The Last Temptation of Christ

Welcome, friends, to our discussion of Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. Join Brandon Wilhelm, Kelly Swails, and guest Bartender Riley as we dissect the story of Christ. Discussion points include (but are not limited to): 

• Judas: friend or foe?
• Mary Magdalene: whore, disciple, or somewhere in between? 
• Jesus's carpentry work for the Romans 
• Harvey Keitel's Brooklyn accent

and more! 

Oh, and if you'd like to drink with us, Bartender Riley created a drink! It's a riff on the Corpse Reviver no. 2 (heh heh) dubbed The Resurrection. If you can't source the Koval, you can likely sub in another ginger liqueur. And if you can't find Malort, near you, never fear: you can order it straight from the source. London dry gin will absolutely work, but if you have a gin with citrus/grapefruit notes, use that. 

The Resurrection

1 oz gin 

1 oz Malort (trust us)

1 oz Koval Ginger

1/4 oz demerara syrup

Add all ingredients to a shaker tin filled with ice; shake until the tin is frosty. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and enjoy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome to Bard Movies, the podcast that mixes band movies, booze, and conversation into one delightfully chaotic mix. I'm your host, Kelly Swales.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

I'm Brandon Wilhelm, your other co-host.

SPEAKER_07 0:13

And today's movie is The Last Septation of Christ. Buckle in, gang, because it's going to get a little blasphemous in here today. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, we've got a guest in the house today, and I'm gonna let her introduce herself.

SPEAKER_06 0:59

Hey everybody, my name's Riley. Um I am a bartender at several locations around Chicago. Uh I also happen to have a film degree and a religion degree, so here I am. This is how we've gotten you into our web.

SPEAKER_07 1:13

Yes. Riley, welcome and thank you so much for joining us. First things, I want to talk about the cocktail that we're pairing with today's movie. Now, this is a cocktail that you made up and you've dubbed it the resurrection. Can you kind of walk us through the thought process with this?

SPEAKER_06 1:30

Yeah, so um Kelly and I are both big gin drinkers. The obvious choice would have been a corpse revivor, but because we are dedicated to uh promoting Chicago alcohol and to loving Chicago in general, we kind of just did a revamp of it. We started with gin, went with Malort and Koval's ginger liqueur. We added some Dimerera syrup just to cover a little bit of the bitterness of the Malort and balance it out. Um, and then just some orange bitter for fun, a little bit of extra flavor. And here we are drinking it.

SPEAKER_07 2:05

Here we are. Well, cheers, gang. Cheers. All right. Well, everybody, for all you listeners out there, we'll have uh the recipe on our website at frozen shoulderproductions.com and on our Patreon page at Patreon.com slash frozen shoulderproductions. So you can drink along with us if you would like. So the movie. The Last Temptation of Christ is based on a book published in 1962 by Nick Kaskantaskis. I heard. Oh, see, yeah, I'm buttering that name. Uh the screenplay was written by Paul Schrader and was directed by Martin Scorsese, released in August of 1988. It was shot entirely in Morocco, and it's got a banger of a cast, including William Defoe, Harvey Keitel, Robert Hershey, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Bowie. Peter Gabriel did the soundtrack. It only grossed $400,000. Yes, you heard that right, in the opening weekend. And by the end of its run, it grossed a worldwide total of around 34 million. So uh Brandon, you wanna you wanna get us started?

SPEAKER_03 3:16

It's the story of Jesus. I think we all kind of know the major point, so I won't like Oh, no way.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Ah, weird, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Uh so I don't want to like delve too much into it. I think what we probably want to focus on more is uh where the movie itself differs from the story we we all know from living in America.

SPEAKER_07 3:37

You know, maybe because uh going in, like I having grown up Baptist, I really thought then like, man, I got this down. I know, I know the Jesus story. And we're watching stuff happen in this movie, and I'm like, I don't remember any of this. And I'm wondering if I just went into like a phobe state after I decided to stop going to church and just not remember anything. Or if I'm like, yeah, or maybe I was just taught not, like maybe I was taught just a little bit differently than what was portrayed in the movie.

SPEAKER_06 4:07

I um I can say both academically and from experience, uh I did grow up religious uh in a Lutheran church. Um I am from the South, but happen to have a particularly cool, open, accepting religious experience. So, like, I don't want to say fully devoid of religious trauma, but that's not a part of my growing up. So a lot of my uh experience with the story of Christ is positive, is the love your neighbor, be part of your community, look out for people, uh, take care of those in need, uh, really actually just the positive stuff. And a lot of the plot progression as we see it, we get little Easter eggs, no pun intended, right, um, of the gospel as we, you know, as we would learn it uh religiously. So when we get to jump ahead a little bit, uh when we get to Jesus beginning his ministry, the parables that he tells, those are part of the text. So I think it's important to clarify that no, this isn't strictly based on the gospels, uh, but it is definitely, um, I don't I don't know that the terminology would have been used at the time, but it's fan fiction.

SPEAKER_07 5:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and the movie makes it very clear from the first title card, right? Like this is based on the book, not the gospels.

SPEAKER_06 5:33

Yeah, and well, and the the book itself is based on hi, I'm Nikos Cousin Zakis, and I want to explore my faith as a dialogue between body and soul, and I want to see that in the story of Christ. So that's what we're doing here. We're not retelling anything, we're exploring a personal expression of faith rather than trying to spoon feed it to you.

SPEAKER_07 5:57

It's almost like uh Joyce Carole's uh Marilyn uh Monroe movie or book that Blonde was based on a few years back.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Yeah, uh yeah, yeah, that uh that makes sense because uh it's looking at society through the idea of Marilyn Monroe, whereas you know, this is I'm looking at my own struggle with faith, and Jesus went through it too, right?

SPEAKER_07 6:22

Oh, all right, yeah. I think that's I don't know that I knew going in. I mean, like the reason Nick had been writing the book or whatever. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Well, the book picks up with something, or I mean the book, the movie, it starts with something that's not actually in the Bible, and it's that Jesus is building crosses so Romans can crucify the zealots, which are people the Jews look to to be the next Messiah up until the Romans came and cut that out.

SPEAKER_07 6:53

Yeah, I immediately right off the bat, I was I was like, not confused, but I was just like having a crisis of faith a little bit. Like, wait, what? Did he did he actually build crosses? Is that part of the story? Have I just forgotten?

SPEAKER_06 7:06

I mean, he he was a carpenter, so it would follow like if you're I mean, he was handy with a hammer. Yeah, like if you're oh my god, did you hear the crucifier carpenter? Um No will never cover back from finish. Um but but yeah, I mean it it's a a reasonable thing to suspect. You know, if you're a Jewish person, which Jesus was living under Roman rule, if this was the job that you could get, then this was the job that you could get. You know, I mean we can we can make the argument of like, oh well, you're you're doing a bad thing to your own people, but gotta gotta work, right? Everyone's gonna make a living. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Well, and that's the whole reason he's doing it is to try to get God to stop talking to him and stop making him the next prophet. Because he much like uh Old Testament prophets, sometimes they're like, I don't want to do this. And God's like, I don't care.

SPEAKER_07 8:03

Eat shit, you're doing it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

I'm God. Did you see what I did to Job? No, go, Rich. Uh so yeah, Judas in the movie is portrayed as uh one of the zealots who is just out to kill every Roman he can find, and he and the rest of the village of Nazareth are furious with Jesus for working with the Romans without understanding that he's doing it to get out of his destiny.

SPEAKER_07 8:32

Can we talk about Herbie Kaitel as Judas for a little bit?

SPEAKER_06 8:37

Because I think put Herbie Kaitel on trial for that because you're a great actor, but we didn't.

SPEAKER_07 8:45

I uh You know, I think I think it was the Brooklyn accent that was throwing me a little bit that never quite went away. Right.

SPEAKER_06 8:53

Yeah, yeah. Like I I know that there's there's the running joke of everybody in ancient times suddenly has a British accent, and suddenly I found myself not wanting to complain about that because it's better than hearing a Harvey Kaitel in this context.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

I think that's funny because this was the first time, and maybe because I was ready for it and I had made a couple jokes to Kelly about it, but this time it didn't bother me quite as much. And I think maybe because I'm like, okay, here it comes. Oh, it's not that big.

SPEAKER_06 9:24

Yeah, I'm I'm 15-ish years removed from watching this movie um academically, and by watching it I mean living and breathing it academically. So I had some detachment from it, completely forgot how corny it was. I also have a particular love for Judas Iscariot as a character in every portrayal of the Gospels, Jesus Christ Superstar being a huge one. Judas is hands down the most compelling character in that story. And I think, you know, we can get into what is and isn't canon in the gospel, but in terms of the early church, uh Judas is a far more of an anti-hero than I think that he becomes, you know, post-Renaissance. Um, because again, everybody needs a villain. And if you're trying to make this a morality thing, you have to have the bad guy. And Judas is the bad guy in terms of how people believe the story. Uh I I could go on a whole thing about how that is uh not not how it should be portrayed, but I understand why we tell the story the way we do.

SPEAKER_07 10:35

Yeah, it's again like my I didn't I went to like church for a little while until I was about 10 or 11, and then I did it again for about maybe about six months to a year in high school. And so I wasn't I wasn't came in one of those families, like we went to church until I was saved, and then it was like kind of optional. So I didn't like remember like I just my in my memory Judas was just bad.

SPEAKER_05 11:00

Right.

SPEAKER_07 11:00

He's just the he's the betrayer and he's terrible, and it's like almost a curse to call somebody a Judas, right? Yeah. I don't think I I was supposed to listen to Judas Priest.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Right, right.

SPEAKER_07 11:11

Yeah, like in the 80s, and that was probably why. So I didn't know any nuance about his his personhood personhood or character or anything.

SPEAKER_06 11:22

Well, and and also throughout literature, like we have he he's an easy character to have as the bad guy. I mean, we've read The Inferno, he's one of the heads of Cerberus, yeah, because he is the traitor. Again, if you're if you're making it a black and white morality play, then he's the obvious bad guy.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

I think it was funny that you mentioned that's kind of more sense like the Renaissance, because I know that uh with all the different Christian sects early on, uh uh particularly the Gnostics saw him as more a tragic figure. Like he's the guy who has to betray Jesus. Oh he doesn't really want to, and Jesus is like, look, man, this is how it has to go. We each have to sacrifice.

SPEAKER_07 12:03

Some versions of the Gospels, he's it's more nuanced, like it was actually.

SPEAKER_06 12:13

Well, a lot of it, so a lot of the Gospel of Judas was lost, and I use the word lost strategically and a little bit tongue-in-cheek, because again, if you look at the church for its political role as part of a state structure, as part of a structure of controlling an underclass, then you don't want to leave that room for nuance of, hey, maybe maybe the bad guy is a necessary evil, and you want to fully condemn anything that goes against the church because you need the church to exert power over people, not only for you know financial reasons, but also for uh labor, for uh just general control over the populace. It doesn't, it doesn't do anybody any favors to treat Judith like that, but a lot of those texts, um, and I'm pretty removed from studying this, but a lot of those texts, even if they were available, would not necessarily have been translated or given to academics or the people who were able to translate them because it was not politically beneficial for anybody to hear this alternate narrative.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

It is true. The Catholics were not fans of the Gnostics, and uh the only reason we have what we have of Gnostic writing is because uh somebody just buried it in the desert.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

I think a kid stumbled across it.

SPEAKER_06 13:40

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 13:42

Yeah, it is it is literally like, oh, we found this, we should probably translate it.

SPEAKER_07 13:46

So it's like they're like censoring the story because it doesn't like isn't like aligned with how we kind of want the story to be. So maybe let's just leave these buried.

SPEAKER_06 13:55

Yeah, yeah, and you can and you can say that about like a lot of apocryphal texts that are more of more in the Catholic canon than they are in the Protestant canon, but the whole we don't know anything about Jesus' childhood is not really accurate. Um, that's a thing that I grew up learning and not really questioning because why you know why would you why would you question that? Right. Uh because if it were available, surely we would know it. Um and then in my early adulthood, read through some of the infancy gospel of Thomas, Gospel of James, I think it is, where we get stories about Jesus as a child, and he's he's a little shit, honestly. Yeah. There is uh there's a passage where his teacher is trying to teach him something, and he's like, Well, why are you teaching? I should be the one teaching. Oh shit. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's fun to read, and honestly, like I'm I'm not a parent, but the parents that I know that have read that are like, honestly, I really wish that I had known this because I would feel a lot better about my kid being an asshole sometimes. Yeah. But also, I I think a lot of that shows the humanity of Jesus, which I would argue is what a lot of people have issue with in this, is that we see such a human Jesus, and even though we know the divinity is there because Jesus is fighting it, he's actively fighting it and wants to just be a human. If if we're looking at Jesus as this divine figure, the humanity kind of cancels that out a little bit, I think, and and I think that that's where a lot of the tension is with this narrative.

SPEAKER_07 15:42

So we're so we're building crosses.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah, uh, so he decides that he uh he's just gonna say, fuck it. I'm going out to these monks in the desert. I'm gonna learn about God. And he this begins where they're telling him, like, actually, you're the guy who should probably be teaching us. I think you're the Messiah. That's when Judas comes to kill him, because the zealots what Jesus did for building the cross is. But Judas is somebody who's been searching for the Messiah his whole life, that he's willing to let Jesus live to see how this plays out. Right. Which then begins like kind of the ministry of Jesus, where he starts collecting disciples, they go see John the Baptist, Jesus goes out in the desert to face Satan tempting him. And what's interesting more there is how what the movie does with those stories rather than just the standard, oh, John the Baptist, oh no, you're the Messiah. I came to pave the way for you. Or Satan, get thee behind me, Satan, stuff like that. The movie, since the movie's a lot more interested in the struggle, it's much more about like when Jesus is out there in the desert, a snake comes up to him, talks like a woman, is like, hey, you know, we could get married, have kids. He's like, mmm, no, I gotta do this for God, but thanks.

SPEAKER_06 17:02

No, hey, no, actually, that's my last temptation, not my first temptation. I think it's interesting how how the movie treats women in general. Um I was pleasantly surprised, actually. Truly, yeah, yeah, because a lot of um like pastoral teaching tends to put women in a subservient position, Mary Magdalene especially.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

But Yeah, we can get into how they turned her into a whore in the medieval times.

SPEAKER_07 17:30

Right, right. Yeah, that's how I l uh learned uh uh learned about her was that she was a whore.

SPEAKER_06 17:35

Right. And then I I think that that is kind of like the prevailing opinion, but or not opinion, but way that she's portrayed. But we're not treating these people as functioning elements of a story. We're treating them as individuals who need to learn a lesson. Right. Which is is, I think, deeply unfair to um the Bible looking at it as literature. What I do think is very interesting though is that Jesus' initial push to actually begin ministry is uh Mary Magdalene's being stoned, not the fun kind. No. Not the cool grass knife, yeah. The very uncool rock kind.

SPEAKER_07 18:18

Right. The Shirley Jackson kind.

SPEAKER_06 18:19

Yes, yeah. And um, so he's like, oh god, I need to stop this. Like, this is a woman that I care about. And that's what begins his ministry. Uh, and we he doesn't actually say it, but this is the let he without sin cast the first stone. And so if we look at it from that perspective, Mary Magdalene this entire time is kind of pushing him subconsciously, just as somebody like, oh, this is who I care about, this is somebody that I can save, as in literally saving her from being stoned to death. Right. And I think kind of getting a little bit of an adrenaline hit off of that, and people are like, oh no, we can listen to this guy. Like what he's saying is smart, he's our teacher now. Um, so being being driven by saving the downtrodden to begin with is I think a very interesting angle. It it's subtle, I think, in the movie because we don't have that spoon fed to us, but it is definitely something of note, and also just looking at women in various roles throughout the movie, which we'll we'll get to obviously as we go through it. But yeah, I've it's I I love how this movie treats women.

SPEAKER_07 19:30

You know what? Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised. I was like ready to be like, alright, yep, she is a whore, she's terrible, they don't have any place here, and that wasn't that wasn't the portrayal at all.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

It's something that it's done much more or explained much more in the book. It's there in the movie too, that Jesus thinks he has caused this to happen to her. And they expla they go back into it more in the book, how they were childhood friends, and how uh he wanted to pick her as a wife, and ever and when he had his opportunity, God sunk his claws into his head. They don't really deal with that in the movie as much. They almost more hint that they used to have a relationship.

SPEAKER_07 20:08

Yeah, that's that that was the vibe I was picking up.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

But I guess overall the point is that Jesus thinks he forced her into prostitution, and that's his like weakness that throughout the movie Satan can use against him.

SPEAKER_07 20:21

Now I've got a question about Mary Magdalene that wasn't like made very clear, um, but she had a lot of tattoos on her face. Was that like a thing of the time that like was she marked somehow that way?

SPEAKER_06 20:34

Or so that as far as these specific markings, I don't know, but it is a whole thing in Judaism like not to have tattoos. So my my best um conclusion for that is that this just marks her as a non-Jewish person. Okay. I I don't know the um historical aspect of that, but that's kind of just where your mind where my head is with it. Okay. Um and that it does kind of mark her as a an undesirable as it were. Sure, sure, sure. Sure, because she has very visible tattoos because they are on her face. Not only is she a whore, she is visibly marked. Right, right. And yeah, like I say, I don't know the historical context for that, aside from this makes it clear she's not Jewish.

SPEAKER_05 21:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 21:28

Which is probably another another interesting angle that we could, you know, talk for hours about of he has a relationship with a woman who is actively violating the laws of Judaism. Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Well, that ties into him as well. Like his village sees him as violating his oath to God, when in reality he's on this path because God beats him to struggle in order to come out the other side. Right. Um, and you can parallel Mary Magdalene in that way, like she's also going through her own struggle. And not sure if she's she's making money, she's taking care of herself, she doesn't need a husband, but maybe she isn't happy. Like there's a point in the book where she tells she's saying something to Jesus about, yeah, you have your God and I have the mud, and that's where I'm successful in the mud.

SPEAKER_07 22:16

So she so he saves uh Mary Magdalene.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Is that uh does that happen after or before he goes to see John the Baptist?

SPEAKER_06 22:24

That's before, because he has all he has his uh his boys with him to go to John the Baptist. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the posse is with him when they come across the creek or the river.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Um I think it's interesting how they portray John the Baptist, which I I've read in a couple or a couple things, I can't remember where now, but they think it might have been more like a weirdo hippie commune sort of thing. Because they play it out a lot like there's just naked people dancing in the back, and everyone looks like they're on acid. And uh I've read that they think John the Baptist was probably a little weirder than he's portrayed in the Bible, which is just the guy who came to say, Jesus is coming, just hold your horses. Was he the guy doing the shrooms? You're probably thinking of John of Patmos. Yes, supposedly.

SPEAKER_06 23:14

But yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 23:15

Honestly, non-zero chance they were both doing shrooms. Okay. Also, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's the effort, it's hot. Would you not be dancing naked on the water? Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Um it's just like when you compare it to other Jesus stories, and I haven't seen a lot of them because I've just never really the Jesus story isn't that cinematic, and everyone's afraid to make it so, except for Scorsese, apparently. So you just kind of get these stories that are too afraid to do anything, like King of Kings from the 60s.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Where like he meets John the Baptist, it's just like, oh, I'm holy, you're holy, hey, let's have a holy party.

SPEAKER_07 23:53

I was, and and again, this is probably because of my bias of my upbringing and growing up Baptist. Like when John the Baptist came on the screen, I'm like, oh, hey, here we go. Now the story's starting. And it's like, oh wait, no, this is barely a river. And there's like five people here. Okay, there's a few more in the movie.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

But it's like Well, I mean budget, they had to move the extras around.

SPEAKER_07 24:16

The you know, like John the Baptist, like growing up for for me in in in in my religion was just like he was the guy. I mean, Jesus is the guy, but John the Baptist, I mean, come on, right? He's he's the other big guy.

SPEAKER_06 24:29

Yeah, I my my upbringing was uh John the Baptist is kind of the hype man uh for Jesus, I feel like is is where is how I had him classified.

SPEAKER_07 24:41

Um Yeah, I guess like in the movie I expected that scene to be more of a spectacle, and it just wasn't.

SPEAKER_06 24:47

Right, right. And it's interesting to me, there are aspects of Judas's character that were this made as a uh devotional movie, there are things about Judas that would have actually been John the Baptist. Oh. Um because again, we have to make Judas into full-on villain, not redeemable. That's why he hangs himself, spoiler alert. Right. Um, no, no, not in this movie, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Um and only in one gospel.

SPEAKER_06 25:16

Yes. We it's easier to tell the story if you do have these black and white characters, and John the Baptist tends to be the victim of Herod because he gets beheaded. Yeah. And then that's that's how we know he's not the guy. Right. Um also canonically, uh, Jesus and John the Baptist are treated as cousins. Uh we don't get any of that in here. John the Baptist is some guy. Yeah, he's just like baptizing.

SPEAKER_07 25:42

He's just like a rando dude, and Jesus is like, hey, this is cool. Can you baptize me? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Uh well that's something um I I don't know if you've read any Bart Ariman.

SPEAKER_06 25:53

I I actually um did apply to Chattelville uh to work with him, but but it's very hard to get on to, and I didn't, so landed where I landed.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Uh he had a whole book uh about Jesus where he looked at him from like being more of an apocalyptic prophet, which would have been more like John the Baptist, like going around like the end is nigh. And he kind of talks about how there were a lot of those. Here's where my history's gonna get a little murky, but there were so many Old Testament prophets who would like, oh, Babylon's here, and now Jerusalem's under siege, and it's our fault we didn't love God enough. Um which is something I think this movie does. It keeps putting him in the position of an Old Testament preacher or a prophet. And that's sort of this idea that Jesus also may have been that, along with everybody else who was doing it. And we have just kind of wiped all those other people away because number one, they weren't that important to the people who kept records, and two, because Christians probably didn't want Jesus to have any competition.

SPEAKER_07 27:02

Yeah. So he's been baptized by John the Baptist, and now he goes on his like soliloquy out in the desert, right?

SPEAKER_04 27:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 27:10

And talks to talks to well, walkabout, I guess, maybe has a conversation with Satan.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

And I actually like that I'm sure this is due to the low budget nature of the movie, but that Satan is just a spurt of fire that's blowing in the wind. Like I think it's a really cool, weird image.

SPEAKER_06 27:28

Yeah, well, I mean, it it also because we have we have Old Testament references with the snake, the original sin, which is um, if I'm remembering correctly, not as much a thing in Greek Orthodoxy or Eastern Orthodoxy in general, but is very much a thing in Catholicism. Oh, yeah. So the idea of, hey, I'm a snake coming to you and tempting you, that is how the fall of man happens in Genesis. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 27:57

Um I mean, and I grew up with with the idea that we have uh women have uh menstrual cramps because of of Eve. Oh, yeah, well that's true, you know.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Thanks a lot, guys. I'd be in paradise right now if you didn't eat any cannabis.

SPEAKER_07 28:13

Hey, hey, hey, you are tempted to.

SPEAKER_06 28:17

I mean, you're delicious, yeah. A tree of knowledge of good and evil fruit. Yeah. But then we we have the lion, the lion of Judah, uh, and then that we do have Satan as a flame, but also why not make that a reference to the burning bush that spoke to Moses? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Well, uh they can miss budget, what do you think?

SPEAKER_06 28:46

That's true. Maybe for the sequel.

SPEAKER_07 28:48

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Bring out the burning bush. Only Mel Gibson gets to make a Jesus sequel.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Oh, Jesus. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

It's coming out this year.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

No, thank you.

SPEAKER_07 29:03

Alright, so Satan says, hey, maybe you should have babies or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

It is sort of kind of like Satan, it's actually Satan is like kind of a person in the Gospels. He's like, hey, look at all these cities, they can all be yours. And Jesus is like, whatever. I think it's interesting to have the lion come up and just sort of like as a symbol of strength and power, like, hey, you want them Romans out? Let's go get them out.

SPEAKER_06 29:29

Which is also kind of a position that Judas takes. Judas, like throughout the movie, is like, no, no, no, my um I haven't written down, my my god is fear. He is ready to pick up the forward very, very quickly. And this is kind of a lot of his um clashing with Jesus as a character, is that he's like, I know, like if we're if we're gonna fight, we have to fight. I'm not turning the other cheek. This is what we should this is what we should do. This is how we have to go about this fight fire to fire, right? As it were. Uh the Romans have swords, they have armor, they they will kill us. Easy peasy. But then that is, I think, where we where we see Jesus actually starting to accept some of this messaging from God of or from his conscience, even if you you know want to be overly Trinitarian about it of Jesus being God himself, that that he's taking this perspective of no, I have to do this by love because that's how that's how I'm recruiting people, not by the sword. Right, because that's that's when he goes on to do a bunch of miracles, right? Right, exactly. And you know, resurrecting Lazarus. Like he he does all of this with with love in mind, not with violence.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Yeah, that's uh I I like the way Scorsese deals with a lot of those scenes as being kind of weird, and like that when Jesus is like reaching into the tomb, like, I don't know what that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_06 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

And then even when Lazarus is back, you don't see him much, but when he's back, he's just sort of like, uh I guess I'm back. He seems a little out of it. It also makes me wonder how much was cut out because we're dealing with a movie that's nearly three hours. It had like the first cut must have been like five hours. Yeah, and I think there's a whole lot cut out, and they really had to like just hit some of those plot points to get where they need to go, and not be a 12-part mini-series on Netflix.

SPEAKER_06 31:36

Which that does kind of show because I so the very little production work that I've done, I've done film editing, and there are edits in there that are very sloppy. You know, not not in a way that I find it distracting if you don't have the eye for it, which I'm cursed with. There there are edits in there that it's like, oh, did you not have like 10 more seconds of this that you could show before cutting to the next scene because it feels really abrupt at times.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

I I've always wondered if that's kind of on purpose, because I always feel like the movie is kind of off-putting on purpose. Like, every time I watch it, I always feel like it's a little odd. Like, I know this is Scorsese, he's off the cocaine by now, I think. Um, but I so I wonder if that's on purpose, as he wants to keep you feeling a little weird and off-kilter, because this is a kind of weird and off-kelter story.

SPEAKER_06 32:32

I could see that perspective. I wouldn't necessarily go to bat for that perspective, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't say, fuck you, Brandon, you're wrong. I'll say that about plenty of things, but not about that.

SPEAKER_07 32:47

I you know what? I would almost, and this is just coming at it from a creator. Obviously, like I have no idea what was in Scorsezy said, and I didn't read 12 books about the making of this movie, so I don't know know this in any way, shape, or form. But I feel like as a creator, a lot of times your subconscious directs things more than you realize. And if there's a hesitation or a disjointedness here, I wonder if how much of that was how much of him being worried about how this was going to be perceived contributed to that. Because, you know, we had such a hard time getting the funding, he had such a hard time getting this movie made, he's finally getting to make this movie. You gotta think that it's in the back of his head, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna get crucified for this movie. Uh so I just wondered how much of that contributed to the lack of, I don't want to say lack of cohesion, but the lack of maybe natural storytelling in in the movie. Like I said, I could be completely off base just talking out of my ass, but I'm just talking as a as a creator, right? Right.

SPEAKER_06 33:51

No, and and I think I think that's fair. And also with this having been shot, I'm not sure how how long it took to shoot it, but with it being shot in Morocco, we also don't necessarily know how reshoots would have worked. It could have just been like, oh, well, we've got the footage we've got, and this is all we're gonna do, and we're gonna do our best with it.

SPEAKER_07 34:11

Yeah. It's not like we can reshoot shoot this in Nevada.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

So uh so where are we at now? He's uh let's see, been John the Baptist, he just got done being tempted. Oh yeah, he shows back up at uh where John the Baptist is. That's when he's like, No, you're right, I'm coming with an axe, and Judas is like, yeah, and the other disciples are like, I don't wait, what? What did you say we're not doing that? Which is also a thing from the Gospels where the disciples are up a little dumb. They're always like, uh, and depending on which one you read, because like Mark's older, so Jesus has a little more emotion in it, whereas by the time you get to John, he's like, I am the same.

SPEAKER_06 34:48

John, John is also Was John a fanboy? No, that's Paul. Paul's the like fanboy of fanboys. Oh, right. Well, that's even mentioned in the movie, but we'll get to get to that. Uh so Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the synoptic gospels. So those are the ones that are the like all the same. The synopsis. Yeah, yeah. Um the like the three of your work is really similar. Well, they all copied off each other. Right. Um, and then John knows. Uh John is a little bit uh less involved in the group project. Okay. Um, and it it's been a while since I actually sat down and read the Gospels, but generally speaking, we have the first three are the these are the stories, and then John is a little less attached to a specific narrative.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

Okay. And weirdly, a lot of the stories you know come from John, like the water and the wine, and the like I don't think it's Mary Magdalene they stone and John.

SPEAKER_06 35:44

I don't think it honestly, I don't think that it's Mary Magdalene they stone at any point. I think that's just just the movie. I could go back and read and be proven totally wrong.

SPEAKER_07 35:55

I think I have John 314 imprinted on my DNA.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

So there's a guy in the football games in the 80s where he's held in the movie.

SPEAKER_06 36:04

315. 314 is pie. Yeah, John, John 316, and Austin 316 says I looked your ass.

SPEAKER_07 36:11

So remember, so remember back at the beginning of the podcast where I said, I think I must have pushed all of this out of my head because of a pope state of like, you know, this all sucks, and I'm not doing this anymore. See?

SPEAKER_05 36:23

I think there it is. It worked, it's accomplished.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

It's few state, so you're gonna get comments on it. Whatever. She when she goes back to edit, it's gonna be I was in a few state.

SPEAKER_06 36:39

But it was. Um, one uh one more bit about the temptation. A thing that we see is that Satan disappears when he's called by name. So Jesus calls out the fire as Satan, it disappears. So I think that there's that's kind of the beginning of this. We have to get to the truth in order to defeat evil or to encounter evil. You have to acknowledge it.

SPEAKER_07 37:07

Right. Um like you have to acknowledge that it exists before you can even begin to fight it. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 37:12

Yeah, so this is it's not it's not ignoring it, it's not fighting it, it's just exposing it for what it is. Uh which I I think is interesting to put into dialogue, which we will do later, of the controversy surrounding the movie that people probably didn't see and got mad at because they were told to.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

Uh that's interesting too, because that's in Exorcism, you can only defeat the demon once you get its name.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

And that's why you like they're constantly like trying to get its name and it never wants to say it or tells you false names.

SPEAKER_07 37:45

Yeah. Alright, so are we getting to the to the nitty-gritty here?

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Is he about to be, you know, well, I mean, we still we talked about Lazarus. We've got um basically they do kind of like a speed run of the ministry. Oh. Which I think is smart because number one, this movie isn't about like you need to sit and hear all the lessons. The movie is we're dealing with Jesus as somebody struggling. We'll hit some greatest hits, you'll get the water and the wine, you'll get uh the disciples whining, you'll get uh Lazarus.

SPEAKER_06 38:15

I have my notes uh Jesus going on a healing free.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Oh, yeah, he goes to that leper colony and they'll call out the colour. Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:23

I I like thinking about this being like an 80s montage. Is this a training montage? I mean, I kind of love it. Love thinking of it as that, like, how do I gather my apostles, do some miracles, you know, shoot the shit with the boys.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Uh and there's also, I think, a really interesting scene where um the people, the zealots, actually go kill Lazarus after he's been resurrected because they don't want people following Jesus. Because, like Judas, they're like, no, no, no, we need to fight the Romans and beat them, and he's preaching love, and that's stupid. So we need to destroy any evidence that he's healing people or performing miracles.

SPEAKER_06 39:01

Which is interesting to me because I believe, or at least I have my notes anyway, unless I was just misclocking Harry Dean Stanton when he's still going by Saul instead of Paul before he converts. He's there, he's one of the people that kills Lazarus because he's like, oh yeah, no, we're gonna diminish some of this credibility, and then it turns out he finds the opportunity to be Jesus' biggest fan. Right. Once he is like, well, no, this is convenient for me. Yeah, I I have personal beef with the Apostle Paul that uh would would get me into a lot of trouble with many of the people that I grew up around. Oh. But yeah, you know, whatever, they can deal with it.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

That's uh what I we'll get to it when we get there, but that's what I like about his portrayal in Last Temptation, is because that's always kind of how I thought of Paul as someone who was like, oh, an opportunity now.

SPEAKER_06 39:55

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I there there are post-Judas' death, there are several, like the the 12th apostle who is not Judas. Um, and it I think tends to be it tends to be called Matthew, but people will go back and be like, no, no, no, Paul's Paul was purified, and that's like if Judas had chosen another path, he would have redeemed himself into being a Paul type figure. Right. That I I don't know, I honestly a lot of people don't give it that much thought. But I think I think that that's kind of like the the background idea of it we had a good person who turned bad, Judas is Gariot, so we need a bad person who turns it turns good. Again, narratively speaking, you know, as as a work of literature, that's A plus. Love it. Right, right. Love to hear it. Write all your letters, do some great shit. Um, again, I and I think you're kind of on the same page, Brandon. Like that just doesn't, that doesn't super work for me because it does track as being opportunistic.

SPEAKER_07 41:01

Oh, it came across very opportunistic in the in the film for sure.

SPEAKER_06 41:05

Yeah, and honestly, it it wouldn't if we were in a world that the controversy surrounding this were based in fact, right? I think that that's a a valid criticism from the religious perspective that really honors Paul. Right. Uh which I I will say I don't agree with, but I think is valid. Sure. Um, I think the story of Paul's very relatable to people seeking that moment of conversion.

SPEAKER_07 41:33

Well, like you're saying, especially from a from a mythology standpoint. Yeah, yeah. You almost need to have that redemptive arc for somebody.

SPEAKER_06 41:41

Religious people don't particularly like this thing called mythology, but but that is what it is. Oh, 100%. Um and that doesn't that doesn't take away any any truth or any um credibility for the lessons that we learn because I mean Jesus himself taught in parables, why would this not just be a long-form parable? Right. It's I don't know. I I think that it I think it lends credibility to the spirit of it to treat it that way. Yeah. I I would tend to agree, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

I think we even still see that today, especially with the uh like online right-wing media, like somebody like Dave Rubin who was like, Oh, I used to be a liberal and I've changed. Like, no, you you saw where the money is. Or um uh even like uh JD Vance or Rubio, or like, no, never Trump. Ooh, no, no, no, I've seen the light.

SPEAKER_06 42:33

Yeah. I to throw in a little bit of on it here, we must be careful what we pretend to be because we are what we pretend to be. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's an interesting thing to discuss with with religious people if you can find a context to do it in a way that they feel safe having that conversation. That's an entirely separate venture. Yes, that's that's the uh after hours.

SPEAKER_07 42:57

Bard boat or barred movies after hours. Yes. Uh so are we are we getting to the nitty-gritty here? Is Jesus about to be crucified?

SPEAKER_03 43:08

Uh well, yeah, we can get there. I mean, he he goes to Jerusalem. They do the goes to Jerusalem, he's mad at the money changers. Uh oh, that's right, he destroys the church first. Uh and I do think it's interesting because I don't really remember if they if this is as blatant in the Gospels, but they actually say, like, no, because you have to give us money, and we're not going to take any Roman money, so there have to be money changers. And Jesus is like, that's not what this is about. It's about coming in to be together in worship. And of all the stories in the Gospels, I kind of think like flipping over the tables and throwing a fit with the money changers might be a real one. Because that is something, especially at that time, that would get you arrested. And yeah, that's also a way a place where the movie differs from the gospels is where it's like Jesus is at. This moment where he's like, Maybe you're right. Maybe we need to go in and we need to overthrow the Romans, starting with the temple. And then that's when he hit that scene where he's standing there and he's like, God is not saying to do this. And but everyone he knows is like, Come on! Let's go!

SPEAKER_06 44:15

I'm being cheered on, so maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Oh, yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_06 44:20

I I also I find it interesting. So going back to the first crucifixion that we see in the movie, when the charges are read off, uh, we've got looting, lifting hands against Rome, and rallying people to revolution. So, like everything that this convicted person did is literally what we're watching Jesus do later, I mean, throughout the movie, but specifically in that one scene. Right. Jesus is doing all of those things. That part, I believe, is in the gospel where he holds up the coin and says, Render under Caesar that which is Caesar's, render under God that which is God's. I think that that's really cool because if we go back to Genesis being made in God's image, that's a very like, oh, render you are the image of God, render yourself to God. Right. Um, I think that that's a that's a cool like spiritual bit of it uh that I I wish were teased out a little bit more. Right. Um I I wish that we got Jesus preaching and saying that. That would have been that would have been a highlight of a movie for sure.

SPEAKER_07 45:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

Uh yeah, well, it's one of those, uh he's got a few of those things where it's like, come on, guys, money. Uh what are we doing? Yeah, which is all those things people now are like, no, no, no, no. You he meant a I had a needle's a gate. That's it. It's a gate at Jerusalem. Like, no, it's not, it's very, very clear what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_06 45:40

Yeah, yeah. It's it's simultaneously like, no, no, no, this part is a metaphor, but the you shouldn't be gay part is for real. It's cherry-picking. Oh, that's 100%. You know, translations on translations, it it is hard not to have some um personal opinion uh lodged into that because how you choose to translate something is necessarily going to do that. Listen, I grew up on the King James Version. Okay, so you don't have to tell me about translations.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

Translation of a translation of a translation.

SPEAKER_06 46:14

Personally, I like the uh the misprint of the King James Version that not many of them exist anymore, but they say thou shalt commit adultery. Oh yeah, yeah. So I heard about that one. Ookie Doodle, huge fan of that one.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Yeah, it's someone I haven't like translated all of the Gospels, and I don't really know ancient Greek, but I took some in college and translated parts. And especially in the New Testament, pretty accurate. The tone's all wrong because they try to make it sound like one person wrote every book. Oh. But other than that, like language-wise, it's fairly accurate.

SPEAKER_06 46:50

Any historical writing from that time, the attribution was less important because this was being written for posterity, not for financial gain. So, like, there's there's not copyright law in regard to all of these stories. They're being written and translated and told you know by mouth and everything. So, yeah, like these stories are going to change. The general message, though, overall, is roughly the same. I can comfortably say is is the same.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

Um, yeah, I think it's even the beginning of a Luke. The guy who's writing is like talking to the person he's writing it for, like, yeah, I read a bunch of these, and here's what I think happens.

SPEAKER_05 47:32

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

And then he writes Luke, which is uh the most elaborate of the synoptics, but fairly accurate to the story.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Alright.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

It's not like he takes giant liberties. Anyway, that's not the movie.

SPEAKER_07 47:47

The movie is an angel comes to Jesus when he's on the cross. We're not there yet. Oh wait, we're we're not we're not there yet? We'll have to talk about David Bowie and Fonchaphila. Oh my god! I for I totally skipped over. A plus haircut.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 48:03

I totally skipped over David Bowie.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

I also want to point out that he is arrested by the Romans, which is not how it goes in the Gospels. He's arrested by the Jews who put him on trial, sentenced him to death. And then hey, they have to go to the Romans, like, we want him dead. And the Romans are like, whatever. Okay, sure. Alright, we'll put him on trial, I guess. So yeah, and I think in the same way we're talking about how they kind of speedrun the ministry, they speedrun the passion, too. It's just like one scene with Pontius Pilate where he's like, look, man, yeah, I don't know, I don't want to do this, but I guess I have to. Right.

SPEAKER_06 48:37

Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, Pontius Pilate is a political figure, you know. And if you're not if you're not behaving in a way that satisfies the Roman Empire and your people, you are stuck in the middle of a very shitty Oreo of, yeah, no, you want to hold on to your power because your power is your security, uh, both as a person, as a um, you know, where where you live, how you live, everything. So uh he's just kind of at a at a spot where he's like, uh, okay, well, this is what the people want, so I guess I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Uh little historical thing too, um, which uh the movie doesn't quite go into, but the year before there was a Jewish uprising on Passover, and that got the old uh um not Roman Council, uh, what's Pilate?

SPEAKER_06 49:28

He's like a governor, I forget like what his what his actual title is, but it is equivalent to a governor show.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

So that got the old governor fired, and that's why Pilate's fired. So Pilate's like, you know what, I'm not getting fired over this. You guys want him dead, he's dead. Like you said, he's a political guy.

SPEAKER_06 49:46

Yeah, we'll we'll we'll let the one guy go and we'll crucify Jesus instead. I don't know why they can't build another cross, and that scene it looked like they had plenty of them.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

So this gets us to basically the crux of the movie and why everyone's so very, very mad about it.

SPEAKER_07 50:02

Hey, you know what? After having watched it, I'm like, I mean, I guess I understand why you're mad, but I don't really understand why you're mad, but alright, let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

So uh Jesus gets crucified, and while he's on the cross, all the sound goes away. And there's a little girl who's like, hey, I'm your guardian angel. You've done it. You've done everything you needed to do. God sent me here, it's time to bring you down, and you can live out the rest of your life. And Jesus is like, oh, that seems weird, but okay. And then he he hooks up with Mary Magdalene, she dies, he goes, and we didn't really talk about these ladies, but they're also from the Gospel of John, the ones who wash his feet. He winds up going back to them, he gets married to one of them, they have a family, he lives out his life as a man, which is the one thing he's always wanted. We kinda, we kinda, yeah, I think you skipped over Jesus voting. Well, I said hooked up Mary Macklem. Uh you don't see it, but it is very heavily implied.

SPEAKER_06 51:03

You were you were, I mean, he ends up with what, three, four children?

SPEAKER_03 51:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

So he bangs. Jesus fucks. And this all leads to him kind of laying there like, I'm ill, my family's all around me, and the disciples show up. And Judas is like, you motherfucker. We followed you, and you went on that cross, and you're here, you're hiding, you bitch. And Peter's like, oh, hey guy, uh I missed you all this time.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Hey, buddy!

SPEAKER_03 51:32

Uh don't think about those times I denied you. That didn't know, don't worry about it. And that coincides with the final Roman destruction of Jerusalem in like, what, 79 AD or something like that?

SPEAKER_06 51:43

That sounds right.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

Where they're like, you know what? We're sick of this. We're gonna come down, we're gonna destroy everything, and we're kicking you out of this area of the world, which starts the Jewish diaspora. And it's Jesus walking around uh seeing everything on fire, and he realizes he didn't want any of this, he made a mistake, and there he is back on the cross. None of that ever happened. People who are mad about the movie, none of it ever happened. It was a dream sequence. And he beats the temptation. And that's actually, I think, one of the more haunting things in the movie is that when he's back there on the cross, dying in one of the most painful ways possible, he smiles.

SPEAKER_07 52:23

And he and he says, What it's a it's accomplished. It is accomplished, yeah. It is accomplished.

SPEAKER_06 52:28

Generally, I every every translation that I've read, the uh the phrasing is it is finished. I I like the change to it is accomplished, it puts it in the light of being labor.

SPEAKER_07 52:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:41

Uh and to uh just an an end.

SPEAKER_07 52:45

As just to a po as opposed to just something that he's done. It's like, no, like I had the struggle and I had to do all of this. It's like, okay, yes, I've accomplished this.

SPEAKER_06 52:54

Yeah, yeah. The transformative nature of that suffering, I think, is I think that a lot of people that do find this blasphemous or controversial, I think would would do well to actually consider that. You know, it's it's less of a if I think about a movie like The Passion, it's about the physical suffering rather than the emotional and mental and psychological suffering. And I think that actually getting to see that just makes Jesus a more multi-dimensional figure, uh, which personally I really like. I think that any anything, especially if you are coming at this from a religious perspective, if you're trying to recruit people to your religion by making the main figure in it relatable, I think that you want that. Oh, absolutely. But apparently some people don't.

SPEAKER_07 53:50

Yeah, I guess I guess that's why I keep coming back to like I don't understand why this movie is so controversial.

SPEAKER_03 53:55

I mean, I understand that it's because, yeah, we see Jesus being married and having kids and which he probably would have in real life, because a real life single person at that time who's 30 years old and not married would be looked on as a real weirdo.

SPEAKER_07 54:10

It's like, okay, yeah. I mean, Jesus is a son of God, but he's also a human. So of course he's going to have doubts. Of course he's going to be tempted, of course he's going to be angry that he has to do these things that he's been tasked to do to save humanity. Like, listen, if you or I or anybody else here on this planet today, if we got spoken to by God and said, hey, you have to do these hundred things in order to save everybody on the planet, you will likely ultimately do it, but you're gonna be pretty pissed about it.

SPEAKER_06 54:44

And be like, bro, really a hundred.

SPEAKER_07 54:46

Really? Really? Yeah, can we can we negotiate? Yeah. Or can I just have free will and just fucking live my life? Yeah. Like everybody else gets to. No, it has to be me, it has to be me. Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 54:57

And and I I feel like we see that off and on throughout the movie because we definitely see at the beginning where he's struggling of like, no, like maybe not me. Like maybe I can wait this out. Yeah. Um, but then when we do get to the crucifixion and do get to his either dream sequence or maybe he actually does it, and then God magics him back to the cross, all of his wounds from the crucifixion are still there. They are healed by human hands, not by God. Right. Um, Mary Magdalene dies, and Jesus, like I don't even remember who it is that says that says it to him, but you know, you can't you can't complain when God lets her die but lets you live. You know, that there is going to be an inevitability of suffering. You know, you either live to an old age and all of your friends die around you, or you die at 33 and never have to deal with that. Right. Um yeah, and then and the fact that we do see Paul preaching as though Jesus did die and was resurrected, um, it has been a theme throughout the movie that it is truth that sets you free, like I mentioned with the um, you know, calling out Satan by name and then it it he goes away. Whatever goes away. You know, that you do have to confront these things head on. And Jesus having to look at Paul and saying, like, no, you're not telling the right story. And Paul's like, well, it's not very inspirational if you come down from the cross now, is it? No, this is a story I'm telling. I I remember the line, I wrote it down, but it's one if if I have to kill you to make this work, I'll do it, and if I have to bring you back, I'll do that too. Which is is interesting again because it does show a more opportunistic pull of no, no, no, I want this to be the story. Yeah, I'm controlling the narrative because you can't control it anymore. Right. You're dead. You're gone. You are either dead on the cross or you flaked on your duties, and where's the inspiration in that? Right. It makes it not a good story, um, which again kind of contributes to my personal Paul feelings. Right. Yeah, Paul's a bit of a grifter. Yeah. Yeah, I have in my notes Paul's bitch ass. Which again, I plenty of plenty of people will be very unhappy at that phrasing, but I'm unhappy about Paul, so.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

What are your thoughts on Paul? Yeah, my favorite. I don't remember now. I used to kind of know which uh, because all of the letters in the New Testament are ascribed to Paul, but it's pretty clear he didn't write all of them. Right. People were trying to like ape his style. He uh, yeah, he is. He um there's a scene in Acts where he's out preaching something, and Peter and James are like, what the hell, dude? And they send people out to be like, knock it off. And Paul's like, no. Paul's the one who starts converting Romans and they're like, What are you doing? Which is also interesting because that's something Jesus talks about in the movie and much more in the book, uh, where we're all brothers and they're all like, even the Romans? What the hell's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_06 58:17

Yes, even the Romans. That's that's kind of the point. It's really easy to love people that you are already cool with. It's a lot harder to love people that you are not cool with. Yeah. Um, and what do you think I'm trying to teach you?

SPEAKER_07 58:29

Well, and look at what we're what we're dealing with today, right? Yeah. Like, hey, if you're if you're white and evangelical, you're cool. I guess if you're anything else, then you're not. Yeah, no, no hate like Christian love. No hate like Christian love. All right, so let's talk a little bit about kind of the controversy about the movie. And obviously we've touched on it, right? Whereas like controversial because of that last that last temptation, like the title of the movie, it's why everyone's losing their shit. I want to talk a little bit about kind of the reception at the time. Obviously, it was banned in a lot of places, and which is why we're doing the podcast to begin with. I asked unpaid research assistant John to pull us up some research about this. So the movie was banned in New Orleans, which I find at first surprising, but then I'm like, oh wait, no, New Orleans is a pretty Catholic city. So that kind of makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Also, New Orleans is surrounded by some of the reddest red you're ever gonna have.

SPEAKER_07 59:25

Right, right. New Orleans, Oklahoma City, uh, Savannah, as well as several counties in Florida. Uh, Scorsese actually received death threats and used bodyguards for a few years after the movie's release.

SPEAKER_03 59:38

Um that's uh something in um Ebert. He wrote a review and an essay about Last Temptation, and then both of them sort of mentioned that even my review didn't review the movie, it was more about the controversy. So years later, I think you said about 20 years later, he went back and rewrote a review, which also just talks about the controversy for the most part.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:00

Right. But also in that second, like that revisit review, he talks about how he went to go see Scorsese, and well, he talks about A, in the first review, how he had to go see it, he saw it alone, he couldn't tell anybody what movie he was seeing, you know, it was like this whole like cloak and dagger thing for him to even get to see the movie to review it. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. I don't I guess I don't remember that much of the controversy, but in 88, 89, I would have been a f uh eighth grade freshman year in high school. In being kind of in a fairly religious area, it could have been just like just not on our radar radar. Like, I'm not even sure it would have gone to like Jerseyville or something, right? Like I'm it may not have been in any theater near me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Oh yeah, that decision might have been made long before it ever got to small towns.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:47

Oh yeah. Yeah, and also I mean I don't I don't know the way the theater system worked at the time, but if we're talking about um corporate theaters versus independent theaters, all that it takes is one chain to say, no, we're not gonna show the assumes right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

Which at least one did. Right, yeah. Oh, I just real quick, uh, wanted to throw in that I do remember the controversy. Oh, do you I remember it being a really big deal, and I remember telling my mom, like, yeah, well, they should have done that. Apparently, Jesus has sex, and she's like, why can't they do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

Well, it's wrong. Why is it wrong? Well, shut up, mom.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:24

I uh I I don't remember the controversy because I was negative one year old when this movie came out.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:30

Because you were a child. I am a child.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

Yeah, I would uh I would have just gonna start in sixth grade, something like that.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:38

In seventh or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Right, 88, December between 88, going into seventh grade, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:42

Yeah, okay. Um I I can say uh that because of this being like late 80s, we are right at the point of the religious right having a massive amount of political power in the U.S. Like we're right at the end of the Reagan administration.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:58

Well, we're right at the end of like uh Setanic Panic with DD.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

Well, I wouldn't say end, I'd say full swing.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:05

Well, and we're right there with uh Tipper Gore. Like censoring all the rap music.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:11

Yeah, this this is a a very I mean we're at about 40 years ago at this point, but this is going to be a time in history that I feel like is going to look like a turning point. Oh, 100%, absolutely and not in the good way of the country. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:33

Oh, I I don't disagree, and I I obviously we're still feeling feeling the repercussions or the reverberations, I think, is maybe a better way to say it, like today, uh with the religious right. It was so controversial that Blockbuster Video refused to carry it. The Bravo channel refused to air it on cable, which I found fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:54

Weren't they going to and then they yanked it because uh they got a bunch of they got a bunch of angry letters again from unpaid research assistant to John uh in the town of Welland in Ontario, Canada.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:07

One area blockbuster video ordered a copy of the movie after its release on video in June, on June 29th, 1989. In a lengthy article about that order, several local clergy condemned the movie. One assistant priest, not even the main guy, the assistant priest, Father Andy Goodwin, said the life of Christ is sacred and holy and not something to be tampered with in a secular way. Cool story, bro. Yeah, you can't tell stories I don't approve of. Uh the Sunday edition of the news press in Fort Myers, Florida, offered readers a full page of letters to the editor regarding the movie. Some letter writers found the movie detestable, and their letters include lines such as The Last Temptation of Christ degenerates my God, while others ask, what is so terrible about remembering that Jesus Christ was a human being with human feelings? The Pensacola News Journal also published a full page of the letters to the editor, with several writers thanking county commissioners for banning the movie, while other residents vowed to see the film because it was banned. Which is really what happens. The minute you fucking ban something, you're gonna push people to the theater. Like, what are you doing? The straysand effect. Yeah, the Epstein Files effect. Well, it's it's anything. Like ban a book, okay. Like back whenever I was still like writing novels, I'm like, yes, please ban my book. Please.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:30

It's a very like Nathan Fielder marketing technique of let me let me make something that at least people are talking about. Because if they're talking about it, they'll consume it. If they consume it, I'll make money. Exactly. And I mean, we've we see this now with a bunch of alt-right. Sure. Trying to be like controversial on purpose. Yeah, exactly. Like, I don't I this is prime for cutting, but if you guys haven't seen the Manasure documentary, oh, oh, it's on my list. It's on my list. I love Louis Thoreau. He did my favorite Western Baptist documentary. Oh, I didn't see that one either. It's good, it's good. He's he's very good at interviewing people, and this um you can see him start to break as like, oh, oh, this is the hardest, like, this is the most difficult interview I've ever had to do because they are turning me into content. Oh it's it's it's an it's an easy watch, highly recommended.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:29

Alright, alright, definitely. Yeah. Critics overall seem to like it, while some seem to find it overlong or that it pulled its punches. Others found it to be an epic worthy of the subject matter. Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars and said the movie paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and later included the film in his list of great American movies. It's interesting that it's still banned in a lot of places. Greece, South Africa, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina banned it back then or censored the movie for several years out of its release. The city of Sao Paulo in Brazil banned it during the administration of then Mayor Hanio Quandros. I'm sorry if I butchered that name. And continues, and it continues to be banned in the Philippines and Singapore. As recently as 2020, Singapore's government demanded its removal from Singapore's Netflix lineup. The general consensus for these bands tend to be blanket, just a blanket blasphemy. It's just blasphemous and we we're not going to see it. I just find it fascinating that a movie 20 years, 30 years after release is still like, no, you can't fucking see that movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

You should look into the video nasties in England in the 80s.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:49

Oh, where are the video nasties? Basically horror movies England didn't like, and they were banned for decades.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:57

Actually, the uh list when we were initially thinking about doing this podcast and developing it, my initial research is just this massive list of movies that are banned in various countries, and so many of them just still ban Chaplin. I'm gonna ask the question that I'm going to ask for every episode of the series: should Last Temptation of the Christ be banned? I say I vote no. I'm always going to vote no, but I vote no.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:27

Uh no, it shouldn't be banned. Um, it's only being banned because a certain group of people don't want to think.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:34

Well, it's it's it's the not the thinking, but also it's like they're so threatened by the idea that somebody else has got valid ideas of who Jesus Christ was and who Jesus Christ, how he lived, how he died, who he was, what he represents to people. You know, and I think anybody who grew up in even tangentially Christian has a relationship with Jesus in some way, shape, or form. Even if that religion, even if that relationship is like, I don't think he exists, that's still a relationship. I really push back against the idea that there's only one idea of it of Jesus that we all have to subscribe to because that negates my relationship with him and I don't like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:20

Yeah, I'm I'm also team no, unless it's being banned for the fact that Harvey Kaitel sucks in it, and I like Harvey Kaitel too much to and I like Judas too much for this to be the path. But no, I there's I understand the perspective of I don't like faith being questioned or pulled too much into humanity, but I also again the the religion that I grew up with and the values from that that I still hold outside of any supernatural belief in anything, I think it's more blasphemous to ban it and say, no, there's no we don't want to perceive the humanity of Jesus Christ as a person. We only want to see divinity because the entire point of God sent his son to die for humanity is that his son was a human. Yeah. And oh, I totally agree. Yeah, and and I think that making making Christ too much of a deity gives a detachment from everything good that religion can do. Um I'm I'm not somebody to ever say, like, yeah, religion's bad, it's done all these bad things because guess what? So has money. Yeah. Uh so I dare you. Um yeah, I I I understand the controversy, but again, banning it just makes it seem like, ooh, this is forbidden knowledge. Right. I must go see it. You know, I I think that it's better to, when when good faith arguments are made for treating Christ as a human and for understanding the human side of his life, I think it's better to embrace everything that that may include even the parts that we don't like. Um, and I I think that it's better PR for religion to say, like, yeah, we don't we don't agree with this, but we have a lot of examples of a human struggles, they fail in some way, and then they are redeemed by their faith. Right. And that's what the story tells us. Oh yeah, that's yeah, every single retelling of the story of Job is is that uh that your faith is eventually rewarded, and I think you can't have that reward without that initial struggle. It just needs to be, yeah, you you have to watch the whole thing and let's engage with it. Yeah. Rather than, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:16

I would tend to agree. I mean, I I tend to look at the Bible in general as I look at it from the mythology standpoint or like the literature standpoint, and that's just good storytelling. Like if he is like the son of God and is going to like save everybody, he's gotta struggle, or else what's the fucking point? Right, yeah. That's that's just how stories work.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:40

Yeah, and it's I again I get it. I just think that it's an overly orthodox view that none of this exploration should ever happen. Uh and I don't I I'm not I'm not in favor of diminishing human creativity. And this is human creativity. And if if anybody actually wants to believe that we were given minds and souls and hearts and bodies to create, then why are we denying well and if well, and if we believe that God gave us free will? Yeah, but a lot of them don't, that's okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:22

Fair, yeah, fair, fair. I tend to fall on that side if I'm not being straight up agnostic. Yeah. Like, well, no, we have free will for a reason. We get to make our choices and we hope to make good choices.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:37

Or are people are people like pitching this as um I'm I'm tempted to falter in my religion because I watch this, or this is just bringing to the surface things that I was already questioning.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:52

Um Right. Or is it, or is it, oh, we you shouldn't watch this. It's not just that I'm not gonna watch it, like nobody should watch it. Right. Like we should not, like, this conversation shouldn't even be taking place. That should not even exist, or whatever. And for me, like in terms of like censorship and band movies and and banned books, that's that's the argument that always just pisses me off. Like, no, fuck you. I get to think what I want to think, and I get to read what I want to read and take take away what I get to take away from that. You don't get to determine that for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:25

Right, yeah, and and I I also knowing members of clergy that have had sincere struggles with faith, I think that that's a more common thing than people, people in general and people of the cloth want to admit, because it's I mean, that's your career at a point, you know, and you can it's your calling. Right, right. And you can and you can tell this inspirational story of, oh, here's how I returned to my faith, or here's how I saw the light, my moment on the road to Damascus, as Paul. But, you know, it doesn't that doesn't pitch faith as an active struggle, which I think is actually more sincere and more of what it is. I think that's more what belief in general is. Oh, yeah. Uh that it's a that it's an ongoing process, not a one moment saw the light.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:23

One of my this is going to sound out of left field, and it is a little bit, but one of my favorite lines in the movie Independence Day is with uh Judd Hirsch, and I forget his character's name, but they're in the thick of it and they're like in the bunker and whatever, and he tells Jeff Goldboom, I haven't spoken to God since your mother died. And for him to, for you know, these two Jewish people who are so robust in their faith, for his dad to say that to him, like, you haven't spoken to God since mom died, that's a big fucking deal. Yeah, and it's a big thing for somebody to say, like, hey, you know what, I've questioned my faith. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that we should be able to talk about that. And I think this movie can open up that doorway to having that conversation, and maybe that's what scares people so much.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:11

Especially if people believe that their eternal soul hinges on faith. Which it which is interesting because that is very much a thing in like post-1920s, 1930s American Christianity, that fundamentalism aspect of no, no, no, if you if you die while you're questioning, you're going to hell.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:36

That actually, there was a a soundbite or a quote that I kind of skipped over, but it was a Catholic priest who who was against the movie, and she said it she called the movie a Holocaust movie that has the power to destroy souls eternally. So that's I think that's kind of what you're getting at. Where like, hey, if you're if you watch this movie and it causes you to question your faith and you die, now you're going to hell.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:02

Which, which, like from a Catholic perspective, I'm I'm not Catholic, I didn't grow up Catholic, so can't super say this 100%. Purgatory exists for those guys. Like, you're not necessarily going straight to hell and there forever. Right. Um, I I also the role that religion played in my life growing up was cool. It truly was. Like, we're building a community around this one like component of our lives, but we are here for each other. Like okay. We're we're cooking food for somebody when someone dies, we are great. I grew up in a very like mutual aid focused environment. Um, like an actual Christian environment, right? Yeah, yeah. And that, I mean, granted, we didn't use the that terminology for it, but looking back at it, that's what it was. But if you are viewing faith as a strictly hierarchical thing, as I think a lot of people do, number one, that's a lot easier than having to show up for your community. Right. Um, you know, yeah, like I I get why people have that perspective on it at the same time. Just go one step further. Yeah. Go one step further and and accept that there's going to be questioning of your faith, which is based on things that you cannot see.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:27

That's sort of where I was coming from with like they don't want to think because they don't. You're gonna say something I'll have to that's gonna challenge me, and I don't want that. Jesus died, so I don't have to try. Which is kind of the that like modern idea, like I've accepted Jesus, I can continue to be an asshole now. This is this is a movie all about like, no, it's a constant struggle until you die.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:51

And it's not that's not just the only part they don't like, they don't like that. Jesus is portrayed as anything other than the white guy holding a sheep. So I think a lot of the um it's like the Ebert thing. He talked about how he's like, okay, fine. I talked to this religious guy, and he's like, okay, maybe it is blasphemous. But playing right next to it is Friday the 13th, part six. Uh and that's gonna make a bazillion dollars. So you're telling me we have to get rid of all blasphemous movies?

SPEAKER_07 1:18:21

Right. Well, and then what's a okay, let's define blasphemy. Or, you know, like, do we just ban everything? Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:29

The blasphemy as referred to, and again, we can we can look at everything else that was happening at the time, like, oh, this is irreligious, but it's not pulling themes and characters from a religious text. It's true, yeah. Like, but Friday the 13th isn't isn't based on this is allegedly not based on the gospels, but we've we've all seen it. We come on, get real. Yeah. You know, Friday the 13th isn't taking this pre-existing canonized, uh revered text and turning it upside down, which is what this is doing. Actually, I think a better allegory would probably be The Exorcist.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:09

Uh I was gonna bring that up. Um well I just read Friday the 13th because that's what Ebert did. Sure, sure. Well, that was being shown at the time. Yeah, his point was just more every movie out there is saying something that's anti-Christian, and you have picked this one because it's about Jesus, not the one where there's an unstoppable killing machine slaughtering teenagers. Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:32

Which is funny because then you could you could turn that around and say, well, no, actually, Friday the 13th is a pro-religious text because if you are a sinful teenager, the the devil, the guy who came out of the fire, you know who, is gonna getcha.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:52

Um yeah, it's a sin factor. Right, yeah. So it's uh You drink, you smoke, you fuck, you're dying. Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:59

But but again, these are pretty classic stories of you do a wrong thing and you're punished for it. I almost would would argue that perhaps the the more sincere part of the controversy is that Jesus did have the the opt-out moment and did have the opt-out either vision or reality. I think that's up to interpretation, of no, no, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna get down, I'm gonna live a life. And then if I wanna if I wanna tap out of that life and go back on the cross, I can do that. Right. So I I wonder, and again, I don't want to give anybody this much credit for it, but it's almost like, oh no, you can you can give in to the devil or to any temptation, but you can tap out and go back and do your suffering later. I'm not, I am absolutely not giving anybody the credit for actually believing that in the moment. But you know, if I if I wanted to devil's advocate this and say, no, no, no, this is bad for Christianity, that would be the angle that I would take. Would would be no no no, it's it's too easy to choose your suffering.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:17

Yeah, you know what? I I think I would probably agree with that take. Like if I were, I'm not mad about this movie at all, right? But if I were to be mad, it would probably be, and you know, I think that's is that more of a Catholicism stance, or I don't even know, but but I understand exactly where you're coming from, where it's like, no, no, no, you don't get to pick how you suffer. Right. Like you just have to suffer.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:40

It's it's a um, I don't know who or how the term cheap grace got coined, but it's the idea of, well, I'll convert on my deathbed, I'm gonna have fun. Oh, sure. Right. Um, and there's a little bit of that in uh St. Augustine's Confessions of uh Lord make me pure, but not yet. Like, no, I'm I'm still having fun. I'll get around to it. Um and yeah, you don't get to do that. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I don't know. I could I could see that argument being made, but I've never seen that argument made for this movie. No, nor have I. I'm not I'm not giving anybody credit except for myself for that.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:20

I actually, you know, I think I think that's a better if like you're gonna be mad about this movie, be mad at that. I think that's a genuine take on faith and what it means to have faith and what it means to live a life that a Christ-like life.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:36

I can I can also see some controversy of uh Judas isn't bad enough, Mary Magdalene's not bad enough, because if we are trying to paint these people as pure evil. I I you know, I actually appreciate that the movie doesn't. No, I do I do too, but like if I were if I were arguing from the perspective of a deeply religious person who found this event. Oh, sure. Like, yeah, Mary Magdalene's not like a horror now. Jude Judas is Judas Judas gets to live to old age. Right. Um and doesn't doesn't suffer. Peter also denies Jesus that's a thing in the Last Supper. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:16

But um, you know, he totally gets away with it. He doesn't have to hang himself.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:20

Well, you know, it's a it's the opposite of you ain't first, you're last. If you ain't last, you're first. Yeah. So Judas, Judas is last, everybody else is first. There you go. You just need somebody doing it a little bit worse, and you're fine.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:35

I think that feels like a wonderful sentiment to end on. Excellent. Well, you know what, Riley, thank you so much for joining us today. I love this conversation. I loved having you be a part of it. I was so happy to watch this movie, even if I threatened to fall asleep during it.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:51

I'm happy to have been here. This is great. I like I say haven't engaged with this movie in over 15 years, which feels wild to even say out loud. But um it's good to see it again, and it's good to I very much feel like you should watch movies about every 10 years. Um because it changes. It changes as you age and learn and well, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:15

I mean, we've had this conversation before, right? Where the art doesn't change, you change. Right, exactly. And so whenever you view the art again, you're like, oh wait, you pick up different things and you have more life experience, or you're coming at things from a different angle. Yeah, it's absolutely important to revisit movies.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:31

Yeah, it was it was interesting going back and reading through all the notes that I took on this the first uh hundred times that I saw it, lived and breathed it, and see what I commented on similarly and what I commented on totally differently, and what I missed the first time, and what I got, what I missed this time. Yeah, yeah. All of it. Um, so yeah, it's a it's a rewarding text with which to engage.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:02

It's almost a movie I find that is more interesting, like we're doing right now, to sit around and talk about sometimes than to sit-through.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:10

Absolutely. I've I've absolutely loved our conversation. Would I watch this movie again? Not for another 10 years.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:16

I think it's uh I do think it's a good movie, but I'm always like watching it going, uh, we can get there, guys. Uh and then uh a week later, I'm like, man, remember that scene? Like, oh, it's it is that good.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:31

Uh I want to thank all of our listeners out there for hanging out. Uh, make sure to pet check out our Patreon page. Subscribers get a sneak peek at our lineup and can listen to the podcast before the rest of the peons can. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And hey, tell your friends about us, why don't you? This is Kelly Swales. Right, oh. And you've been listening to Bard movies. Catch you next time.