Volume 35, Number 15 · October 13, 1988
Jesus in the Mean Streets
By Garry Wills
The Last Temptation of Christ
a film directed by Martin Scorsese, screenplay by Paul Schrader
Superlatively bad as Nikos Kazantzakis was in book after book, no work of his attains quite the bad eminence of The Last Temptation of Christ (1955). Secure of its position, the book seems to boast, 'Bottom this, if you can!' Some have blamed the English translator (1960), who is, at the least, a coconspirator in the absurd: 'Magdalene buried her head in her breast to protect it.' But P.A. Bien did not make up the 'guardian angel' who takes Christ off the cross before his death—a furry big fellow who wraps the sleeping Jesus in his green wings. During the day, in the bourgeois life to which this angel leads the half-crucified Jesus, the angel turns into a 'Negro boy' who serves as Jesus' slave. It does not help Kazantzakis that he took the Negro boy from the Athanasian Life of St. Antony, the great fountain of temptation imagery, since that source is expressly racist (the negritude expressing the real nature of the 'angel,' Vita Antonii, 6).
Review, 2847 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |