the Catholic Church follows.
To quote Scorsese, “I'm a lapsed Catholic. But I am Roman Catholic, there's no way out of it.”
Based on author Nikos Kazantzakis’ fictional 1953 novel, "The Last Temptation of Christ" opened with the title card assuring viewers "This film is not based upon the Gospels but upon this fictional exploration of the eternal spiritual conflict."
That was not enough to keep religious fanatics from creating an unnecessary stink about the film’s questionable subject matter which showed Jesus Christ (Willem Dafoe) as exactly who he was, a human being, who, like all of us struggled with temptation. What especially angered religious groups was a dream sequence showing the Son of God as he is dying on the cross settling down with Mary Magdelene (Barbara Hershey) and raising a family. The end result was the film played in only one theater in the Dallas area and could only be found for rent a year later in independent video store chains as back then, Blockbuster Video opted not to carry the film.
The point behind my plan to go against dad’s wishes back then and opting to see "The Last Temptation of Christ" (which didn’t happen until a year later) and doing battle with protesters outside the movie theater is the same point Americans, Hollywood and even President Obama felt when Sony pulled "The Interview." The comedy about two want-to-be serious journalists (James Franco and Seth Rogen) recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un was pulled from its planned Christmas Day release December 17 because of 9/11 style threats from computer hackers believed to be from North Korea.
When Sony did an about face releasing "The Interview" in independent and arthouse theaters across the country in limited release on Christmas Day, Americans celebrated freedom of speech and artistic expression by paying to see the film whether the critics embraced it or not. Most did not but if audiences actually listened to movie critics, there’d be no Transformers movies.
"This movie will be awful, but it's my choice to watch awful," wrote one Twitter user about the comedy.
I apply that same reasoning to "The Last Temptation of Christ." In America, it is “us” or to be more precise, me, who decides what’s trash, not my parents, not the government, and most certainly not terrorists.
I have not seen "The Interview" in theaters nor have I paid to download it online. At least now, however, I can decide whether I want to see it or not. If and when I do, I predict my feelings about the film will be the same I had after fast forwarding to the last 20 minutes of Scorsese’s film when I rented it a year later just to see what all the fuss was about. To this day, I still haven’t seen The Last Temptation of Christ in its entirety, not because of the supposed sacrilegious content, but because the movie is just so damn boring, I could use it in place of those Equate Maximum Strength sleep aid pills I often take to fall asleep.
In the end, I found the hype was a big deal about nothing and the only reason Scorsese’s movie, much like the combined $20 million gross "The Interview" has earned in theater and online sales so far, got so much attention were those two words, “controversy sells.”
©1/7/15
That’s what my response was to my dad when he forbid me to see a little movie directed by Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese called "The Last Temptation of Christ" in August 1988. I was 18 when that movie came out and fresh out of high school. In my opinion, I could watch whatever the Hell I wanted, and just because I was raised a Catholic in which my parents paid good money to send me to both private grade and high schools doesn’t mean I subscribe to everything the Catholic Church follows.
To quote Scorsese, “I'm a lapsed Catholic. But I am Roman Catholic, there's no way out of it.”
Based on author Nikos Kazantzakis’ fictional 1953 novel, "The Last Temptation of Christ" opened with the title card assuring viewers "This film is not based upon the Gospels but upon this fictional exploration of the eternal spiritual conflict."
That was not enough to keep religious fanatics from creating an unnecessary stink about the film’s questionable subject matter which showed Jesus Christ (Willem Dafoe) as exactly who he was, a human being, who, like all of us struggled with temptation. What especially angered religious groups was a dream sequence showing the Son of God as he is dying on the cross settling down with Mary Magdelene (Barbara Hershey) and raising a family. The end result was the film played in only one theater in the Dallas area and could only be found for rent a year later in independent video store chains as back then, Blockbuster Video opted not to carry the film.
The point behind my plan to go against dad’s wishes back then and opting to see "The Last Temptation of Christ" (which didn’t happen until a year later) and doing battle with protesters outside the movie theater is the same point Americans, Hollywood and even President Obama felt when Sony pulled "The Interview." The comedy about two want-to-be serious journalists (James Franco and Seth Rogen) recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un was pulled from its planned Christmas Day release December 17 because of 9/11 style threats from computer hackers believed to be from North Korea.
When Sony did an about face releasing "The Interview" in independent and arthouse theaters across the country in limited release on Christmas Day, Americans celebrated freedom of speech and artistic expression by paying to see the film whether the critics embraced it or not. Most did not but if audiences actually listened to movie critics, there’d be no Transformers movies.
"This movie will be awful, but it's my choice to watch awful," wrote one Twitter user about the comedy.
I apply that same reasoning to "The Last Temptation of Christ." In America, it is “us” or to be more precise, me, who decides what’s trash, not my parents, not the government, and most certainly not terrorists.
I have not seen "The Interview" in theaters nor have I paid to download it online. At least now, however, I can decide whether I want to see it or not. If and when I do, I predict my feelings about the film will be the same I had after fast forwarding to the last 20 minutes of Scorsese’s film when I rented it a year later just to see what all the fuss was about. To this day, I still haven’t seen The Last Temptation of Christ in its entirety, not because of the supposed sacrilegious content, but because the movie is just so damn boring, I could use it in place of those Equate Maximum Strength sleep aid pills I often take to fall asleep.
In the end, I found the hype was a big deal about nothing and the only reason Scorsese’s movie, much like the combined $20 million gross "The Interview" has earned in theater and online sales so far, got so much attention were those two words, “controversy sells.”
©1/7/15
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