I
enjoyed watching this new film centred on Mary Magdalene. I thought it was
thoughtful, humane, well crafted and sensitively acted. I also think it is entirely in the spirit of
the Christian Gospels and give thanks that it corrects the 6th
century libel that Mary was a ‘woman of
ill repute’. I will come back to
that.
No single movie can be true to the narrative of the gospels because there
is no common narrative. Each of the Gospels
tells its own story, and though there are some shared elements there are also
elements particular to each one, and the
overall chronologies do not agree. There are even direct contradictions. It is
as if each Gospel has its own point of view or POV, and Biblical scholars tell
us that these POVs are essentially theological, each of them reflecting the situations of early
Christian congregations in different times and different places.
So
here we have a Gospel according to Mary Magdalene. Although it was made by a male director,
Garth Davis (2016’s Lion was his directorial
debut), it was written by two women, Helen
Edmundson (who wrote The Suspicions of
Mr. Whicher for TV and then adapted Journey’s End for the screen), and Phillipa
Goslett, (whose previous script was adapted from Neil Gaiman’s story How To Talk to Girls at Parties, a rather camp sf comedy.) This film is made from their POV, that of womankind. I welcome this. After 40 years as part of the struggle for
women in my own Church to be ordained as priests – and then to become Bishops –
and seeing the ongoing struggle of Roman Catholic women to simply have their
voices heard in the Vatican – this film is timely.
Is
it a ‘feminist’ version of the gospel? I do not think so, because many men have
seen the Good News preached– and lived out – by Jesus in a similar way to that
presented here. It is the Gospel that
gives us hope in the struggle to love and the determination to meet the inevitable
demands of compassion and forgiveness, rather than that of the seeking after
purity, which inevitably leads to failure, blame and guilt, that have so often
ruled in the Churches. But if that is
a feminist reading of the Gospel I am happy for it to be so.
It
is also about the rehabilitation of Mary Magdalene. We know very little about the Mary Magdalene
of the Gospels. Apart from the fact
that she came from Magdala, a village on the western shore of the Sea of
Galilee, she is not described in the Gospels as the daughter of any man, wife
of any man, or mother of any man. That matters, because most women’s identity
in the Gospels is defined by their relationships to a man. Luke simply
tells us that she was one of the women ‘who
provided’ for Jesus and the disciples, suggesting that she was a woman of
means, possibly a wealthy widow. The Gospels agree that she was with the group
of women at the crucifixion, and John says that the risen Christ appeared to
her before anyone else. Thereafter she
disappeared from the record. The Acts of
the Apostles does not mention her - which is significant because it was written
by Luke, the Gospel writer most sympathetic to women.
There is, however, evidence that she was
highly revered in some parts of the early Church. Doubtless that is why a ‘Gospel according to Mary’ appeared in
the 3rd century, saying that Mary had
been the most enlightened of the disciples, the one closest to Jesus, and given
‘secret visions’. This Gospel also
described the jealousy and distrust of the male disciples. When the official canon of the New
Testament was put together in the fourth century this gospel was not
included. I do not think that is
because it is pro-female (though the Church was already showing signs of misogyny)
but mainly because it was pro-Gnosticism.
Gnosticism
was the movement in the early church that followed
in the steps of Greek ‘mystery’ religions by making their faith one of secrets,
secrets only disclosed to those initiated.
This was the kind of spiritual Freemasonry that the early church rejected. For them (and for me) the teachings and
gospel of Jesus were open, not closed. Gnosticism also promoted the idea that the
material world and human bodies were wicked, only the Spirit was good, a
dualism that denied the sacredness of all Creation.
And
then in the late 6th century Pope Gregory libeled Mary Magdalene, saying that she was ‘the
woman of ill repute’ who came into the house of Simon the Pharisee as he
was entertaining Jesus, and washed Jesus feet, drying them with her hair and perfuming
them with expensive oil (Luke chapter 7.)
That assumption has no Biblical evidence to support it, but it
stuck. This ‘Fallen Mary’ became the
subject of many paintings, in most of
which she is beautiful, often red-headed, and usually exposing a breast. Any excuse for a bit of Church approved
lasciviousness. And of course this
‘Mary’ provided a counterpoint to Mary the mother of Jesus. The Virgin and the Whore. This film provides another plausible back-story
for her – and in a post Credits note firmly
rejects Gregory’s libel.
So
what of the film itself? Rooney Mara is Mary, a young woman of independent spirit, not
willing to follow the traditional path of an early arranged marriage and serial
motherhood. In her time, and sadly
even is some places today, such an
independent ‘spirit’ would be seen by her family (especially by the male members)
as evil, something that needs to be cast out.
In Mary they hear that the Rabbi Jesus is a healer and ask him to help
exorcise her. But Jesus tells her ‘there are no demons here’, and his absolute
acceptance is enough for her to leave Magdala and follow him. She
is with him to the end. This movie is from her POV and Rooney Mara is
quietly convincing in the role.
The
film is also quietly convincing. Jesus
himself, portrayed by Joachim Phoenix, is also quiet - but often intense. One
critic, Alexander Blanchett, complained that
“He played Jesus too rough and too
edgy. I mean edgy is good, but he often
felt like a homeless vagabond preaching around with his not less weird
followers.” I don’t have any
problem with that, and prefer it to Tab Hunter, Max von Sydow, of even Robert Powell. I think that Phoenix’s interpretation is
entirely believable as he moves from compassion (his scenes with Mary are
tender but with no hint of eroticism) to rage.
Jesus’
Gospel of the Kingdom is simple, but it was not
heard by the disciples who were looking for a political Kingdom, led by King
Jesus after a popular rebellion against the Romans by the people. Jesus and Mary see the Kingdom as simple
obedience to the God of Love, achieved not by violence but by forgiveness. A Kingdom is a state where people live in willing
obedience to their King.
In order not to prioritize any one of the four Gospels there are no ‘words from the Cross’ here. The Gospels do not agree on what they
were. But Mary is there, in silent
communion with her lord. So is Mary the
mother of Jesus, a mother who has already prepared herself to let go of her
beloved son. For some reason the woman
who plays mother Mary is not credited.
There
are subtle touches of scholarship in this script. Jesus tells those he (and the disciples)
baptize that his is the baptism Jesus received from John, and they are baptized
‘into Light’. It is often suggested that John the Baptist was
part of the Essene Community at Qumran,
where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These men were associated with ritual
cleansing by bathing/baptism and with the title of Sons of Light, so John and Jesus
may well have used that form of baptismal liturgy.
Some
have complained that the film is slow and ‘passionless’. That is also fine by
me. I see no hint in the gospels that
Jesus was in a hurry. But his healings are deeply passionate. When he brings the (un-named) Lazarus back to
life it is as if he is dying himself, giving of his own self until he is
exhausted, spent. Of course we know
that later he will be utterly ‘spent.’
When
Jesus goes into the Temple it is not only the
trading that disturbs him, but the sacrifices.
When he sees the sacrificial lamb’s blood there is an almost subliminal
flash of the Crucifixion. I do not want another Mel Gibson version of
the Passion dwelling on the agony of
Jesus. I really did not want the
first. Jesus does not matters to me because
of his suffering and death, but because of his life and teaching. I do not follow Jesus because he ‘suffered
in death’ but because he lived in love.
His gospel of unconditional – and therefor always forgiving – love
undermined the business of the 1st century Jewish Temple, where
people bought God’s forgiveness by making sacrifices. I think that is why the High Priests needed
Jesus out of the way. I do
not blame the Jewish authorities for that.
I am sure they believed that
their sacrificial rituals were truly holy and according to the mind of
God. I think they were trying to defend
God from Jesus’ blasphemy. But I also believe
that they were wrong, and that defending God can so often lead us astray – in Judaism,
Christianity or any other faith.
Whatever God may be does not need defending.
But nor do I accept the doctrine that God
needed Jesus to die on the Cross for our salvation. I do not think it was the Jews or the Romans
that killed Jesus. It was us, humankind. We either willed it, complied with it,
ignored it or – and this is where I stand apart from more orthodox Christian
theology – now have persuaded ourselves that it was God’s will, not ours. But as
a prominent theologian once said of the resurrection, We willed that Jesus should die, but God said ‘No’.
It
is so easy to project onto God – or Jesus – our own
needs. Judas (in a touching performance
by Tahar Rahim) does so in this film,
looking to Jesus to bring in the End Time, when the dead will rise from
their graves. The dead include Judas’s own wife and
child. That is why he is so committed,
so hopeful, and so impatient. When Jesus
does not seem to be in a hurry to ‘bring in the Kingdom’, or too frightened by the
means needed to it, Judas does what he can to speed it on.
There have been a number of theatrical interpretations
of Judas and his motives over the last 50 years, from Dennis Potter’s Son of
Man to Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ; Superstar. Over the years I have produced/directed both
of these in Churches in one form or another.
I do not I think that either of their answers to the ‘Judas Question’ is necessarily right, but enjoyed them because
they open up a question that has haunted Christianity for two thousand years.
I do not want
to end without mentioning Chiwetel
Ejiofor who plays Peter.
Ejiofor is a star who does not mind playing supporting roles, and always
plays them well. The music is composed
by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, with Hildur Guðnadóttir whose joint work on
Arrival was so important. Greig
Fraser shot this movie, as he did Garth Davis’ Lion. Their work enhances this film, which has a
continuity of tone in sympathy with the script and acting.
Reading other
critiques of this movie, especially those voicing
disappointment with it, I wonder what it
was these critics were looking for?
A reflection of their own ‘personal Jesus’? Excitement? Blood?
Dramatic miracles? Sex? Angelic choirs? A more groomed Jesus? Some other version of Mary of Magdala?
I am not surprised that the more positive
critiques have been written by women.
I think this film provides a fresh perspective,
seeing Jesus through another pair of
eyes, and this POV may support, question
or challenges our own views. I welcome
that.
