The Lenten season is now, and for many practicing Christians, that means returning to fasting, penitence, and almsgiving. These practices define the weeks leading up to the Church’s celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, time-honored rituals perpetuated over centuries; in other words, this stuff is old.
The “old” is what draws the attention of the clergy in Jesus of Montreal, Denys Arcand’s sumptuous religious drama screening Tuesday in the Union South Marquee, in which the local Parisian clergy commissions an update of the Passion Play. As a means of attracting the masses and perhaps growing the parish’s ranks, the priest hires a young theater star (Lothaire Bluteau) to bring in a new audience. And boy, does he. Bluteau’s Daniel modernizes the story of Jesus Christ’s trial and crucifixion with a far-flung interpretation, making, for example, a Roman soldier Jesus’ biological father. Blasphemous edits like this and a dynamic production design that expands out from the stage and into interactive vignettes draws crowds and enthusiasm alike, and the play is a bona fide hit. Well, with everyone except the clergy, that is.
Born out of a humble but inspired production of the crucifixion story the director once saw in person, Arcand’s dramatic vision sounds revolutionary, but Jesus of Montreal isn’t aiming to unseat Church values. This has a more complex motivation behind it. Daniel’s revitalized drama provokes protestations from the Catholic clergy while uniting the rag-tag cast of beer commercial rejects and porno voice-over artists. Rallying around Daniel as both creative visionary and his play’s own Christ figure, their hesitation to come anywhere near a religious drama quickly turns into pride, adoration, and commitment for the production. Arcand extends Daniel’s emaciated idealist in one of many extensions from the film’s play into its setting. The actor behind Mary Magdalene once “whored” herself out to flesh-hungry casting directors for bit parts and after the production is cancelled, French police officers patrolling the church grounds become a feckless squad of Roman soldiers.
Against his conversation-heavy dramas in The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions, Arcand’s parallels can be a touch obvious and Daniel’s career trajectory is apparent very early on. That’s because there’s little subversion here. The Passion Play’s open staging congeals with a score that fudges separations between the production’s drama and that of the actors’ everyday lives. Jesus of Montreal isn’t prodding the Gospels so much as its multiform interpretations. New lines aren’t drawn; existing ones are blurred.
- WUD Film and the UW Lubar Institute present Jesus of Montreal FREE Tuesday at 7:00p in the Union South Marquee. Ritt Deitz, French cinephile and Executive Director of UW’s Professional French Masters Program, will lead a discussion after the film.