by Robert Bouffard
I love to engage with media that challenges my beliefs. It makes me think deeply when a film or television show presents themes or characters who are opposed to my worldview. I like to understand where other people are coming from. Understanding and engaging others’ viewpoints are essential to forming your own.
I’ve come to this conclusion largely because I grew up in an atmosphere that discouraged this oppositional engagement. The suggested way of handling this was to shelter your mind and insist that you were right, which is counterproductive.
Nowadays, I get excited when I watch a movie and love it, only to realize it has an oppositional viewpoint to another movie I love. It just serves to materialize the sort of debate and cultivation of thought that I enjoy so much. These instances show me that contrasting ideas can coexist and each thrive, which is the kind of world I strive for.
So join me as I examine two movies that send opposite messages, but which I still love just the same.
Both movies that I have chosen here explore a number of different themes. But I’m boiling them each down to how they deal with one idea in particular: the legitimacy of the Christian Messiah.
The two movies are Life of Brian and The Last Temptation of Christ. Each of these approaches the topic of the Messiah in a very different way. One is a satirical, silly comedy which ultimately posits that the point of life isn’t to follow the teachings of one man, while the other delves deeply into the psyche of the Christian Messiah on its way to saying that he took up the mantle because he wanted to.
I’ll start with the former, Life of Brian. This film is notable because it is a Monty Python production. After 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Pythons got a larger budget and were able to produce this ambitious project. But this time, instead of a silly romp about King Arthur, it was a silly, satirical romp about the man who was born down the street from and on the same night as Jesus of Nazareth.
There are a few different things being satirized including social revolutionaries and organized religion in a broad sense, but the most notable idea it comments on is the way people chose to follow Jesus and other religious leaders. The opening scene of the film shows the infamous three wise men following a star to bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Brian’s house, only to realize their mistake and instead bring it to Jesus, the correct recipient. From the very beginning, the film points out how we arbitrarily choose the people we follow and listen to.
The Pythons don’t disrespect Jesus himself – they show him giving the Sermon on the Mount and portray his miracles – but they do point out the way people can misinterpret messages from prominent individuals and even add gravity to the words of people who may not actually deserve it. When the crowd hears Jesus proclaim, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” some can’t hear what he said and recount his words as, “Blessed are the cheese makers.” Then, in an effort to extrapolate meaning from what they heard, they conclude that maybe he meant the manufacturer of any dairy product. These people are so bent on having someone lead them, or at least to tell them what to think, that they bend over backwards to find meaning that isn’t actually there.
This is most apparent when Brian, who up to this point is living a mostly anonymous life, gets up in front of a group of people and starts to preach. It’s an effort to hide in plain sight from Roman centurions who are chasing him because of his involvement in the People’s Front of Judea. Brian cuts off his sermon when the centurions walk away and the group of people to whom he was preaching feel as though he had more to say. They begin to follow him and hang on every word he says, believing him to be the Messiah (they even call him “Lord”).
In one specific scene that encapsulates the movie’s main message, Brian yells to his newfound followers that they need to think for themselves. Essentially, he tells them that there’s more to life than following the thoughts and teachings of someone else because you only have one life. The film doesn’t go so deep as to propose its own avenue to find a moral code, but it does suggest that there’s more than following the words of someone who may or may not be legitimate.
It’s very obvious through watching this movie that the Pythons have a certain respect for the teachings of Jesus, but a strong disdain for the way his teachings have manifested through his followers. They are pointing out what happens when people place heavy meaning on a message just because it sounds intriguing. It’s a strong encouragement to seek the meaning of life on your own and not through the lens of someone else.
On the other hand, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ is a heavy encouragement to see how meaningful the life of Jesus really was. This movie is wholly unique (at least in mainstream media) in its portrayal of Jesus. Its version of the character knows that he is God, but he struggles with that fact. It shows him facing the everyday challenges of a normal person, something we don’t often see in portrayals of Jesus, cinematic or otherwise.
Usually, Jesus is shown as otherworldly with a hint of humanness, but in Last Temptation he’s portrayed as human with a hint of otherworldliness. He is tempted, struggles with the fear and weight of his responsibility, and questions the true strength of his connection with God. He gives his sermons and teaches his lessons – many scenes are adapted straight from the Bible – but he still questions his inner authority.
It’s difficult to get into the psyche of Jesus in a film because it can so easily be seen as heretical or blasphemous. The most concrete and widely-accepted pictures of Jesus that we have are the four biblical Gospels, so any attempt to portray anything outside of that is risky business. But that’s exactly what this film does so well. Instead of showing Jesus as an unattainable perfect standard that everyone should be striving towards, it shows him as someone like us.
Fear, doubt, anxiety, joy, friendship, and everything in between are universal feelings that Jesus is almost never shown to have in mainstream culture. Seeing him this way can seem like knocking him down a peg, but in reality it’s lifting him up higher than ever before. Toward the end of the film, when he is being crucified, Jesus is presented with the opportunity to get off the cross and live the rest of his life. Like anyone, Jesus, who according to the New Testament was fully God and fully human at the same time, wanted to live a long, full life instead of one that ended in a torturous death at the age of thirty-three. And since he had the power to do so, Jesus is presented with his final temptation, to step down from the cross and live out his days into old age.
The film shows him get down and live his life, but it all turns out to simply be in his head, seeing what could have been. The human side of the Messiah needed to make the choice to pay the ultimate price and sacrifice himself. And that’s why the film is actually raising him up higher. By putting Jesus into this perspective of being wholly human, we can understand even a little bit more what it might have been like to go through with the crucifixion. It makes the love and sacrifice shown there that much more powerful.
The Last Temptation of Christ has a completely different tone and feel from Life of Brian. They’re on absolute opposite ends of the spectrum. But that doesn’t lessen the impact of either. Last Temptation shows what happens when the character is God and knows it, while Life of Brian shows what happens when the character is not God, but everyone thinks he is. Each film gives plenty to ponder and chew on when it comes to the purpose of life.
It’s perhaps easier to accept the type of world that Last Temptation shows, because it posits that there is objective truth and meaning. But it also could be more freeing to buy into Life of Brian’s worldview in which you are able to exert more autonomy and create meaning for yourself.
Obviously, it’s difficult to make a concrete conclusion on the meaning of life, religion, and spirituality. Personally, I find I’m able to create the most meaning for myself when I mix some ideas presented in each of these films. And that’s why I absolutely adore them both – they give me so much to bounce around in my brain and think about, and they’ve each certainly had an effect on how I think and live my life.