The Magdalene Review

Documentary: MM, Saint or Sinner?

I obtained a recording of a UK television documentary from Demand Five called “Mary Magdalene: Saint or Sinner?” and watched it this evening. A fairly typical documentary, it includes dramatic narration asking all of the sensational questions being bandied about in our post-Da Vinci Code culture, a round-up of experts, and actors dramatizing the topics being discussed.

From the Demand Five description of the show:

As the key witness to the Resurrection of Christ, Mary Magdalene occupies a unique place in Christianity – yet she remains one of the most mysterious women in history. Little is known of her life and her appearance in the Bible centres around two key moments – the Crucifixion and her discovery of Christ alive outside his tomb. After alerting the apostles to his return from the dead, Mary all but disappears from the story.

Mary Magdalene has been the subject of much debate throughout history. For centuries, her reputation was tarnished by the popular perception that she was a prostitute, even though the Bible never refers to her as such.

In recent years, popular fiction has put another spin on Mary’s image, with the theory that she may have been Jesus’ wife and the mother of his child. These stories are influenced by a French legend which holds that Mary travelled to Provence after Christ’s death – but scholars remain unconvinced.

All of the requisite topics are covered: the canonical Gospel references, the Gnostic texts, the “rivalry” between Peter and MM, MM’s demons, Gregory the Great’s official conflation MM with other unnamed women, the lack of support for the “harlot” reputation, MM’s journey to France and retirement to the grotto, speculation on whether she was intimate with Jesus, and more.

In all, I was satisfied with the answers provided by the experts. Most comments were made in a sensible context, which isn’t always the case after an interview has been edited into a documentary format. A few comments seem to stray out of character a bit, such as Tal Ilan asking rhetorically, “was she possessed by demons?” I seriously doubt whether Ilan was wondering if MM was actually possessed, after speculating about physiological problems commonly mistaken for demon-possession during the 1st century, and chalk it up to an effect of editing.

Most interesting about this documentary, I thought, was the repeated emphasis both by the narrator and by the experts that, if Christianity is a religion based on the death and resurrection of Jesus, and if Mary Magdalene was the first witness of the resurrection as noted in the Gospels, we could say that Mary Magdalene is the founder of Christianity. I’ve entertained this notion more than once over the years, but ultimately didn’t try to make much traction with it. So I was surprised to see the idea receiving a serious airing in this show, and was glad it was a perspective being discussed. I think I’ll add “Founder of Christianity” to the long list of roles MM has played in Western culture.

Da Vinci, slowed…

Today, in spite of a mean headcold, I caught a matinee showing of The Da Vinci Code. I probably would have waited to see it, but darn that Fandango.com, they just make it too easy to buy tickets in advance. I purchased them on Thursday just in case the theater was sold out, given that this is the opening weekend for the “biggest film event of the year.” I needn’t have worried; the theater was only filled to about 60% of capacity.

The most remarkable thing I can say about the movie is that it played out on the screen almost exactly like it played out in my head as I read Dan Brown’s novel. Now, this can mean a couple of things. Either Dan Brown is very good at generating in his readers the setting he has in mind, or Ron Howard was so painstakingly faithful to the book that not a prop was out of place. Perhaps both possibilities are true, but whatever the case, the end result is that I watched the movie feeling like I had already seen it. Sure, it was fun to see Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen and Jean Reno acting out the characters that had mostly remained faceless in my mind’s eye, but I was also perfectly comfortable getting up for some popcorn during the film without feeling like I would miss anything important.

Dull, plodding, boring, literalistic; these are all adjectives used by critics when referring to the movie. I had hoped that having lived my life with DVC for the last few years would have rendered the experience a bit more exciting, but what I found was that the criticisms of the movie were perfectly warranted. I was impressed by the film’s deft avoidance of the more controversial dialogue in the novel, though, and was almost interested by a few flashbacks of a pregnant Mary Magdalene with curly red hair. I’ll admit that the hair on the back of my neck stood up at least once during a couple of dramatic pans of Mary Magdalene’s sarcophagus, heightened as they were by a fantastic film score. Magdalene’s alabaster jar even made more than one appearance in the movie, but tragically, it contained a single red rose. (Could there be anything more cliché than a single, long-stemmed red rose, under any circumstance? Hello, Phantom of the Opera. Why not a lily? It would have even been appropriate given the importance placed on the fleur-de-lis in the story.)

The buzz on the Mary Magdalene email lists about the movie is generally supportive. A few people have gushed about how beautiful and empowering it is to see the sacred feminine making such an appearance in popular culture, but it just didn’t have that vibe for me. It felt tired. Overwrought. Milked dry. When I left the theater with my husband, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the movie will do more to end the DVC phenomenon than to perpetuate it. It was as preachy as the book, minus the action and excitement. Although I suppose it is a cultural marker to see goddess-worship and Christianity mingled in this manner on the big screen, it didn’t feel momentous in the least. As the audience filed out after one of the most anti-climactic final scenes ever, I caught mumbles of how long and boring the experience had been.

My advice? Wait for DVC on DVD.

DVC: a bomb at Cannes?

According to this article, from The Sydney Morning Herald’s website, The Da Vinci Code left the Cannes audience unimpressed:

The sound of no hands clapping

When, finally, the camera swept back to Hanks, gazing through the glass roof of the Louvre’s foyer to where he had deduced – how is uncertain, but never mind – that Mary Magdalene’s sarcophagus now lay, there was the deathly sound of no one clapping. A few people whistled – a sign of derision in Europe – but, in truth, The Da Vinci Code was not actually bad enough for anyone to enjoy tearing strips off it. Like Hanks, whose face seemed to be pursed in perplexity throughout the film, it just took itself way too seriously. If the novel was popcorn, Howard’s film was a badly overcooked goose.

Of course, this is the Cannes audience, notoriously more picky than the American public (and I say this not to criticize the Cannes audience…*cough*), so it could still go blockbuster here in the United States. I’ll be attending on Saturday, so for better or worse, I’ll post my own thoughts on the film sometime this weekend. In the meantime, there are several brief comments from critics, such as the one that follows, in the article above:

Mike Goodridge, Screen Daily “A pulpy page-turner in its original incarnation as a huge international bestseller has become a stodgy, grim thing in the exceedingly literal-minded film version of The Da Vinci Code.”

It doesn’t sound terribly promising, but on a positive note, it appears that the film contains slight adjustments to deflect criticisms from the Roman Catholic Church and Opus Dei. Little is said, apparently, of any conspiracy by the early Church against Mary Magdalene, and the Opus Dei angle has been softened by making the villains members of an offshoot sect. I’ll be interested in seeing what other compromises, if any, Howard and company have made to minimize the controversy. Of course, it sounds like the biggest controversy of all (and you know the one to which I’m referring) is still present. It wouldn’t really be the same story without it, now would it?

The Miracle Maker

Tonight I watched the claymation Gospel story, The Miracle Maker (2000). I’ve watched a lot of Jesus movies in the last couple of months, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed this one more than most. It is, apparently, much more difficult to look and act pretentious when you are a claymation model, much to the movie’s credit. The characters were accessible, both for adults and children, and although a consistent message of love was conveyed throughout the film, it never felt preachy or overly pious. Punctuated by good humor and moments of real depth, I found myself engrossed in the movie and eager to see how it would present the end of the story.

Surprisingly, Mary Magdalene appears in the very first scene, in which we meet Jesus working on a building project in Sepphoris. Mary Magdalene is apparently the resident crazy lady, much to the entertainment of some and the consternation of others. Haunted by demons of mental illness, we eventually see what Magdalene sees; distorted faces and growling voices, an asymmetric world akin to what one could imagine a bad acid trip must look like.

About a third of the way through the film, as she runs from her terrifying visions and finds herself atop a garbage heap, a commanding presence appears in the person of Jesus. He directs the demons to leave Mary in a powerful animated sequence. Fractured by howling specters that rise from her body, Mary collapses as they leave her. Healed, she remains in Jesus’ embrace as the light of day dawns, and then makes her way back down into town. Mary Magdalene has much to be grateful for, and she follows him thereafter.

At the cross, she appears with Jesus’ mother, and together they watch in horror as he dies. In contrast to the his mother’s relative silence, Mary Magdalene wails with grief, and after Jesus’ body is taken down, placed in clean linen and entombed, she returns to the cross. Clutching it, she weeps alone.

Here the movie takes an interesting turn. Wracked with grief, Mary spends the night wandering. We are reminded of her life at the margins of society before she was relieved of her demons. At dawn she discovers the empty tomb, and as she sits alone, crying, she speaks with a “gardener” who stands behind her. When he says her name, she turns, and sees Jesus. She embraces him and he tells her that she no longer has to hold onto him. Sending her off with news of his resurrection, one senses that given her history and her night of wandering, things can’t possibly go well when she delivers the message. In fact, this is the case. The reason why Simon Peter disbelieves her is that he thinks she has once again gone mad.

I am reminded here of 19th century rationalists whose views of Mary Magdalene’s witness of the resurrection were colored by her identity as one formerly plagued by demons. Susan Haskins, in her book, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993), had the following to say about 19th century Jesus scholar, David Friedrich Strauss:

Strauss mocked the fact that Christianity had been founded on the ‘ravings of a demented and love-lorn woman’; Mary Magdalen’s ‘impetuous temperament’ accounted for her return to the tomb, ‘she having been formerly a demoniac’. (Haskins, p. 330)

Ernest Renan took a similar approach in his 1863 book, Vie de Jesus:

Had his body been taken away? Or did enthusiasm, always credulous, in certain circumstances, create afterwards the group of narratives by which it was sought to establish faith in the resurrection? . . . Let us say, however, that the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene played in this circumstance an important part. Divine power of love! Sacred moments in which the passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God! (Haskins, p. 331)

So much for visiting the tomb out of devotion. Interpreted this way, Mary Magdalene’s ardor has more to do with madness than dedication.

Questionable interpretation of Mary’s witness aside, The Miracle Maker is an excellent Jesus film to watch with the family, though the scene with Mary’s demons might be a bit scary for younger viewers. An all-star cast provides voices for the characters, with Miranda Richardson, best known to me in her role as Black Adder‘s Queen Elizabeth, plays Mary Magdalene.

* * *

Update (04/10/06): Matt Page over at Bible Movies Blog posted a great review of The Miracle Maker this morning. I think he’s really on the spot with his observations, and I recall having some of the same thoughts while I was watching. Check it out!

Mary Magdalene, circa 1973

By the time Jesus Christ, Superstar was adapted for film and released in 1973, it was already a phenomenal hit. With a well-conceived story behind the lyrics and music, Superstar was to the early 1970s was The Da Vinci Code is to us today: inspiring to some, blasphemous to others.

Also released in 1973 was a movie called The Gospel Road, a June and Johnny Cash vehicle. While I can’t speculate if its intended purpose was to save souls or to bolster Cash’s new pious image, it was, unfortunately, quite terrible. Schmaltzy and sentimental, it relied on the Southern Gospel habit of rendering the story in unsophisticated and nostalgic terms. I know this kind of material moves people; I was raised reading shape notes from my grandmother’s hymnals to the Carter classic “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Her out-of-tune piano had a timbre of tin, just right for music sung by honky-tonkers turned Sunday churchmen. This movie is exactly the kind of thing that my grandparents would find inspiring. People of humble rural origins, meager education, and strong faith, they appreciate that kind of American folk Christianity.

So, down to the issue at hand: Mary Magdalene in these two vastly different 1973 movies. Yvonne Elliman graced the role in Jesus Christ, Superstar, an energetic presence with a lilting voice. She convinced me that she was in love with Jesus, as a man, a teacher, a larger-than-life leader of a movement. Her conflict was apparent while singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him:”

Yet, if he said he loved me,
I’d be lost. I’d be frightened.
I couldn’t cope, just couldn’t cope.
I’d turn my head. I’d back away.
I wouldn’t want to know.
He scares me so.
I want him so.
I love him so.

Before watching The Gospel Road, I admit that I first enjoyed the recent Hollywood Johnny Cash biography, Walk The Line. If that film is at all accurate, I can understand to some degree why June Carter Cash would have wanted to play Mary Magdalene on film. Judged harshly for her divorces, perhaps she felt some kinship with the haunted Mary Magdalene whose sexuality had become the focus of her entire existence. Unfortunately, Carter Cash wasn’t much of an actress. She portrayed Mary Magdalene as grateful, astonished and overwhelmed, but not much else. During the scene in which Jesus heals her, it was difficult to ascertain whether she was laughing with joy or crying in relief from whatever vague problems troubled her. She had the first real speaking part in the entire movie, and it was obvious that the film was written to spotlight her role.

Overall, these two movies are in completely different classes, artistically and stylistically. The same is true of these two Mary Magdalenes. Although I can respect June Carter Cash’s interpretation of the character, I didn’t buy it; it was as shallow as the rest of the movie. In contrast, Yvonne Elliman presented Mary Magdalene with all of the subtlety, talent, and fire that fueled the rest of Jesus Christ, Superstar.

The King of Kings

Tonight I watched Cecile B. DeMille’s silent classic, The King of Kings, starring Jaqueline Logan as a courtesan Mary Magdalene. It was difficult to take this film seriously, given as it was to fanciful imaginings about not only Mary Magdalene but Jesus and the rest of the characters as well. If we are to believe DeMille’s vision of the story, all Jesus’ mother ever did was play with little doves, smile, and nod knowingly. The bright spot of this film for me, as expected, was the scene in which Jesus healed Mary Magdalene of her demons. To my knowledge, this is the only feature film that has depicted this scene.*

Highly entertaining was Mary Magdalene’s pre-Jesus life. We meet her during a banquet feast with several of her suitors. Bejeweled and scantily clad, she reclines on a lavish couch while the ogling men sit around her in a half-circle. A servant releases her pet leopard, which runs to her for affection. One of her admirers wonders why she’ll kiss a beast but not him, but when he moves closer to sit in the empty chair nearest her couch, she shoves him away. Apparently this was Judas’ chair, her lover, and she misses his presence. When she learns that Judas has been spending his time with a poor carpenter magician rather than in the arms of another woman, she summons her zebra-drawn chariot (seriously!), and sets off to teach them all a lesson. No one can steal a man from Mary Magdalene!

When she arrives at her destination, she marches up to Jesus, presumably to give him what-for, only to be mysteriously spellbound when he looks at her. After he tells her to “be clean,” the seven deadly sins appear to rise from her, ghostly apparitions of herself contorted by vice. “I am pride,” says one, “and because of me you have made slaves of kings!” Eve-like, she becomes suddenly aware of her nakedness after the demons have left, and draws her mantle around her body. Thereafter she is dressed modestly, her long dark hair unadorned and unbound.

As expected, Mary Magdalene makes an appearance at the foot of the cross, and meets Jesus at the tomb for the “Noli Me Tangere” scene from John. She also shows up in the mob before Pilate, arguing against the rest of the crowd for Jesus’ release. This was interesting to me given that she tends to appear in this scene in other movies as well; Jesus of Nazareth as well as The Passion of the Christ both include her there.

Overall, with so much distance in time from the making of the movie, it’s more of an oddity today than anything. It is, however, a good reminder of how Mary Magdalene was popularly viewed before we remembered her as the apostle of the apostles. Mary Magdalene, the great harlot; a bit player and novel character in the male gospel story.

*If anyone knows of another, I’d love to hear about it!

Movie: Mary Magdalene

Posted on Magdalene.org at http://www.magdalene.org/movie_mm.php:

Mary Magdalene, the United States release of the Italian made-for-television film Maria Maddalena, was not a run-of-the-mill Mary Magdalene movie. Usually movies about Mary Magdalene fall into two categories: those about Jesus in which she happens to appear, usually as repentant prostitute, and pious retellings of Mary’s racy life that end with her finding Jesus, salvation, and peace. Although the film currently under review is absolutely at home in the latter category, it doesn’t come across as pretentious and superficial as others have.

Mary Magdalene, a married woman, is divorced by her husband because she could not bear children. Sworn to revenge, she beds a Roman soldier and leaves her birthright, Magdala, to her manipulative husband. Soon, however, she learns that the soldier she chose as an escape presents a new set of problems, and she is left in Tiberius alone after being brutally attacked. She attempts suicide, but is restored to life aboard a fishing vessel by a mysterious teacher whose followers pulled her lifeless body from the Sea of Galilee.

Before Mary can learn more about her savior, she is plucked, by a servant of Herod’s new wife, Herodias, from a group of people as they sit listening to the teacher on the shore. Herodias, frantically in search of a cure for leprous sores on her arm, asks Mary if she is an experienced healer. Having practiced plant medicine back in Magdala, Mary agrees to help. When she hears of Mary’s desire for revenge against her former husband, Herodias sees an opportunity to entangle the troubled woman in her own pursuits of power; she teaches Mary how to comport herself in a manner to seduce men in order to get whatever she wants. The catch, of course, is that Mary’s conquests also benefit the queen.

Mary is acquainted with John the Baptist, who is taken prisoner by Herod. She doesn’t understand the Baptist’s message of forgiveness, but is sympathetic to his plight. When Herodias is able to secure his death through clever manipulation of her daughter and husband, Mary finally breaks; she cannot serve a woman so cold and calculating. Matters become worse when Mary’s lover, another Roman soldier, acts on Mary’s planted suggestions to kill her previous lover and destroy her ex-husband by razing Magdala. In a sudden attack of conscience, Mary rushes to Magdala in time to witness the sorrow she has wrought. A young boy, the son of her dearest friend, is killed, and she is beside herself with grief. Enter, Jesus, who arrives on the scene just in time to restore the boy to life, giving Mary back the friendship she thought had been lost. His female disciples bring her into the fold, and, while at the house of Simon the Pharisee, she has a breakthrough in which she fully realizes the power of God’s love. A re-enactment of the anointing scene from the Gospel of Luke follows.

The story is powerful, even if it is entirely fictional. I found that it was much more poignant than many American attempts to flesh out Mary Magdalene’s story, even if the dubbing into English made the dialog feel more stilted than it already was. It’s difficult to put my finger on what it was about this movie that caused me to enjoy it as much as I did; it might have been the sumptuous costumes and sets, it might have been the grittiness of the Italian retelling, or perhaps it was the deep beauty of the actress portraying Mary Magdalene. Maria Grazia Cucinotta is by far one of the most fetching Mary Magdalenes to have graced the silver screen, offering fair competition to even Monica Bellucci (The Passion of The Christ). Yet another possibility for my attraction to this movie, though, is that at times it was believable. I wanted to weep with Mary over the death of her friend’s son; her agony and shame were palpable. Jesus, although conspicuously modern with his perfectly capped teeth and well-groomed hair, still managed to positively exude love. The anointing scene in this film moved me as it hasn’t before.

If a speculative approach to the traditional Mary Magdalene isn’t objectionable to you, this film is worth two hours of your time.