{"id":2798,"date":"2005-05-24T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-24T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/05\/gonna-buy-five-copies-for-my-mother\/"},"modified":"2005-05-24T20:19:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-24T20:19:00","slug":"gonna-buy-five-copies-for-my-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/05\/gonna-buy-five-copies-for-my-mother.html","title":{"rendered":"Gonna buy five copies for my mother!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Nearly two months have gone by since I posted a link<\/a> to the brand new Amazon page for Scandalizing Jesus?<\/a><\/i>, an upcoming collection of essays on the book and film versions of The Last Temptation of Christ<\/i> that is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary this year of the publication of Nikos Kazantzakis\u2019s original novel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, today, the editor of that book e-mailed a copy of the cover to all the contributors \u2014 and look who made the front page! For those who can\u2019t read the fine print to the left or access the larger JPEG, what it says is:<\/p>\n

Edited by<\/i> Darren J. N. Middleton
Featuring essays by<\/i>
Martin Scorsese, Peter Bien, & Peter T. Chattaway<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This just floors me. There are quite a few other essayists in this book besides the four of us, and I believe I\u2019m the only one besides Scorsese who isn\u2019t a member of academia (heck, I never even made it past my B.A.; I caught the student journalism bug and lost whatever interest I had in graduate school), so the last<\/i> thing I would have expected was to see my name singled out and sitting on the cover like this, next to three of the biggest interpreters of Kazantzakis\u2019s work. (Middleton has co-edited<\/a> and authored<\/a> a couple other books on Kazantzakis\u2019s theology, Bien translated Last Temptation<\/i> into English<\/a> in 1960, and Scorsese of course translated it into film<\/a> in 1988.) But the book is divided into two parts \u2014 essays on Kazantzakis\u2019s novel and essays on Scorsese\u2019s film \u2014 and apparently they wanted to single out one essayist from each section of the book. Bien, as the translator, was the obvious pick from the \u201cnovel\u201d section. And I was the guy they singled out from the \u201cfilm\u201d section. I\u2019m still wrapping my mind around this!<\/p>\n

FWIW, my essay does not look at the film in the sort of specifically cinematic way that, say, my essay<\/a> for Re-Viewing The Passion<\/a><\/i> did; i.e., it\u2019s not about point-of-view shots and whatnot. Instead, it\u2019s about the treatment of sexuality in historical, theological, artistic, literary and cinematic interpretations of the life of Christ \u2014 with a heavy emphasis on the last two categories, of course. I rely pretty heavily on other writers for the first three categories; the fourth basically just consists of an analysis of Kazantzakis\u2019s novel; and the fifth looks not only at Scorsese\u2019s film but also Cecil B. DeMille\u2019s The King of Kings<\/a><\/i> (1927; my review<\/a>), Norman Jewison\u2019s Jesus Christ Superstar<\/a><\/i> (1973), Monty Python\u2019s Life of Brian<\/a><\/i> (1979; my comments<\/a>), Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s Je vous salue, Marie<\/a><\/i> (1985), and Roger Young\u2019s Jesus<\/a><\/i> (1999; my review<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Oh, and to make things even better, I hear the book is now due for release on October 1 \u2014 my birthday. What a treat that<\/i> will be!<\/p>\n

I hope that whets some appetites out there!<\/p>\n

JUL 27 UPDATE: I\u2019ve now posted a list of the essays here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NOV 23 UPDATE: At last, my copy of the book is here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly two months have gone by since I posted a link to the brand new Amazon page for Scandalizing Jesus?, an upcoming collection of essays on the book and film versions of The Last Temptation of Christ that is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary this year of the publication of Nikos Kazantzakis\u2019s original […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGonna buy five copies for my mother!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nearly two months have gone by since I posted a link to the brand new Amazon page for Scandalizing Jesus?, an upcoming collection of essays on the book\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/05\/gonna-buy-five-copies-for-my-mother.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gonna buy five copies for my mother!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nearly two months have gone by since I posted a link to the brand new Amazon page for Scandalizing Jesus?, an upcoming collection of essays on the book\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/05\/gonna-buy-five-copies-for-my-mother.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-05-24T20:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.canadianchristianity.com\/film\/graphics\/scandalizingjesus.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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