{"id":579,"date":"2008-10-24T22:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-24T22:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/10\/abel-ferraras-mary-has-left-new-york\/"},"modified":"2008-10-24T22:41:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-24T22:41:00","slug":"abel-ferraras-mary-has-left-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/10\/abel-ferraras-mary-has-left-new-york.html","title":{"rendered":"Abel Ferrara’s Mary has left New York."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Two weeks ago<\/a>, I noted that Abel Ferrara\u2019s Mary<\/a><\/i> (2005), which stars Juliette Binoche as an actress who is deeply affected by her performance of Mary Magdalene, was finally coming to New York, years after it premiered in various European countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

That engagement has come and gone, now, so here are some of the reviews and interviews that have popped up since my previous post.<\/p>\n

Most significant is an interview that Ferrara did with FilmMaker<\/a><\/i> magazine, in which he shares his views on the historical Jesus, the Gnostic gospels, and the role of women at the Last Supper, etc. Cinema Echo Chamber<\/a> has a video interview with Ferrara, as well.<\/p>\n

And then there are the reviews, and the sample paragraphs thereof.<\/p>\n

Victor Morton<\/a>, Rightwing Film Geek:<\/p>\n

As for MARY, the less said, the better. I have no doubt that the prize it won at Venice was an f-you to Mel Gibson. It is not worthy of a prize at the world second-most-prestigious juried festival (and there\u2019s lots of films I don\u2019t like that I realize are aesthetically distinguished and \u201cprize-worthy\u201d. MARY is not. It is lazy, padded, unfocused and just felt unfinished and phoned-in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Robert Davis<\/a>, Paste Magazine<\/i>:<\/p>\n

Louder and more chaotic than its material seems to warrant, Abel Ferrara\u2019s Mary<\/i> feels like the condensed version of a much larger movie. It includes scenes from a religious epic, TV interviews, street fights, limo rides, infidelity, hypocrisy, apostasy, and conversion, but at a mere 83 minutes the whole thing\u2019s over before it has even begun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Daniel Kasman<\/a>, The Auteurs\u2019 Notebook:<\/p>\n

When Ted questions the human and the spiritual in Jesus on his television show, when Marie leaves her fame as an actress for a life wandering between the Middle East and her \u201cvisions,\u201d when Tony Childress fights to get his film viewed without any pre-judgment, locking himself in the projection booth, and, ultimately, when Ted\u2019s dark night life\u2014both work and play\u2014leaves his wife dangerously alone, Mary<\/i> is brashly asking the same frightful things across simultaneous scenes. Simplistic dramatic arcs are forsaken for utter and complete immediacy; Ferrara, like Samuel Fuller, delivers earnestness with a rare, complete, and often frightening directness. The vitality, the fear and the ecstasy of such a style, of Mary, makes the cinema of Abel Ferrara one of utter necessity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

M. Leary<\/a>, Film \u2013 Think:<\/p>\n

I have never actually liked Ferrara\u2019s work, but I have also had a difficult time forgetting some of his most memorable images \u2013 such as the bad Lieutenant at the feet of Christ, which as a Jungian prefiguration of Gibson\u2019s Jesus is one of the most effective Christ images in modern American cinema. Mary is likewise burdened by Ferrara\u2019s \u201cmessiness,\u201d but this time that messiness works with the grain of his characters in a realistic scramble for faith and redemption. Faith is messy, the search for the historical Jesus is messy, and fortunately, so is Ferrara\u2019s film.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Leary also makes this brilliant comment at the Arts & Faith<\/a> forum: \u201cI completely disagree with the historiography and spirituality of the film, but I really enjoyed the way I disagreed with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other reviews are archived at Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> and Metacritic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See also the scene analysis<\/a> that Matt Page posted nearly two years ago, when the film came out on DVD in Europe.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, I noted that Abel Ferrara\u2019s Mary (2005), which stars Juliette Binoche as an actress who is deeply affected by her performance of Mary Magdalene, was finally coming to New York, years after it premiered in various European countries. That engagement has come and gone, now, so here are some of the reviews […]<\/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-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAbel Ferrara's Mary has left New York.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two weeks ago, I noted that Abel Ferrara's Mary (2005), which stars Juliette Binoche as an actress who is deeply affected by her performance of Mary\" \/>\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\/2008\/10\/abel-ferraras-mary-has-left-new-york.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abel Ferrara's Mary has left New York.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two weeks ago, I noted that Abel Ferrara's Mary (2005), which stars Juliette Binoche as an actress who is deeply affected by her performance of Mary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/10\/abel-ferraras-mary-has-left-new-york.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-24T22:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/SQKrZzwFGhI\/AAAAAAAAB9s\/59eclY9B0_4\/s400\/mary2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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