George Steven's worked years on this film about Christ, only to see it rejected by the public and damned by the critics as boring. With the exception of Max Von Sydow as Christ who was virtually an unknown actor to American audiences, he cast well known Hollywood performers in most of the other roles. This caused the critics to further complain that these actors distracted from the story.
A big problem with The Greatest Story Ever Told is George Steven's approach to the life of Christ. Steven's was an old fashioned liberal who decide to tell the story from an Anglo/Western viewpoint. The cast is all white people and Arizona locations were used instead of the actual settings in Palestine where Jesus lived. It's the conventional depiction of Christ that most Europeans and Americans were fed in Sunday school.
Stevens took a writing credit along with James Lee Barrett a writer who was somewhat of a professional Hollywood hack. The screenplay is an uneasy mix of political drama focusing on the Roman suppression of Judea, intrigue in the court of Herod and a greatest hits of Jesus compendium.
If The Greatest Story Ever Told has significant flaws in the story telling, it still has a lot of very good things going for it. The film is just extremely well made. It was shot in 70 millimeter and was carefully composed and lighted, it a stunning looking film. The film also a number of very impressive scenes in it, including the raising of Lazarus and the encounter with John the Baptist. The Arizona locations may not have been the Middle East, but they do look spectacular especially in the widescreen format.
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| OK John Wayne was a mistake. |
Today the criticism of the cast seems kind of pointless since most people watching the film wouldn't know who these actors are anymore. Max Von Sydow is very good as Christ and he works very hard to bring some life to the ponderous and frankly mighty trite dialog that he has to deliver.
To make a film about a person who is considered a religious leader to millions of people around the world is a fairly daunting task. To attempt to avoid the usual Hollywood epic hokum is even more daunting. The Greatest Story Ever Told is a sincere effort at a portrayal of Christ.
An impressionistic and visually beautiful looking film with an expressive score from Alfred Newman, The Greatest Story Ever Told is hardly the cinematic disaster that is has become labeled as.
197 minutes.
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