And is not the language of the cinema of its very nature a way of telling stories that carry a reasoned argument, as it were, reasoning by way of stories? Here one can see how the narrative dimension – constitutive of the cinema – complements the icon’s symbolic dimension: and it is by dint of this bringing together of icon and story that the cinema can be a language uniquely capable of mediating transcendence.[i]

— Bruno Forte

The danger, however, that in our attempt to conceive and understand [the Resurrection] we in fact suppress the very revolution that the story embodies, naturalize the alienness of its ideas, tame the violence it does to our logic, and anesthetize its wounding of our pride.[ii]

— Alan E. Lewis

 

In Part 1 of Cinematic Resurrections, we looked at how Jesus films have represented the event of Jesus’ rising as well as the stories of his empty tomb. But the sensory appearances of the risen Christ present an even greater challenge for the filmmaker, involving a tension between visual plausibility and underlying truth. What really happened in the appearances, and what might that have looked like?

In the gospel texts, these appearances are not presented as private, interior experiences, subjective and dreamlike. They always convey a sense of concreteness and physicality, experienced as something outside the observer. Jesus has a bodily presence which occupies the spaces of encounter.

There is of course an inherent strangeness to meeting someone whose death you just witnessed. And the appearances stories do have a certain inexplicable “now you see me, now you don’t” quality. Jesus comes and goes at will. He is not barred by locked doors, nor does he ever linger for a proper goodbye, since “I am with you always.”

But the strangest aspect of the appearance stories, given their transcendent and astonishing subject, is their plainness. Jesus does not glow with supernal light, as in the mystical Transfiguration story, nor does he radiate the sublime and fearsome grandeur with which he appears in the Book of Revelation. The risen Christ is so down-to-earth that he is mistaken for a gardener. Later we find him barbecuing fish on the beach,

He still has human form, but something about him has changed. Catching sight of him is not enough to make the connection between the crucified teacher and this man from God knows where. Recognition is triggered not by his appearance, but by something he says or does, such as “Peace be with you,” or the breaking of bread at Emmaus (beautifully shown in The Miracle Maker). But even after the disciples discern the Risen One’s identity (“It’s Jesus!”), they still sense that something is different, something which begins to make them fall to their knees.

Both identity and difference are essential components of the Resurrection. The risen Christ is not a different person from the one who was crucified. At the same time, his body has undergone an incomprehensible transformation. As Wolfhart Pannenberg puts it, “Resurrection has to be understood in terms of transformation of the old life into the new one rather than in terms of replacing the perishable body by a new one.”[iii]

It is hard to convey this sense of “same but different” on film when a single actor plays Jesus both before and after the resurrection. In King of Kings (1961), for example, it is still clearly the boyish Jeffrey Hunter, apparently unaffected by the harrowing passage through death into divine futurity, who meets Mary Magdalene outside the tomb. In Jesus (1999), the risen Christ has lost nothing of the California cool which Jeremy Sisto brought to his pre-Easter Jesus. Such scenes are all familiarity without the slightest trace of difference— it’s the same actor, the same affect, the same voice.

Many of the films convey a sense of difference in the way the disciples respond to the appearances. When Jesus comes into their midst, they do not resume their accustomed rapport with their old companion of the road. They don’t rush to embrace him as you would a long-lost friend. They are respectfully hesitant to approach. Is this fear of the uncanny, or is it the beginning of worship? Then they move from astonishment and wonder to a place of prayerful receptivity. They bow their heads or close their eyes as Jesus speaks to them, touches them, or breathes the Holy Spirit upon them (as in The Gospel of John). The risen Christ soothes the anxious heart. Peace be with you.

How far can a film go in representing a resurrection appearance? Whar are the rules of engagement for the visual artist? Son of God (2014) attempts to communicate the strangeness of the Resurrection in two interesting scenes. In the first, we follow Magdalene from the glare of the Middle Eastern sun into the darkness of the tomb. As she puzzles over the grave cloths, the camera shifts to reveal the tomb entrance, and there is Jesus, just outside in the bright light of day.

Since the lens aperture is open wide to compensate for the dimness of the cave, the figure standing in the sunlight is extremely overexposed. The details of his face and body are burned out, erased by intense luminosity. This is not a special effect added to the image in post-production. It is simply how a camera sees under those conditions. With the cinematic eye calibrated to the darkness of death’s realm, we are literally blinded by the light.

So Mary sees, but does not recognize, until Jesus speaks her name. “Teacher?” she answers, hesitant but hopeful. Then her face tells us— she knows him. But the distance between them remains: she in the tomb, Jesus in the light. “Go and tell the others,” he says. “I am here.” Then he turns to walk away, and after a few steps his figure vanishes into the white light.

The encounter feels both plausible and strange at the same time. In this world but not of it. It has the naturalness of story, something which might have happened that way, but also the transcendent otherness of an icon. It’s only a movie— the artifice of representation using actors, camera and music, but it has the capacity to draw the viewer into effective proximity to what is being represented.

Then, the same film gives us an upper room appearance scene unique to the genre— an audacious attempt to bridge the ineffable transition from physical presence to sacramental presence. Once the sensory appearances of Jesus ceased not long after the Resurrection, the eucharist became the tangible and revelatory sign that Christ is now present in all times and places. This scene creatively depicts a single presence behind both experiences.

Peter and John, doubting Magdalene’s news, go back to the tomb with her. Peter enters alone, finds the burial shroud, and takes it outside to John and Mary. “Now do you believe me?” she says. But John shakes his head: “He’s gone.” Suddenly a strong gust of wind whirls a cloud of dust through the frame. It’s like a little Pentecost, the Spirit blowing Peter’s mind with the truth. “Gone?” he says. “No! He’s back.”

They run into town, pick up bread from a street seller and take it to the other disciples, waiting in the upper room. “I need a cup,” Peter cries. “And some wine.” Thomas, bewildered by Peter’s excitement, asks what happened. Peter doesn’t reply. There’s no time to waste.

He joins the others at table, breaking the bread and pouring the wine. “His body … his blood,” he says fervently, as if these things were Jesus himself. Offering the cup to the dubious Thomas, he begins to repeat their teacher’s words: “I am the way, the truth . . . ” but the final line, “and the life,” is spoken by a different voice, off camera. At first we see only a close shot of Thomas, glancing up in surprise. Then we see what he sees: Jesus, coming into focus as he enters the open door. Thomas looks down at the table. “No,” he says. “No, this isn’t real.”

Jesus just smiles, and begins to walk around the table, pausing to lay a hand of blessing on each disciple. In the gospel stories of the upper room, Jesus speaks the words, “Peace be with you,” but here his wordless gesture says it all. When he reaches Thomas, he sits down to face him. Jesus shows him his wounded hand, and then gently caresses the doubter’s cheek with it. Love becomes the evidence Thomas has been longing for.

Like Luke’s Emmaus story, this film scene blends narrative and symbol. Is it describing an original and unique appearance of the risen Christ, or is it representing the common experience of every believer who shares the bread of life and the cup of salvation? I would say both.

What happened then, happens now. What happened there, happens here. And whatever the nature of the first resurrection appearances, those stories are deeply flavored by eucharistic practice. When the lector, deacon or presider says the words, Jesus speaks. When the bread is shared and the wine poured out for many, “he’s back.” And whenever two or three gather in Christ’s name, the peace which passes all understanding is bestowed all over again. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.

…. I looked
at him, not with the eye
only, but with the whole
of my being, overflowing with
him as a chalice would
with the sea…[iv]

 

Related Posts

Cinematic Resurrections (Part 1)

Are we too late for the Resurrection?

 

 

[i] Bruno Forte, The Portal of Beauty: Towards a Theology of Aesthetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 108

[ii] Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 27

[iii] Wolfhart Pannenberg, “History and the Reality of the Resurrection,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1996), 70

[iv] R.S. Thomas, “Suddenly”, in Collected Poems: 1945-1990 (London: Phoenix Giant, 1993), 283