My Favorite Movies: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

Martin Scorsese took an approach to the mindset of Jesus Christ that few other filmmakers have dared: to examine the most famous, and yet oddly illusive, person in all of human history, a man that we have been taught from childhood was both God and man and examine how Jesus must have felt about his mission, his destiny and his doubts about what God is asking him to do.

Based on the equally controversial (and practically unreadable) 1953 novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, the story deals with Jesus duality by focusing first on his humanity. Played in a brilliant performance by Willem DeFoe, Jesus is seen as a man with very human flaws, a man who is caught up in a hornet’s nest of emotional turmoil over the enormity of God’s calling and the mission for the human race that is placed before him. Did he have doubts and fears? What was going on inside his soul? If he wore the flesh of humankind, then isn’t it also possible that may have been susceptible to the same temptations as everyone else? Its a consideration, not a history lesson. That’s important.

I’ve seen dozens of films about the life of Jesus and what sets this one apart is the manner in which is considers this person of Jesus not a religious postcard, but as a human being that we ourselves can relate to. Is it blasphemous? Technically, yes. But in finding a humanity within Jesus we are asked to consider the idea – the idea – that perhaps he was just as susceptible to doubt and fear as we are. In the end, on the cross, he is offered the chance to save his own neck and if we are to consider him on human terms we might consider that this may have been on his mind all along.