~ They say its a three hour
TV movie - but did that include the ads, this is about two hours long, can you spot if I have missed a few chapters!!
TV MOVIE PORTRAYS CHRIST'S
DEATH
Ottowa Citizen March 24,
1980
The Day Christ Died, a three hour TV movie based on
Jim Bishop's book, will be aired by
CBS Wednesday, four days before
Palm Sunday.
The film, produced by
Martin Manulis is association with
20th Century Fox, represent the most recent gamble by movie-makers to tell the story of the divinity, a very risky venture.
Producer Manulis was asked why, in the face of previous bombs, he went ahead with The Day Christ Died.
"I knew it was a tough and controversial subject when Fox called me about it two years ago. The studio was aware of it too.
Darryl Zanuck bought the property from
Bishop about 25 years ago and just held onto it.
"I re-read the book and decided it was an exciting and challenging project for television, we devote three hours to dramatizing the last 24 hours of Christ's life, but we don't hew strictly to the book.
"Our story is a visceral, realistic approach as opposed to the ethereal treatment of Christ in many previous films."
His cast was composed primarily of
English and
Italian actors, to avoid familiar faces - scores of
Tunisians were used as extras, Christ is portrayed by a beaded
Chris Sarandon.
"We treat
Jesus as the man who said he was the son of God - We make it clear Jesus and his apostles were a group of
Jews, rugged working man, fisherman, carpenters and so on - and that's how we chose our cast.
"We've made Saradon's Christ a physical type who worked with his hands and with a strong voice who could make himself heard addressing the multitudes, there's nothing whispy or esthetic about him.
"Our story, of course, is based on the Gospels, however, it is more than a religious story, it involves the political intrigue between the
Romans and the Jews on the night Christ died.
"We take up the story just before
The Last Supper and end at the Crucifixion, in the process we try to present our film as a contemporary story for the time it took place. That is to say, those were modern times in
Jerusalem."
FILM TREATMENT ANNOYS AUTHOR OF THE
DAY CHRIST DIED
By Lee Winfrey -
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
NEW YORK: Jim Bishop is fuming over the television
adaptation of his best-selling book, The Day Christ Died.
Bishop has had his name removed from the project and tried unsuccessfully to have the title changed.
In a telephone interview from his
Florida home, Bishop called the telemovie "cheap revisionist history."
Bishop said: "I had the feeling they were trying to take away the notion that He was God, that is was up for grabs, that maybe He was just a nice guy."
In
1957 Bishop sold the film rights to his book for $260,
000 to
20th Century-Fox - the book sat on the shelt for more than 20 years until it was turned into the upcoming
TV show.
The producer is Martin Manulis, whose long list of credits extends back to the much-priased
Playhouse 90 series of the
1950s.
The script is jointly credited to
James Lee Barrett, who wrote the first draft, and
Edward Anhalt who wrote the final draft.
The telemovies was filmed in
Tunisia at a cost of $2.8 million and directed by
James Cellan Jones.
No miracles occur in this account of the crucifixion - omitted, for examble, is
Simon Peter cutting off the ear of Malcus, the high priest's servant, and Jesus puttting the ear back on.
Jesus wasn't trying to start a new religion He was just trying to reform excesses, the new religion only began with
Paul."
Christ
Sarandon said: "I hope there is a sense that Christ was a man who set out to fulfil the prophecies, that it was not divinely controlled."
Besides all the unseen miracles, also absent is
Judas kiss, with which he identifies Jesus as the subject for arrest.
Manulis said he left out the kiss because Sarandon is so much taller than
Barrie Houghton, the actor playing
Judas Iscariot, that it would have looked awkward, so
Judas only leans against Jesus' chest.
Bishop bristled at producer Martin Manulis's suggestion that his book is now somewhat out of date and hence vulnerable to extensive revision.
"That is so bad, so feeble. That's like saying that we just found out that
Moses didn't part the
Red Sea, but rode through on a yacht."
Manulis said a big factor in changing the story away from
Bishop's book was an event that occurred aftrer the book's publication: The issuance by the
Roman Catholic Church of an encyclical absolving Jews from racial guilt in the death of Jesus.
So the telemovie pins the blame on
Pontius Pilate, who decides to crucify Jesus as a way of quietening unrest in Jerusalem.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IdMyAAAAIBAJ&sjid;=bu4FAAAAIBAJ&pg;=5726,3448480&dq;=the-day-christ-died+chris-sarandon&hl;=en
- published: 07 Apr 2013
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