Film version of the musical stage play, presenting the last few weeks of Christ's life told in an anachronistic manner.
Director: Norman Jewison
Stars: Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, Yvonne Elliman.
Robert Iscove ... choreographer (as Rob Iscove)
~25 songs in the Soundtracks, all
Andrew Lloyd Webber ... music by / orchestrator
Tim Rice ... lyricist
Watched out of sequence because I couldn't find it free online, and Jewison talked some about it during the Fiddler c.track; disc arrived recently.
Rock opera, all sung, not spoken. Rock voices from TN (as JC) who gets screechy and a couple of priests. Mary, Judas, Herod all have at least 1 foot in B'way style singing.
The lyrics are anachronistic, so the filmmaker doubled down on that multifold. We get Roman soldiers in purple tank tops and camouflage cargo pants and army boots, oozies, jets and tanks, singers (pretending to be reporters?) holding invisible microphones up to JC's mouth.
And yet they filmed on location in Israel. According to the c.track, one shoot was at the ruins of the palace of Herod. One of Judas' lyrics questioned why JC didn't come to earth during a time of mass communications, so they couldn't set it anywhere but ancient times.
I listened with subdued volume (late pm/early am), but the score was not lush. Mary's best song was at least partially a cappella. Sometimes the dominant instrument sounded like an upright rehearsal piano. I might have had the original album (not the movie soundtrack) on vinyl; I think I attended a performance at the Universal Amphitheatre; TN mentions doing this engagement during the c.track. I don't think they would have had large screens showing the stage; I remember the experience as unsatisfactory.
I feel the same with this. Although you can see faces just fine, this feels remote. I know it's partly the sound. It feels like an Italian film where they dub the voices after filming. Here it was all lip-synced to playback. That doesn't bother me in other musicals, maybe because those also have spoken dialog that's recorded on set. Here everything was outdoors, yet I don't remember any sound of wind or footsteps. Something is wrong.
So far as the telling of the story, my favorite rendition remains The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Scorsese, 8), which is not a musical.
This might be my first time seeing the film.
I liked the featurette interviewing Tim Rice. The c.track was dir. Jewison & star Neeley; NJ stepped on TN's comments more than once.
Universal, dir. Jewison; 6
