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The Celluloid Christ: Godspell Church of the Saviour Lenten Study - 2011 (Leader: Lejf E

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The Celluloid Christ: Godspell Church of the Saviour Lenten Study - 2011 (Leader: Lejf E 9 VIEWING GUIDE: Godspell (1973 D. Greene) The Celluloid Christ: Godspell Church of the Saviour Lenten Study - 2011 (leader: Lejf E. Knutson) 9 “The characters in Godspell can be looked at in two ways, and both are inspired. On one hand, these people could literally be Jesus, John, and the disciples, in a story updated to modern day New York. With this approach, their colorful outfits, face-painting, and childish antics truly puts into perspective how bizarre and radical Jesus’ actions must have been in first century Israel, and yet these people are filled with so much joy and happiness that, much like in The Apostle, we find their lifestyle contagious. On the other hand, I choose to view this film not as a literal update of Christ’s life, but as a group of radicals living in New York embracing the teachings of Christ as a lifestyle. As a result, they are simply playing the life of Christ out to get a better understanding of his ideas. Either way, the message is the same: Be yourself, be radical, push the envelope, and love one another. Godspell is a film breathing with life and joy.”1 “In anything remotely resembling something that could begin to be called a religious sense, Godspell is a zero; it’s Age-of Aquarius Love fed through a quasi-gospel funnel, with a few light-hearted supernatural touches. ”2 “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out – Find God” – David Greene’s Godspell (1973) I concluded my discussion of The Gospel According to St. Matthew with a deliberately (or hopefully) provocative statement: “What would a Jesus film look like if it tried to present Jesus preaching his revolutionary, world-upsetting ethos of the kingdom in the here and now, in the heart of the modern city?” – and then suggested that Godspell would be an answer to that question. Part of the reason I thought this might engender some head scratching is because, unlike St. Matthew, Godspell doesn’t seem particularly provocative given the fact that it has permeated American culture in a significant way. It’s hard to find a church-gower who hasn’t been forced to sing “Day By Day” at least once since the Seventies and the stage musical Godspell has been routinely performed by professionals 1 Daniel Griffin, Film As Art: Daniel Griffin’s Guide To Cinema, located at http://uashome.alaska.edu/ ~dfgriffin/website/godspell.htm. 2 Stanley Kaufmann, The New Republic (May 12, 1973), reprinted in W. Barnes Tatum, Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years, p. 130. 9 and amateur groups, including in churches and high schools, over the last forty years.3 Also, at first glance it’s hard to think of Godspell and St. Matthew as similar films in outlook given the fact that they look and feel entirely different from each other. Still, I think there are significant points of contact between them beyond the primary source material from St. Matthew’s Gospel. First, both films are definite products of the counter-cultural movements in the Sixties and Seventies, although St. Matthew has a European, art house sensibility while Godspell emerges from an American, “hippie” context.4 Given this historical pedigree, Godspell is often linked to other counter-cultural rock musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Tommy (1975) and Hair (1979).5 Moreover, like Pasolini in St. Matthew, the original writer of the stage show and film script for Godspell – John-Michael Tebelak – was trying to find way to tell the Jesus story that would be new, relevant and accessible. At the time of Godspell’s genesis, Tebelak was a graduate student working on his thesis in classical mythology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg.6 Apparently, Tebelak had an epiphany while his mind was wandering during church: I went to the Easter Vigil service at the Anglican Cathedral in Pittsburgh. It was snowing, and I was aware of the proper setting for a tremendous religious experience. But the people in the church seemed bored, and the clergymen seemed to be hurrying to get it over with. I left with the feeling that, rather than rolling the rock away from the tomb, they were piling it on. I went home, took out my manuscript and worked it to completion in 3 Which brings me to my favorite (actually only) Godspell joke. There’s a cheap little film comedy called Wet Hot American Summer (2001) set in a summer camp predominately attended and run by Jewish campers and counselors. During the camp talent show, one group performs “Day By Day” in full hippie garb, and the audience sways and rocks out to the song’s imperatives to “See Thee More Clearly; Love Thee More Dearly; Follow Thee More Nearly, Day By Day.” However, the room’s mood abruptly changes at the end of the song when the performers reverently bow and a neon cross is lit up above them; then, the Jewish campers turn on the performers and “boo” them off the stage. 4 “The 1960s saw the ascendancy of rock music and that movement, or movements, of young people variously identified as student activists or social dropouts, campus radicals or flower children, yippies or hippies. Racial segregation and then the war in Vietnam gave these representatives of a so-called counter- culture foils against which they rebelled or from which they withdrew. Berkeley, Haight-Ashbury, and Woodstock became geographical markers along the way.” Tatum, Jesus at the Movies, p. 119. 5 Again, see Tatum, Jesus at the Movies, p. 119 and Katherine J. Fennessey at http:// nationaltours.broadwayworld.com/videodbinfo.cfm?id=49 (“Comparing Godspell to its near- contemporaries Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair is unavoidable.”) 6 By the way, the work “godspell” is an old English word for “gospel.” Yes, this hippy rock play/film was the product of an overeducated Episcopalian mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Michael_Tebelak 9 a non-stop frenzy.7 Furthermore, in my opinion, I think there is a major point of contact between St. Matthew and Godspell in that both of them are primarily focused on Jesus’ proclamation of the gospel message and the ethos of the coming kingdom.8 Still, while sharing some points of contact, the films part company in a radical way in terms of aesthetics sensibilities – and not just because St. Matthew is set in an art house black and white, barren Italian countryside while Godspell is a colorized carnival playing out in New York City. To spell out the differences – and as a change of pace – I think it helps to focus first on the narrative method used in Godspell and then turn to the “type” of Jesus presented in the film. The “Jesus” Narrative Problem – Do A Little Song And Dance As I mentioned in the context of St. Matthew, when that film gets to Jesus’ proclamation of the gospel message the narrative grinds to a halt – Jesus yells in the general direction of the camera for several minutes as the weather changes behind him. However, the presentation of the same gospel material in Godspell is entirely different and, as a result, we don’t get the same sense of narrative suspension. Instead, each of Jesus’ parables or sayings is presented in the context of a musical number and/or slapstick sketch, with “Jesus” and the “disciples” taking turns portraying the various good servants, bad servants and authority figures in each particular parable. At the same time, Godspell is not a traditional American film musical. If you think of traditional film musicals, they are still standardized Hollywood films with narratives driven by central characters motivated by their personal goals and desires. Rather than 7 Quoted in Tatum, Jesus at the Movies, p. 120. It probably didn’t help that Tebelak showed up to church in a t-shirt and jeans and, as a result, was frisked by a police officer for drugs after the service. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Michael_Tebelak. Tebelak didn’t finish his original thesis. Instead, Tebelak wrote Godspell in collaboration with several members of the CMU theater department and, in doing so, pulled most of the song lyrics from the Episcopal hymnal. From there, Godspell opened in New York by the Café La Mama Experimental Theater Group in 1971. Then, it moved to Cherry Lane Theater after the songs were reworked by the composer Stephen Schwartz where it played for over six years. Afterwards, Godspell ran on Broadway for over five hundred performances from 1976 through 1977. By the way, Stephen Schwartz went on to write other Broadway musicals like Pippin and the current hit Wicked. Also, Godspell’s musical cousin Jesus Christ Superstar was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, both of whom wrote Evita. Afterwards, Tim Rice went on to write song lyrics for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Lion King, while Webber wrote musicals like Cats and Phantom of the Opera. So, the moral of the story seems to be that if you want to have a successful career in music theater – write a Jesus musical in your youth. 8 In fact, while St. Matthew deemphasizes the miracles in comparison to a traditional Jesus film like The King of Kings, there are no miracles in Godspell – not even a resurrection. We’ll return to that point. 9 use music as a way to halt or suspend the narrative, the songs generally occur at key points in the story to explain the emotions and motivations of the main characters – as if the characters’ emotions are so powerful at that moment that they spill out in song form.9 Think of West Side Story (1961) – my favorite film musical, by the way.
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