This is from the friday edition of The Hamilton Specator, in the arts section (Go 15): "Jesus Christ movie star: Movies often disputed when filmmakers depict Jesus as more human than divine":
Other than the made-for-TV Jesus in 1999, The Gospel of John is the first major film since Dogma to focus on Jesus. That's no surprise to Nancy Calvert-Koyzis, who teaches a course on film and the Bible at McMaster University. She said The Last Temptation of Christ "left filmmakers with a fearfulness about Jesus films. . . ."
The safest approach for filmmakers has been to make Jesus as a mystical presence, whose appearance is generally heralded by a celestial choir (think Ben-Hur) and whose face is never shown.
If Jesus was shown, it was often as Calvert-Koyzis describes it, "the Hamlet Jesus with blue eyes and blond hair," best depicted by Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings in 1961.
Unfortunately this article appears not to be on the Spec's website, and even if it were, it couldn't be accessed without a subscription.
I've not yet seen The Gospel of John, although I would like to. I would also like to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ, if only to see what all the controversy is about.
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