They were successful in their initial efforts. Scorsese\u2019s first attempt to make the film in 1983 at Paramount Studios was canceled just as production was set to begin, thanks in part to the angry letters the studio received from offended citizens and organizations. When Universal Studios picked up the project three years later and saw it through to completion, those same factions decided to swamp the film in as much controversy as they could, in the hopes of burying it. <\/span><\/p>\n There were huge demonstrations at screenings across the country, as well as at MCA headquarters (Universal\u2019s then-parent company). One well-known evangelist made a serious offer<\/span><\/a> to buy the film\u2019s negative from Universal so that he could burn it. Several theater chains refused to show the film, and many video stores (including Blockbuster) later refused to carry it. It was heavily censored, or banned outright, in a number of countries, including the Philippines and Singapore, where it remains unavailable.<\/span><\/p>\n And then came the literal firestorm. During a showing of the film on Oct. 22, 1988, a group of Catholic integrists (die-hard conservatives who oppose the church\u2019s modernization) set off a bomb at the Saint Michel cinema in Paris, seriously injuring 13 people.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, its opponents couldn\u2019t care less about the transformative power of film. They were only interested in creating controversy, and they focused on the surface details of its plot to stir up public opposition. The same tactics would be deployed in later years, to far less success, against \u201csacrilegious\u201d films such as Kevin Smith\u2019s Dogma <\/i>(1999) and Darren Aronofsky\u2019s Noah <\/i>(2014). But ironically, the most controversial religious films in recent years haven\u2019t come from supposedly secular Hollywood but were made by \u2014 and appeal to \u2014 religious conservatives. <\/span><\/p>\n The most obvious example is Mel Gibson\u2019s The Passion of the Christ<\/i> (2004). Gibson\u2019s film is a through-a-glass-darkly reflection of Last Temptation<\/i> in terms of scope, complexity, and historical verisimilitude, but the core difference between them speaks to something much more culturally relevant. Whereas Scorsese ended up alienating Christian audiences by delivering the type of serious work that their representatives are always demanding from Hollywood, huckster Gibson lured them in by offering a grisly exploitation film \u2014 the crucifixion of Christ by way of Cannibal Holocaust<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n At least Gibson\u2019s sense of exploitation came from an honest place, as evidenced by his record of outspoken religious belief and the obsession with physical violence found throughout his work. So, too, did the major controversy that overtook that film: charges of anti-Semitism in its depiction of Jewish characters. Such accusations proved to be well-founded once Gibson had his ugly public fall from grace a few years later. Bigotry, like faith, can be sincere. But both can also be manufactured.<\/span><\/p>\n The rise of Christian-produced films over the last decade, and in particular since the election of Donald Trump, has been well documented<\/span><\/a>. Unlike Passion<\/i>, most of these have been exploitation films of a different sort. Films such as Fireproof<\/i> (2008), the God\u2019s Not Dead<\/i> series (2014, 2016, 2018), and <\/i>Let There Be Light<\/i><\/span><\/a> (2017) have all delivered red-meat polemics to their evangelical audiences while courting enough liberal backlash to garner mainstream media attention. <\/span><\/p>\n For as damaging as the outrage directed at The Last Temptation of Christ<\/i> was to its bottom line, Christian films have sought to emulate its example in order to play the victim. <\/i>Even if such efforts don\u2019t always pay off (Let There Be Light <\/i>producer and co-star Sean Hannity was the focus of much ridicule last year in the wake of his film\u2019s dismal theatrical run), it\u2019s hard to fault the overall gambit. Cynically courting outrage on behalf of the American ruling demographic while simultaneously claiming persecution has proven a winning strategy in elections, so there\u2019s no reason to think it wouldn\u2019t work at the box office. It\u2019s only too bad for Scorsese that he hadn\u2019t thought to get the jump on his opponents by marketing his film in such a manner. Of course, to do so would have required him to cast aside any moral scruples or self-respect, but still\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n (Coincidentally, the most hilarious example of outrage marketing to be found this year belonged to Gotti<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> a movie that desperately sought to emulate Scorsese\u2019s gangster classics, and which tried to make up for its initial floundering by playing to the persecution complex of the same conservative audience that would have surely protested Last Temptation<\/i>.)<\/span><\/p>\n For all the outrage swirling around our various forms of media, it is hard to picture something like the The Last Temptation of Christ<\/i> causing the same level of sustained commotion today, at least among Christian audiences. Obviously, the examples of mass demonstrations and violent assaults on artists that challenge \u2014 or simply depict \u2014 Islam in their work are plentiful, and should not be dismissed. But that is a whole other can of locusts. <\/span><\/p>\n (Also \u2014 and not to let religious zealots of the Muslim variety off the hook \u2014 it is interesting that whenever right-wing critics of Islam point to these attacks, they always fail to mention the Christian terrorists who bombed the Saint Michel cinema.)<\/span><\/p>\n Partly, the inability to imagine a repeat of The Last Temptation of Christ\u2019s<\/i> cultural moment is due to the way social media has splintered outrage into a thousand different shards. Partly, it\u2019s due to the overwhelming amount of media currently available. Even 10 years ago, something like AMC\u2019s absurdly blasphemous adaptation of the comic series Preacher<\/i> would have likely drawn howls of outrage from offended Christians; today, it\u2019s just another niche show in a sea of content. Truly challenging films about faith \u2014 such as this year\u2019s outstanding First Reformed<\/i>, from Last Temptation<\/i> screenwriter Paul Schrader \u2014 fail to gain widespread notice from either religious or secular audiences, while new examples<\/span><\/a> of Christian agitprop are forced to dig ever deeper into the muck of identity politics in their attempts to generate controversy. <\/span><\/p>\n In this light, The Last Temptation of Christ \u2014 <\/i>crucified upon release, since resurrected,\u00a0 <\/span>and now recognized as the masterpiece of sincerity that it\u2019s always been \u2014 feels even more transcendent.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thirty years ago this month, the world saw the release of one of the most divisive movies ever made: Martin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":506,"featured_media":10024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/506"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/The-Last-Temptation-of-Christ-3.jpg\")
<\/a>On the one hand, it seems fitting that if any film must be subject to such harsh intimidation, it should be one of as immense artistic quality as The<\/i> Last Temptation of Christ<\/i>. Mystical, hypnotic, and heartbreaking, its reputation has only grown in the intervening decades, so much so that it is now regularly cited as one of Scorsese\u2019s best (even if it has failed to retain the same cultural cachet as his more widely seen and referenced films). On the other hand, there is perhaps no film more undeserving of its reputation by those who chose to denigrate it. Far from being a work of sacrilege, Scorsese\u2019s film is a sincere examination into the mystery of Christ, made by a true believer. If ever there was movie that might convert cynically secular arthouse patrons, this would be it.<\/span><\/p>\n