The trials of a factious ‘Christ’

There are moments in cultural history, notes Thomas Lindlof in a phrase typical of his fluent but never fussy prose, “of gathered tension.” Such a moment came with the 1988 release of Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ,” an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ classic novel of the same name.

In our present era, when fundamentalists can seek violent solutions, there’s a certain harmlessness to the controversy Lindlof so painstakingly details. The most noisome moment in this country, from the announcement of the production through its roll-out, came when a driver rammed a converted school bus into an empty theater lobby in Ithaca, N.Y., injuring only himself.

You could say the film’s release amid vigorous protest from fundamentalist (and some mainstream) Christians did another kind of damage, not just to Scorsese’s career but, as Lindlof concludes, to adventurous films in general. For studios that were already migrating toward a popcorn-driven consciousness, “Last Temptation” took on, Lindlof concludes, “an almost totemic status as the type of project that should not be pursued, except with the greatest caution.”

For a project that cost less than $8 million to shoot and grossed about the same in its domestic run, this effort to show that Jesus was a compound of both divine and earthly elements caused a brouhaha of historic proportions for Universal Pictures honcho Tom Pollock and his legendary boss, Lew Wasserman, who had the most at stake in this PR drama.

But traditional balance sheets are not what Lindlof seeks to explicate. As he puts it, “The ‘Last Temptation’ crisis -- like most controversies -- occurred at a seam in the transition from one ideological regime to another. . . . [which] made the struggle over the film as much a political battle as a religious one.” Through their battle against the studio and Scorsese, he quotes journalist Gustav Niebuhr as saying, “evangelical Christians, who see themselves as a distinct minority group” found “a unity of voice and vision that other minority groups have had.”

The author’s immediate comparison is to the reaction, in 1989, of Islamic fundamentalists against Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.” No less a figure in the “Last Temptation” controversy than the Rev. Donald Wildmon saw “very definite similarities on the front end,” saying that both Scorsese and Rushdie “failed to take into consideration the deeply felt religious convictions of the people offended.”

Though typical Hollywood denizens will find themselves rooting for Universal and Scorsese, Lindlof labors to stay neutral. His portrait of the teams of “advance men” sent into the field by Universal’s media consultant Josh Baran is etched in self-damning quotes. Thus Universal emissary Rob Johnson’s braggadocio that “I absolutely positioned the press with sight lines in mind . . . so the protesters were foregrounded” is part of a litany that adds up to a realization that if “crisis propagation was definitely not in their job description,” at least a couple “engaged in off-the books, freelance tactics aimed at generating a more robust protest presence.”

The book’s almost inadvertent villain is Tim Penland, a Burbank-based, born-again Christian whose knack for reaching the Christian moviegoer had helped 1981’s “Chariots of Fire” succeed. The failure to give even an estimate of Penland’s fee from Universal is one of Lindlof’s few shortcomings in reporting, because either blind faith or a big payday caused the consultant to err in letting the studio keep the script away from him even as he began to give it implicit support. Overall, however, Scorsese’s film managed to excite the very base that ideologues were only too happy to bring to protest rallies. Many were well-meaning, but there are inevitably disturbing snapshots, such as the day in Chattanooga, Tenn., when the Lookout Mountain Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were warmly greeted by local ministers.

The Hollywood group has its own absurdities, and those with a passing familiarity with the epoch may find themselves surprised to learn that Paul Schrader, having written the script, would tell Scorsese he’d “walk over” his back to direct it if Scorsese’s push toward production slackened.

Scorsese emerges near- heroically, a man committed to finding not just cinematic truths but spiritual ones. He would be wounded by hearing one of his icons, Franco Zeffirelli, call “Last Temptation” “vulgar and obscene.” Scorsese would describe his approach to Jesus “as it is in the Gospels: fully divine, fully human in one entity.”

The travails of the production are memorably detailed, right down to the moment when he promised Paramount he’d shoot the “Flashdance” sequel if they’d let him make his Jesus film.

We watch Aidan Quinn be replaced by Willem Dafoe in the lead. We see the director’s accommodations to Harvey Keitel in his controversial street-style portrayal of Judas. We see Mike Ovitz take over Scorsese’s career and strong-arm the green-lighting of the film, and we see Wasserman as moody but gentlemanly wise as his legend proclaims him to be.

One of the religious right’s “offended brethren” speaks of his Hollywood opponents as “a handful of people with great wealth and depraved minds.” He meant it sincerely, yet he was aligned against another warrior, Scorsese, whose sincerity was equal and ultimately more effective. As a study of a landmark moment in American cinema, Lindlof’s book is both profound and extremely entertaining.

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Fred Schruers writes the entertainment blog “Hollywood Deal” for Portfolio.com