Christ On A Bus

As a person whose atheism is sturdy enough to make Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens sound like men who are not quite sure about the whole God thing, I do like to indulge in one Easter ritual with a connection to the main event, rather than just dribbling crème caramel egg down my chin.1

Every April I turn on Fox Classics and settle in for another re-run of Norman Jewison’s 1973 film of Jesus Christ Superstar. Now, the distaste for anything composed by the twitty Lord (‘muck’) Andrew Lloyd Webber (the face from the Planet Gonad) is justifiable, as the mere mention of pretty much every halitosis-exhaling, dung-steaming musical he has ever composed can shoot puke up into your mouth. Evita, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera. Burrrrp. Bleeuugh.

But long before all those ‘mum and dad tourist’ horrors, he created Jesus Christ Superstar, which is entirely brilliant, and one of the most erroneously slandered musical works of all time.

As a rock opera (a genre in which only Tommy by The Who can also claim any merit) Superstar benefits hugely too from Tim Rice’s lyrics. He’s a whiz with political satire, a keen examiner of the torments of hanging on to religious faith (and fraternal trust) when everything is turning to shit, and masterfully understands Mary Magdalene’s terrible devotion to a man (just a man?) she knows has too much to deal with due to his global-saviour diary to invest in something as earthbound as one-on-one love. For all this poignancy, Rice has been mostly accused of writing ‘schlock’, as though the story can’t possibly be reduced to entertainment, and told that he should stick to the heft and divinity of the King James version of Christianity, like Nick Cave does.

After Evita, Lloyd Webber’s musicals are Riceless and all the worse for it.

The Jesus Christ Superstar movie was made in 1973. Norman Jewison’s directorial CV is close to impeccable: The Cincinnati Kid, In the Heat of the Night, and then, after JCS, Rollerball, …And Justice For All and many more. So, there was no Richard Attenborough softcock approach here. Jewison wasn’t going to skimp on the sex and violence.

The film opens with a slow and ominous guitar intro swelling into the soundtrack’s overture, as a psychedelic Ken Kesey-type love-bus bumps its way along a rocky desert road and up a hill, at the top of which it disgorges a bunch of hot-looking young hippies, all frilled and fringed in leather and suede, and bootylicious in tight denim flares. Gleaming helmets are distributed to bad guys wearing Bonds singlets, while swarthy breastplated scary bearded dudes swish black capes and adjust bizarre giant hats (Caiaphas and his High Priests. Boo! Hiss!). The cross itself is handed down from the bus roof rack. Far out! Then the grooviness kicks off with a bit of a tribal dance, at the end of which our Jesus, Ted Neeley, is hoisted aloft to the symphonic crash of the opera’s signature tune. Uplifting stuff.

Ted was a very attractive man. He made Daniel Johns look like, well, one of the other guys in silverchair, and Johnny Depp someone likely to find roles only as Quasimodo or Richard III. (Disclosure: I’m exaggerating.) Ted’s been playing Jesus onstage for decades now and may well become the first stage messiah to need a walking frame to get to Calvary.

There actually isn’t the slightest sliver of evidence to suggest that the Christian lord and saviour had long hair, or was at all photogenic. More likely, he resembled the guy at my local kebab shop, a profoundly unhandsome bloke with chest hair up to his ears. (Here’s a forensic version of what Christ may have looked like.) This rather rougher, swarthier version of Jesus would in itself, I’m sure, deal Christianity a glancing blow.

As the bus passengers set off to follow Jesus on foot towards Jerusalem, Judas, portrayed (somewhat controversially) by African-American Carl Anderson in an awesome pink cheesecloth ensemble, climbs upon a spectacular craggy tor, to belt out ‘Heaven on Their Minds’, his thinking-out-loud warning to Jesus that the whole Hosanna carnival is getting out of hand and that he, Judas, intends checking out. The riff would do any band of the era (Deep Purple2; Humble Pie; Led Zep, in particular) proud.

Filmed in Israel, Jewison’s movie makes great use of spectacular ancient ruins, and vast desolate mountains and plains as locations, but mixes the whole thing up with some present-day props, the magic bus being just one. Herod hangs out on a modernist pontoon on the shores of the Dead Sea, and the Pharisees loiter on builders’ scaffolding. The best of the contemporary props, though, are military rentals. When Judas is out in the desert, wondering about whether or not to dob in Jesus, five giant tanks rumble over the hill and bear down on him. Having been made an offer he can’t refuse, Judas runs like hell to tell all.

Interestingly, Israel was at war with the tag-team of Egypt and Syria for some of 1973, the latter two countries seeking revenge and face-saving after a bad result in the Six-Day War of 1967. (Operation Shock and Crème Brulee, I think it was called.) It’s possible, I suppose, in that case, that the tanks rumbling into view in the movie were, in fact, looking for Arab insurgents and got lost, following Judas only to ask for directions.

The movie gets seriously adults only, and incredibly seventies, when Jesus arrives at the temple in Jerusalem, a terrifically holy place, where, against regulations, all manner of wickedness is going down. Cameras zoom in on the gyrating crotches of hookers, while drug dealers home in on teenagers, and bookies take bets on bird races. Spivs energetically barter with hookahs, whips, and machine guns. Talk about your moral turpitude.

I got things you won’t believe,
Name your pleasure I will sell.
I can fix your wildest needs,
I got heaven and I got hell.

Jesus is ropeable to say the least and, vibrating with disgust, he gets straight to kicking some sin-soaked ass: tearing the market apart stall by stall; upturning rotating postcard displays; smashing some expensive, high-quality gourds; and destroying a display of Franco Cozzo bedside mirrors (in Brunzawick, Footezgray and Izzyrail). Angry Ted hits some high notes here that could break up an Arab missile in mid-air. It’s just a classic bit of cinema.

It’s impossible to find a crap song in JCS. ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’, as sung by Yvonne Elliman (and no one else, especially Helen Reddy3), is heart-wrenching. I even like the slight ‘Could We Start Again’, but that may be because much of it is sung by Paul Thomas, who went on to star in, and then direct, hardcore porn. So, he had trouble staying on message God-wise, and was probably already framing his first money shot.

To my delight, I’ve discovered that there are still protests against Jesus Christ Superstar when it rolls into certain towns. Most determined of the placard-waving loopers are the Reformation-inspired Calvinists and Presbyterians. For those whose quality time consists of a couple of hours of godly genuflection, and then a cold shower, Superstar is blasphemy of the kind where cooking the offender with a flame-thrower and eating their heart is merely to issue a slap on the wrist.

What they dislike most, these determined and doggedly orthodox Christians, is that the opera is not very religious. There’s no indication within it that Jesus could perform miracles, or wake up and not be dead anymore. (Part of the reason for that is because the show ends at the crucifixion. Der.) The Jesus portrayed by Lloyd Webber and Rice and Jewison gets fed up with the lepers because they won’t form an orderly line; he argues with his father about all the forsaking; and may be fornicating with Mary Magdalene, who’s maybe a hooker.

The Free Presbyterian Church of Cork uncorked various complaints about the opera’s arrival some years back, one of them being an allegation that the apostles were drunk at the Last Supper. I’m sure the apostles would refute those allegations completely, and, as for that other incident, Matthew thought she was eighteen.

The FPCC didn’t stop with a slanging match outside the theatre either. Their bellicose leader went on local radio to froth and foam about the horrors of Superstar, but he found the announcer less than sympathetic to his objections. This collusion with Satan wasn’t appreciated by the church rep, a Rev Colin Maxwell, who, the day after, posted on their flashy website, ‘I rebuked him live on air as a blasphemer and told him that his mouth was an open sepulchre and the poison of asps was under his lips. (Romans 3:13)’ That number again is Romans 3:13.

At the movie’s close, all the flower people (minus Ted/Jesus, who is dead/in heaven) shed their characters, re-load the bus and head into the sunset to whatever West Coast, or New York City stoner communes they came from.

No theatrical versions of Jesus Christ Superstar, no matter how handsomely mounted, will ever match the movie. So often when a musical is adapted for the screen, the director is the same person who helmed the stage show, and the results are amateurish and one-dimensional. Norman Jewison could probably conjure up a dark, sinister adaptation of Mamma Mia!.

Go hire Superstar for the holidays. Get some hot cross buns in and invite all your Calvinist mates round, but mind the asps.

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1The Easter Bunny is a symbol of pagan fertility; therefore, his visit might be better celebrated at a time not quite so fraught with religious torment, self-flagellation and slow death, and more in tune with joyful fucking in the countryside.

2Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan played Jesus in the first London production of the opera. Much to the snooty disdain of the balding critics.

3Whilst Tubing various versions of ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’, I came across a rendering by Susan Boyle, recorded in 1984, in what looks like the very vision of hell: a small, noisy pub sullied by a useless house band, sitting on a stage draped blindingly at the back with strips of silver glitter, and all made worse by an MC in a kilt. Now, since I’ve already blown all my cred, I may as well say that the Boyle version is pretty good. Her current stardom is stuff and nonsense, and nothing but the ongoing exploitation of a showbiz fairytale, but even this early in the piece, she does, you have to admit, have a feel for a tune, which well and truly transcends the West Lothian Gasometer talent night.