Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Mar. 24th, 2024 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shrimpchipsssThis is a perfect movie musical. to me.
Funny coincidence to choose it for March and watch it during holy week but I wanted very urgently to understand Pio's insistence that some of the songs work really well for chengxian.
It's so nice seeing human beings look like human beings in a movie. These hippies were so sweaty and gritty and glowing, like you could reach out and touch them. The world pre- "Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny."
This is yet another musical or play adapted into a movie where they make nods to this being a production of a book or a musical or a play in the movie. Like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with the actors shown in their civilian clothes or Joe Wright's Anna Karenina with the moving set pieces.
With Jesus Christ Superstar, they decided to intentionally keep certain anachronisms as parts of the set; people selling guns and grenades and postcards at the temple market, Judas running from a row of tanks, guards carrying swords and spears but also machine guns. It's really evocative of [literally any conflict in the Middle East since the US has been fucking things up in the region for oil and power since like WWII]. Unfortunately it does not matter when you watch this movie for it to feel relevant in this aspect. Appreciated the nod to the US being the new Rome. One empire for another.
I'm obsessed with the Mary - Jesus - Judas love triangle, and also white Jesus and Black Judas, incredible choices going on here and really cool depiction of Judas wanting Jesus to come to his senses and not get swept up in the cult of personality forming around him.
There is something so comfortingly crinkly about the style of the music and its recording. I grew up listening to my dad's music which was a lot of Elton John and a lot of stuff from the 70s so there's a feeling of familiarity there. I also just like rock operas I think? Queen's A Night at the Opera was one of my favorite albums as a high schooler.
I recommended the movie to people at my church today citing that it was camp and felt very queer and that the humanness of Jesus felt incredibly poignant. Feeling very lucky for my beloved queer church this Palm Sunday.
No other notes. I long to watch a screening of this at a movie theater.
Funny coincidence to choose it for March and watch it during holy week but I wanted very urgently to understand Pio's insistence that some of the songs work really well for chengxian.
It's so nice seeing human beings look like human beings in a movie. These hippies were so sweaty and gritty and glowing, like you could reach out and touch them. The world pre- "Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny."
This is yet another musical or play adapted into a movie where they make nods to this being a production of a book or a musical or a play in the movie. Like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with the actors shown in their civilian clothes or Joe Wright's Anna Karenina with the moving set pieces.
With Jesus Christ Superstar, they decided to intentionally keep certain anachronisms as parts of the set; people selling guns and grenades and postcards at the temple market, Judas running from a row of tanks, guards carrying swords and spears but also machine guns. It's really evocative of [literally any conflict in the Middle East since the US has been fucking things up in the region for oil and power since like WWII]. Unfortunately it does not matter when you watch this movie for it to feel relevant in this aspect. Appreciated the nod to the US being the new Rome. One empire for another.
I'm obsessed with the Mary - Jesus - Judas love triangle, and also white Jesus and Black Judas, incredible choices going on here and really cool depiction of Judas wanting Jesus to come to his senses and not get swept up in the cult of personality forming around him.
There is something so comfortingly crinkly about the style of the music and its recording. I grew up listening to my dad's music which was a lot of Elton John and a lot of stuff from the 70s so there's a feeling of familiarity there. I also just like rock operas I think? Queen's A Night at the Opera was one of my favorite albums as a high schooler.
I recommended the movie to people at my church today citing that it was camp and felt very queer and that the humanness of Jesus felt incredibly poignant. Feeling very lucky for my beloved queer church this Palm Sunday.
No other notes. I long to watch a screening of this at a movie theater.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-29 04:18 pm (UTC)The movie itself sounds fun, I really should give it a watch! I always like going back to older movies and shows and seeing how sweaty the characters are allowed to be (original series Star Trek is great for this). Modern stuff feels less Real to me.