The Gospel of John

This three hour, faithful adaptation of the life of Christ as described in the book of John was somewhat overshadowed in the wake of the phenomenon of The Passion of the Christ. Comparing the two is difficult, because for me, they are equals. Gibson's film strives to be a work of art, and in my opinion fails. Phillip Saville's film has no lofty artistic ambitions, but is content with being an ultra-faithful (every word from the book, including the narration as read by Christopher Plummer, is spoken from the Good News Bible) treatment of the Biblical text, and succeeds at just that. He proves to be a capable director in the way he manages to keep even the lengthy passages of narration from being dull or "preachy". His film seems content with allowing the power of the story and text to carry the film, without sprucing anything up in either the script or by adding any unnecessary directoral flair. This is not a great film, but is significantly better than one might imagine (better than I imagined, anyway). Its strength and it weakness is its devotion to every single word which makes for some awkward moments contrasting the consistent narration with the dialogue of the characters. Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew is a much better example of a similar idea. Nevertheless, this is a worthy entry into the canon of films about the life of Christ.