Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

Jesus Christ Superstar is the musical retelling of the last week in the life of Jesus Christ. The film version takes some interesting approaches to call attention to the theatrical roots of the production, including locating the action in some ruins in the Israeli desert. A busload of what appear to be hippies stage the musical among the ruins and caves and scaffolding, even putting on costumes during the opening sequence to cover up their modern clothing. The focus of the plot is Judas’s betrayal of Christ and all of the key moments that follow such as the Last Supper (beautifully rendered in a tableaux) and Jesus’s night of self-doubt and questioning of his fate (perhaps the best part of Ted Neeley’s title performance). Judas is spectacularly and energetically played by Carl Anderson, and having his character being the center of the narrative is a wise choice given the comparatively stiff acting of Neeley as Jesus. However, the best performance is perhaps Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene. Her rendition of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” is beautifully sung and stunningly shot as well; it’s as if the filmmakers’ knew that the song and the singer would stop the show. I do wonder, after watching Elliman here, why she didn’t a longer and more successful career. Overall, the film is very much a product of its time. When Christ cleans out the temple of its bad influences, for example, there are images referring to drug paraphernalia, the whole drug culture, and even (obliquely) the Vietnam War. Jesus himself would look perfectly at home on a surfboard with his long, dirty blond hair and piercing blue eyes. And during the performance of the title song, Anderson’s Judas wears fringe that would rival the outfit worn by the Who’s Roger Daltry at Woodstock. The film also has quite a few homoerotic undertones. The disciples, honestly, are all pretty hot, and the pharoses and priests appear bare chested with crisscrossing black chest plates that wouldn’t look at all out of place in a leather bar. Herod’s number taunting the captive Jesus (“Try It and See”) is quite campy with its colorful wigs and makeup. It’s probably supposed to suggest Herod’s decadence, but it does come off as quite queer (and overtly anti-Semitic). The cinematography of the film is especially noteworthy, making effective use of the Middle Eastern setting, and the occasional freeze frames during the choreography and the consistent transitions of fading to black are effective. While this film (like almost any film dealing with Biblical matters) raises questions about its faithfulness (yes, I did use that word intentionally) to the text, as a film itself, Jesus Christ Superstar serves best as a time capsule of the period in which it was created and the theatrical traditions out of which it was borne rather than as a sacred text.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song Score and/or Adaptation