For a silent religious film this is quite good. H.B. Warner plays Jesus. He looks about twenty years too old for the part (didn't Jesus die when he was 33?) and spends too much of his time looking pious while holding his hands out the way Jesus does in the drawings. His beard looks false, and you can almost imagine the make-up guy standing just off camera sweating over whether a corner is about to detach itself from Warner's face.
The film doesn't follow Jesus's early life. He's already causing quite a stir in the Holy Land by the time we catch up with him, and almost half of the film takes place after Judas has betrayed him, probably because Hollywood felt it needed to add some kind of suspense to the story to sell it to the great unwashed. For a DeMille film the excesses are mostly reined in apart from a couple of huge sets. There's a lot of dialogue, and most of it is comprised of sound-bites from the Bible that are still instantly recognisable. You know the sort of thing: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Maybe this was also an attempt to keep the masses involved because I remember thinking as I watched that it was strange that all the catchy lines appear in the second half of the Bible. Perhaps there was some judicious shifting around of the good book's catchiest phrases. Not being a religious man, I wouldn't know.
While the pace is fairly slow by today's standards, the last reel, which follows the resurrection of Christ, still retains some of its power and must have been really impressive in its day. There's even a couple of colour scenes to emphasise the miracle we are witnessing.
The film doesn't follow Jesus's early life. He's already causing quite a stir in the Holy Land by the time we catch up with him, and almost half of the film takes place after Judas has betrayed him, probably because Hollywood felt it needed to add some kind of suspense to the story to sell it to the great unwashed. For a DeMille film the excesses are mostly reined in apart from a couple of huge sets. There's a lot of dialogue, and most of it is comprised of sound-bites from the Bible that are still instantly recognisable. You know the sort of thing: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Maybe this was also an attempt to keep the masses involved because I remember thinking as I watched that it was strange that all the catchy lines appear in the second half of the Bible. Perhaps there was some judicious shifting around of the good book's catchiest phrases. Not being a religious man, I wouldn't know.
While the pace is fairly slow by today's standards, the last reel, which follows the resurrection of Christ, still retains some of its power and must have been really impressive in its day. There's even a couple of colour scenes to emphasise the miracle we are witnessing.