Pontius Pilate on Screen: Sinner, Soldier, Superstar
Who is Pontius Pilate? Who do the movies say that he is? What is truth?
Pontius Pilate On Screen deals with one of history’s most controversial characters. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Pontius Pilate is a figure of evidently endless fascination to filmmakers. The Roman prefect is depicted at times as the hapless victim of machinations beyond his control and at other times as the heartless villain of the piece. If in films about the Passion Jesus represents eternal truth, Pilate symbolises the values of the present – whether it is the lingering trauma of the Holocaust, the ongoing struggle over Civil Rights or the polarised politics of the current day – as filmmakers endeavour again and again to portray in Pontius Pilate a compelling counter-figure to Jesus himself.
This book considers portrayals of Pontius Pilate in film from the silent era to the twenty-first century. It discusses over 25 films in detail, including Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings (1927), Norman Jewison’s Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Sony’s Risen (2016). Based on extensive archival research and original interviews with actors, screenwriters and producers, it offers an extended discussion of the history, tradition and reception of Pontius Pilate.

1142377315
Pontius Pilate on Screen: Sinner, Soldier, Superstar
Who is Pontius Pilate? Who do the movies say that he is? What is truth?
Pontius Pilate On Screen deals with one of history’s most controversial characters. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Pontius Pilate is a figure of evidently endless fascination to filmmakers. The Roman prefect is depicted at times as the hapless victim of machinations beyond his control and at other times as the heartless villain of the piece. If in films about the Passion Jesus represents eternal truth, Pilate symbolises the values of the present – whether it is the lingering trauma of the Holocaust, the ongoing struggle over Civil Rights or the polarised politics of the current day – as filmmakers endeavour again and again to portray in Pontius Pilate a compelling counter-figure to Jesus himself.
This book considers portrayals of Pontius Pilate in film from the silent era to the twenty-first century. It discusses over 25 films in detail, including Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings (1927), Norman Jewison’s Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Sony’s Risen (2016). Based on extensive archival research and original interviews with actors, screenwriters and producers, it offers an extended discussion of the history, tradition and reception of Pontius Pilate.

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Pontius Pilate on Screen: Sinner, Soldier, Superstar

Pontius Pilate on Screen: Sinner, Soldier, Superstar

by Christopher M. McDonough
Pontius Pilate on Screen: Sinner, Soldier, Superstar

Pontius Pilate on Screen: Sinner, Soldier, Superstar

by Christopher M. McDonough

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Overview

Who is Pontius Pilate? Who do the movies say that he is? What is truth?
Pontius Pilate On Screen deals with one of history’s most controversial characters. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Pontius Pilate is a figure of evidently endless fascination to filmmakers. The Roman prefect is depicted at times as the hapless victim of machinations beyond his control and at other times as the heartless villain of the piece. If in films about the Passion Jesus represents eternal truth, Pilate symbolises the values of the present – whether it is the lingering trauma of the Holocaust, the ongoing struggle over Civil Rights or the polarised politics of the current day – as filmmakers endeavour again and again to portray in Pontius Pilate a compelling counter-figure to Jesus himself.
This book considers portrayals of Pontius Pilate in film from the silent era to the twenty-first century. It discusses over 25 films in detail, including Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings (1927), Norman Jewison’s Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Sony’s Risen (2016). Based on extensive archival research and original interviews with actors, screenwriters and producers, it offers an extended discussion of the history, tradition and reception of Pontius Pilate.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781474446891
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 08/15/2024
Series: Screening Antiquity
Pages: 296
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Christopher McDonough is Professor of Classics at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. He is the author of Servius’ Commentary on Aeneid Book Four: An Annotated Translation (Bolchazy-Carducci, 2004). He is the author of many articles on a range of topics including Ovid, Latin language and literature, mythology, literature in translation and Classics in cinema.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations.Prologue."Do You Enjoy Being A Symbol, Pontius?" The Trial of Pontius Pilate and Governor Collins

Chapter One.Quod Scripsi Scripsi

Chapter Two.The Silent Pilate 

Chapter Three.The Roman in the Living Room: Pilate on TV in the Early 1950s

Chapter Four.Mrs. Pilate: Claudia Procula and Clare Boothe Luce

Chapter Five.Pilate in CinemaScope, or, Notes on Roman Camp

Chapter Six.Finding Meaning in the Middlebrow: Pilate in the Sixties

Chapter Seven.What Is Truth? Pilate as Seventies Moral Relativist

Chapter Eight.Michael Palin’s Accent in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and a Few Others

Chapter Nine.Grand and Not-so-Grand Inquisitors of the Reagan Age

Chapter Ten."We At War": Pilate for the New Millennium

Epilogue.A Time of Hand-washing

Works Cited.Endnotes.

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