God in the Details: The Cleansing of the Temple in Four Jesus Films

An effective technique for teaching religion/theology students the virtues of "close reading" of films and the various techniques by which filmmakers communicate meaning to their audiences involves the comparison of the same biblical scene in different filmed versions of the life of Jesus. Students can learn to appreciate the significance of the various theological and aesthetic choices a particular Jesus film represents by becoming aware of the very different choices made by the makers of other Jesus films. The scene used to illustrate this technique in this paper is the cleansing of the Temple, and the films whose portrayal of this scene are analyzed are The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The King of Kings (1927), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), and Jesus of Montreal (1989). This article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss2/5 One of the more critical episodes in the life of Jesus is the cleansing of the Temple, which is included in all four canonical gospels. Its importance is not immediately obvious, though, to causal readers of the gospels. The story is very brief, occupying only five verses in the gospels of Mark and John and even fewer in Matthew and Luke. Mark's version reads as follows: And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons; and he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple. And he taught, and said to them, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"? But you have made it a den of robbers.' And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and they sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came they went out of the city" (Mark 11:15-19; RSV). Despite its brevity, the importance of the episode is signaled by the fact that within a week of this incident, Jesus is dead. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that this is the event that functioned as the "trigger" for Jesus' death. In these gospels Jesus has been hounded for months by his Jewish opponents among the Pharisees, and they have sought his death nearly from the beginning. But the Pharisees did not have enough power and influence to bring about Jesus' death by themselves. By far the more powerful group within Judaism was the Sadducees, or "chief priests," who controlled the Temple in Jerusalem and who collaborated with the Romans in governing the country. Jesus' strong indictment of the Temple and disruption of its 1 Landry: God in the Details Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, activities led the Sadducees to join the Pharisees in a conspiracy to kill Jesus, and this combination proves to be lethal to him. Anyone seeking to dramatize the entire life of Jesus is virtually obligated to include the cleansing of the temple. But the episode is described in such sparse terms that a filmmaker is left with very little guidance as to how to go about this task. Why is Jesus so upset at the goings-on in the Temple? How exactly does he go about disrupting the activities in the Temple? (John's gospel says that Jesus made a whip of cords, but it does not say that he used it. The other gospels say nothing about Jesus' techniques.) How did the moneychangers and the merchants react when Jesus overturned their tables and drove them out? Was anything said besides the one line of dialogue quoted in the Bible? What role did Jesus' disciples play in this incident? In addition to these questions that are specific to this scene, there is a series of more general questions that the filmmaker must answer before yelling "Action!" What does Jesus look like? What kind of sets and costumes and lighting and music should be used? How much of what is implicit in the Bible should be explained to the viewer? Should the film try to be as faithful as possible to the Bible, or should it try to get across the "main point" of the text without worrying about the details? Should the film be sensitive to the historical context in which Jesus lived? Or should it try to "update" the story and make the gospel more relevant to a modern audience? 2 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 13 [], Iss. 2, Art. 5 http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss2/5 The point here is not to enumerate every variable when it comes to depicting the cleansing of the Temple scene, but simply to point out that the choices are virtually infinite. Creating a filmed version of this scene will necessarily require a great deal of imagination and creativity, a significant degree of interpretation, and a definite vision of what needs to be accomplished with this scene and how it fits into the film as a whole. It is an old axiom in literary criticism that in a well-told story, every detail is there for a reason. The same holds true for these four films, each of which is made by a first-rate director who is a skilled storyteller: every detail is significant. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) The scene opens with the image of a bronze statue of a man, obviously a Roman, red smoke billowing up and around its face. Middle-eastern music blares while the camera pans quickly to a series of other images. Huge crowds of people mill about. Row after row of stalls show people buying and selling animals and exchanging coins. A sluice next to a staircase allows a river of blood to fall into a sewer drain. Dogs lick at the blood as it splashes through the grate. A man takes a provocatively dressed woman under his arm and escorts her behind a curtain to a private area. Suddenly Jesus appears, followed by his disciples. Jesus is dressed like everyone else. He looks like everyone else. But he has an expression of distaste on 3 Landry: God in the Details Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, his face. "Look at this," he says. "We came here to pray." Peter steps up to him and explains, "You mean the moneychangers? It's for the feast, for the temple tax." "I know," says Jesus, "I know." He approaches a moneychanger and asks how the exchange is today. "Fair," the man responds. "At this stall it's always fair." He does not sound convincing. Jesus challenges him, "Making a good profit?" "Fair," he says again. It is probably more than fair, one suspects. Jesus bends down, picks up his table and smashes it into the wall behind him. He proceeds down the row of merchants, flinging animals and coins up into the air and creating a tremendous ruckus. People begin to murmur in opposition, but Jesus continues on. He is so focused on disrupting the activity in the Temple that he stumbles at one point, barely keeping his feet. He cries out over the yelling, "This is my Father's house! Not a market!" Almost no one can hear him. Two priests in fine clothing emerge from the Temple and stand above the unruly crowd on a blood-stained platform. They demand to know what is going on. Jesus steps boldly forward and answers from below. The screenplay proceeds as follows: JESUS God doesn't need a palace. He doesn't need cyprus trees or dead animals. He doesn't need shekels.