It is impossible to please all the people all the time when making an epic plucked from The Bible, especially when the life and death of Jesus Christ is the focal point.
Despite naysayers, however, The Gospel Of John comes closest to that ambitious goal. In casting, period accuracy and thoughtful, reasoned tone, it is superior to almost all religious films ever made, especially by Hollywood.
The Gospel Of John is the new British-Canadian co-production that premiered last month at the Toronto filmfest. It is not to be confused with Mel Gibson's controversial opus about Christ, due in 2004, that has been attacked as anti-Semitic.
Any concerns about The Gospel Of John should be laid to rest.
Thanks to veteran English director Philip Saville's measured approach, and the oversee committee of religious scholars, both Jewish and Christian, assembled by Toronto producer Garth Drabinsky during the development of his project, The Gospel Of John rises above the hysteria. It enters the realm of legitimate historical drama. The crucial trial-of-Christ scene is muted and realistic, not hysterical.
The film's text literally is a word-for-word rendering of The Good News Bible, the American Bible Society's revision of the original Gospels. This version offers contemporary language that flows more easily, yet still sounds appropriate.
All descriptive text in The Gospel Of John is narrated by the golden-voiced Christopher Plummer, whose elegance in delivery makes each sentence sound, if not like the voice of God, then like the voice of truth.
Not a single word of dialogue from The Gospel itself is excised. That was the mandate of the production company, which wants to bring all 66 books in The Bible to the screen, and that accounts for the three-hour running time.
Yet, like all epics with compelling stories, The Gospel Of John never lags, never seems too long.
The film's success is due in part to the electrifying cast and journeyman Saville's wise direction of Henry Ian Cusick (as the finest and most refined Christ in film history) and secondary players including Daniel Kash (Peter), Scott Handy (John the Baptist), Stephen Russell (Pontius Pilate) and Richard Lintern (the Leading Pharisee).
Unlike an earlier word-for-word film from The Bible, The Visual Bible: Matthew (1999), the actors in Gospel do not go gung-ho theatrical and overplay an already rich text. Instead, everything -- voice inflection, physical presence, the props, Jeff Danna's music, the historical sets (either on location in Spain or in studio in Toronto) -- is rooted firmly in reality. These people may be speaking English, instead of Latin or Aramaic, but it feels right.
As a result, you get a real sense of what the situation must have really been like in this "family squabble" in which some Jewish leaders were upset at how Christ, another Jew, challenged their authority.
How that dilemma was tragically resolved is one of the world's oldest written stories -- and it is dramatized with extraordinary care and wisdom.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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