That depends on how accurately you add up the long list of movies about him during the last 100-plus years of cinema history. And how many more times he will be crucified on screen depends on whether the current passion for movies about the Gospel story translates into an entertainment trend.
With Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" generating a loud buzz--and a big box office--other films about Jesus are also showing up on the big or small screen or are currently in production. The films run the gamut from painstaking reproductions of the biblical text to adaptations telling the Gospel story from a new angle or even lifting it into a new time and place.
Though "The Passion" relies heavily on the New Testament, Gibson also borrowed from the mystical visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, a 19th century German nun. Despite extra-biblical elements, including a significant role assigned Mary during Jesus' final hours, evangelical Christian leaders have praised the film for what they believe its authentic portrayal of Jesus' suffering.
Another Jesus movie in theaters--and now on DVD--that sticks even closer to the New Testament, is "The Gospel of John" by Toronto-based Visual Bible International.
Rather than picking and choosing from various accounts of Jesus, the Canadian-made film reproduces one New Testament Gospel word-for-word. The lines spoken by the actors and narrator--film great Christopher Plummer--come straight from the American Bible Society's Good News Bible, a translation in contemporary English.
Garth Drabinsky, the movie's producer, said filmmakers went to "incredible lengths" to accurately reproduce the time of Jesus in the movie. Premiering last September at The Toronto International Film Festival, the film drew on the expertise of an ecumenical board of religious advisers, its makers say.
But "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Gospel of John" aren't the only choices for seeing the Bible on the screen. "Judas," a movie that fills in gaps about the betrayer of Jesus while also offering insights into Jesus himself, aired on ABC Television in early March. With the movie shot during the summer of 2001, ABC is reported to have held onto the film, eventually deciding to air it to coincide with "The Passion."
Still more Jesus movies are on screens or in the works overseas. "Man Dancin'," a movie set in modern-day Scotland, weaves the Gospel story into what the film's director Norman Stone described as a "witty, gritty, Glasgow gangster film." The movie opened in Britain in February. Meanwhile, a continent away, South African director Regardt van den Bergh is preparing to shoot "The Lamb," a film that tells the story of Jesus from the perspective of a Jewish family living in ancient Israel in Jesus' time.
And back in North America, makers of "The Gospel of John" plan to begin filming "The Gospel of Mark" in a couple of months, a Jesus movie based on what scholars widely acknowledge as the oldest of the New Testament Gospels.
A trend? Many experts say no, pointing to a long tradition of Jesus movies that seem to come in spurts rather than a steady stream.
"Three swallows do not make a summer," said director Stone, though he said the Gospel theme is "going to be in the air" because of all the media attention given to Gibson's movie. Though himself a person of faith, Stone emphasized his production was not a "Christian" movie aimed at believers, but a general-audience film that happens to include the Gospel story as "part of the legitimate narrative."
"I don't think there's going to be a rash of many more films," Stone said, suspecting, however, that the current productions about Jesus will inspire more attention to spiritual themes in the movies.
Nancy Mockros, a California-based scholar specializing in theology, film, and television, also pointed out that Gospel-themed movies seem to come out in groups, each series having its own motivations and modes of portraying Jesus.
Mockros singled out several gospel-related films made at the end of the 1990s--among them ABC's model-animation feature "The Miracle Maker" and the CBS show "Jesus: The Epic Miniseries"--that resulted from the climate of thought at the turn of the millennium.
As for the latest movies about the Gospel, Mockros wonders if somewhere in the background might be the big questions on people's minds after Sept. 11. "I think 9-11 has a lot to do with ... people just becoming more introspective about life," South African director van den Bergh said. A Christian believer, the director suggested that society's current interest in spiritual matters is providential. "If there is a trend, ... then it is out of a need," he added.
The Rev. Frank Desiderio, president of Paulist Productions, maker of ABC's "Judas," observed that artists have for years "filled in the blanks left by Scripture," supplementing a minimalist biblical narrative with their creative work.
In the 1970s, filmmakers converted Jesus into a hippie in "Jesus Christ Superstar," Desiderio said. A decade and a half later, "The Last Temptation of Christ" reflected society's changing mores by having a very human Jesus dream about sexual relations with Mary Magdalene.
Desiderio added, "Every generation wants to interpret Jesus for itself."
