Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Magdalene Review various

Lesa Bellevie's Magdalene Review is always well worth a read and I enjoyed the reflections today on the issue of the women's witness at the resurrection of Jesus (Women, the resurrection and disbelief). There are also some interesting reflections on Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar and The Gospel Road in Mary Magadelene, circa 1973. I have not seen The Gospel Road but would love to, at some point, since I've been a Johnny Cash fan since I saw him on the Columbo episode Swan Song, also made in 1973, as it happens. Another oddity from the same year is Godspell (dir. David Greene) in which there is no Mary Magdalene at all.

But to get to the reason I wanted to mention The Magdalene Review, in a post on Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, Lesa writes:
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. * If anyone knows of another, I’d love to hear about it!
Well, I can think of one: The Miracle Maker, claymated, and voiced by Julie Christie. For the scene depicting the seven demons, the film goes into two-dimensional animation and you actually see the seven demons.
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4 comments:

  1. Matt Page16 March 2006 at 03:10

    I've never seen The Gospel Road either. We're in luck though; I just realised yesterday that it's just become available on DVD

    I can't think of any other Mary Magdalene films which depict her exorcism, although I think Jesus (1979) mentions it.

    Matt

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  2. Anonymous17 March 2006 at 12:34

    Thanks for the kind words about my blog, Mark, and for mentioning The Miracle Maker. It's currently waiting in my Netflix queue!

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  3. Whit+17 March 2006 at 16:23

    Thanks for those references. In my Jesus Films class we are doing "Miracles and Healings" next time. I will look for both clips.

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  4. Peter T Chattaway17 March 2006 at 22:44

    FWIW, if memory serves, it's Miranda Richardson who provides the voice of Mary Magdalene -- Christie provides the voice of the Virgin Mary.

    (Trivia note: Christie had a bit part in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Richardson co-starred with her Miracle Maker co-star Ralph Fiennes in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.)

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