Page - 78 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/01

10 years and became increasingly well-known in the 19th century. The location, at the intersection of a number of ancient routes, meant that the village and its passion were visited by many travellers, whose remarks, positive or negative, heightened the fame of the play. Among those who voiced their impressions of this passion play were French theologian and philosopher Maurice Blondel and a reformed rabbi from Philadelphia, each of whom conveyed his own sen- sibilities about the performance: Blondel acknowledged the emotional power of this type of performance and its historical plausibility, whereas the rabbi was outraged by the demonization of the Jews who, according to elements of the Gospel narrative, were responsible for the death of Jesus.40 Also in 1898, La vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ was shot in Paris. Com- posed of thirteen tableaux, it was commissioned by the Lumière brothers and directed by George Hatot. The following year Georges Méliès produced a short film on the life of Christ, Le Christ marchant sur les flots (Christ Walking on the Water, 1899), with special effects to describe Jesus’ miracles, an approach that raised the issue of the representation of sacred or supernatural experienc- es. In 1900, Luigi Topi directed La passione di Gesù (The Passion of Jesus, IT) with Italian actors and released it close to Easter; Giulio Antamoro’s 1916 Chris- tus (IT) was one of the “first religious colossal” of the Italian film industry.41 Over the first decades of the 20th century the list of works depicting Jesus’ life expanded, with notable innovations. Starting from 1902, a series of biblical tableaux was created by Ferdinand Zecca and produced by the Pathé broth- ers with the title La vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, FR 1902).42 At the time it was one of the longest films on Jesus’ life, constructed in 27 scenes (which were also circulated and commercialized separately), some of which were inspired by the Bible illustrations of Gustave Doré or the famous artist Mihály Munkácsy. The story is structured as a Gospel harmony, with a single merged narrative. La vie du Christ (Life of Christ, FR 1906), directed by Alice Guy, was produced by Gaumont. Not only was Guy the first woman to direct a film on Jesus, but she also left a distinctive authorial mark. David Shepherd claims that Guy’s Catholic identity was relevant for her sensibilities, which were aesthetically inspired by another Bible illustrator, Jean Jacques Tissot, and by Anne Catherine Emmerich, a mystic who was very influential in the 19th century and for Mel Gibson’s much later The Passion of the Christ (US 2004).43 The new version of Zecca’s Vie et 40 Blondel 1911; Krauskopf 1901. More generally see Shapiro 2001 and Favret-Saada 2004; Cohen 2007. On more specific grounds, on the charge of deicide, Facchini 2011. 41 Pucci 2016. 42 Boillat-Robert 2016. 43 Shepherd 2016, 6–7; Facchini 2004. 78 | Cristiana Facchini www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1