The main thing this miniseries can be applauded for is the effort taken to try and recreate a palpable sense of the historical settings and the cultural milieu. I also applaud the director for the Classical, British style of acting and delivery which is infinitely greater than the more modern, 'method' kind of American Acting that has cheapened Cinema and TV over the decades.
However, the biggest problem here is the WRITING/SCRIPT. What they chose to portray from the Biblical accounts and what they chose to ADD as well as SUBTRACT is completely unwieldy and sometimes absolutely perplexing!! There is also NO COGENT SENSE of the narrative. The miniseries is called "Jesus of Nazareth" and yet there is so much time spent on Joseph, the husband of Mary in the beginning, for instance, that when he dies, the rest of the show NEVER feels the same again because the audience was so heavily invested in Joseph as a primary character. Robert Powell is a terrific actor, but he lacks the warmth of the actor who played Joseph, and so Joseph emerges as a more likeable and sympathetic protagonist than Robert Powell's version of Jesus, which should not have happened.
It was very unnecessary to make up a fictional "backstory" for Mary and Joseph, as if they were an amorous couple from 'Fiddler on the Roof', when this goes against the traditional understanding of Jesus's mother and foster father, and then Mary is reduced to a sober widow as the story progresses. They go to great lengths to portray how joyous and festive Mary and Joseph's betrothal and wedding were, but then they make the MOST BAFFLING DECISION of omitting the entire WEDDING OF CANA later in the miniseries, which is one of the most well-known episodes from the New Testament - it was actually the First Miracle that Jesus performed in public, at Mary's behest. It makes zero sense to leave such a significant and beloved story out of this screen adaptation! In fact, I don't think Mary and Jesus ever even speak to each other here after Jesus becomes an adult, except when He is on the cross. Very bizarre, and makes no sense at all in light of the great lengths taken by Franco Zeffirelli to depict how Mary and Joseph became a family in the first place (above and beyond what the Bible tells us).
Mary Magdalene is introduced as a formidable character, but we barely see her with Jesus either except in one scene. We don't even see Jesus casting the seven demons out of her. What drew her to Jesus in the first place after living the kind of lifestyle she did is only hinted at, and there is NO TIME spent showing her integration into the community of Disciples. Hence, her last scene with the Apostles seems very discordant and strange - the director seems to want to make the point that the Apostles were misogynistic and didn't take her seriously, but it could have been depicted in a more nuanced and polished way. When Mary Magdalene storms out in anger at the end, it completely undermines the whole message of love and forgiveness that Jesus had spent so much time preaching! It's as if the director prioritized making some Unbiblical, Angry Feminist statement, over what would make logical sense in the context of the actual narrative. If most other things about Jesus and the Disciples were not portrayed in a modern revisionist kind of way, it makes no sense to take a modern revisionist position with Mary Magdalene at the end.
Also, Anne Bancroft's performance begins brilliantly, but becomes weak and amateurish as the story reaches its conclusion. Mary Magdalene definitely wouldn't have smiled EVEN ONCE at the foot of the Cross, whereas here they concoct some ridiculous moment where she is ALL CHUFFED that the Roman soldiers' attempts to keep her away are thwarted by the Virgin Mary 'agreeing' that she is Family. Anne Bancroft looks more like a child who managed to get ahead of the queque at a lemonade stand in that scene. And the scene where she relays the Resurrection to the Apostles is enacted in a way that can only be described as COMICAL. Perhaps she was trying to be all grand and Shakespearean, but it makes her look so ridiculous that you can't blame the Apostles for not taking her seriously.
They clearly dubbed Olivia Hussey when she is shown crying and wailing over the Body of Jesus after he dies. That does not sound like her voice, and it's also not synced with her mouth at all. The fact that Mary would break down like that AFTER Jesus died also doesn't make sense, when the director depicts her in a more stoic manner in the moments leading UP to his death for the most part. The Virgin Mary of all people would have known about the Resurrection of Jesus, but here she acts as if she will never see him again. Doesn't fit the portrayal of Mary up until that point, who understands the message of Jesus so well, that in this miniseries it is SHE who says that anyone who does the will of God is the brother, sister or mother of Jesus (which is something that Jesus himself says in the Bible). So again, very unwieldly and incoherent.
The series is ALL OVER THE PLACE in the end. I can go on and on, but you should get the idea. Even the RESURRECTION OF JESUS is very ambiguously depicted at first, and then suddenly there's a brief concluding scene of the Risen Jesus talking to the Apostles which feels like it was just tacked on at the last minute and is ANTI-CLIMACTIC. It also feels like He sent Mary Magdalene to tell the others He was risen for nothing, because we don't see Peter and John run to the Tomb after what Mary says, as presented in the Bible!! Instead, here the viewer is left with the erroneous and totally inexplicable sense that Jesus sent Mary to tell them what she saw - they don't believe her, she gets angry and storms off - only for Jesus to just appear there later on, and completely ignore the frustration that Mary Magdalene had just undergone a little while ago (for no reason apparently). Again, this is not what happens in the Bible. John and Peter confirm that the Tomb is empty THEMSELVES in the Bible, having taken what Mary Magdalene said to heart.
The MUSIC/SCORE is not only repetitive and quite grating after a while, but it's also SO OMINOUS AND EERIE more often than not, that it totally undermines the fact that Jesus came to spread *GOOD NEWS*. The Gospel literally means Good News, and this is supposed to be the Gospel story here, because Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel/Good News are synonymous, but the music score here makes you feel like this is only a few steps away from being a HORROR story. Even Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" proves to be much more spiritually uplifting than this!!
The 'horror' element is also unfortunately present in the depiction of Jesus Himself from childhood to adulthood. As a child, he just stands around SILENTLY AND CREEPILY as if he were Damien the Demon Child from THE OMEN - which makes zero sense. In the Bible, it's JOSEPH of Nazareth who doesn't actually say a word, but instead here we get an INCESSANTLY TALKATIVE Joseph from the beginning all the way through his death scene, while the Boy Jesus doesn't speak one word except in the Temple. The director was clearly aiming to evoke a sense of REALITY and *VERISIMILITUDE* in this miniseries, so having a creepily mute Boy Jesus for so long only generates the effect of a VERY DISCONCERTING HORROR-STORY-IN-THE-MAKING.
Robert Powell himself - again, despite his prowess as an actor - does not exude the LOVING, HEAVENLY persona that Jim Caviezel embodied to PERFECTION in all the flashback scenes in 'The Passion of the Christ'. While Powell has his moments, they seem to be few and far between, because he either enacts Jesus as some mysterious, practically ominous otherworldly being/Angel of Death type of figure......inexplicably staring into space and acting like he is in a trance (whereas Jesus in the Bible went away from everyone to PRAY ALONE when he needed to commune with God the Father).....or he goes the complete opposite direction and acts like a British Bonvivant from the modern era, such as in the scene where he is eating and drinking with the Pharisees. The way he contrasts himself with the ascetic John the Baptist there also seems to completely miss the mark - Robert Powell acting like he's suddenly unleashing his INNER PARTY BOY and as if he almost PITIES John the Baptist for having been so austere, whereas in the Bible, Jesus is simply calling out his opponents for their "damned if one does and damned if one doesn't" attitude.
I really don't want to go on and on, because it would be very easy to do so, but although it's worth seeing this once through, it is *A FAR CRY* from the definitive screen adaptation of Jesus of Nazareth. NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!! It seems to be a strange attempt to merge the secular with the spiritual, accomplishing neither one nor the other in the last analysis, and the effort to try and make it seem like Pontius Pilate was the ultimate, villainous arbiter of Jesus's Crucifixion is also BLATANTLY FALSE in light of what the Gospels present. The director tries to be a Historical Revisionist at some points, while also trying desperately to maintain fidelity to the King James Version of the Bible in his next breath, resulting in a DISJOINTED DEPICTION of the narrative.
Please also watch the late 1920s silent film version 'King of Kings' (Cecile B. DeMille) and 'The Passion of the Christ' etc, if you watch this. They are far from perfect, but they flesh out a lot of things which this miniseries only glosses over, despite arriving at such a BLOATED LENGTH of over 6 hours. If a miniseries is going to be as long as this, one must be EXTREMELY JUDICIOUS about what is portrayed and what is not - but those decisions seem to have been made in a THOROUGHLY HAPHAZARD AND ARBITRARY way here. We barely even get a sense of the extent of the Suffering that Jesus underwent on the way to the Cross and on the Cross.
However, the biggest problem here is the WRITING/SCRIPT. What they chose to portray from the Biblical accounts and what they chose to ADD as well as SUBTRACT is completely unwieldy and sometimes absolutely perplexing!! There is also NO COGENT SENSE of the narrative. The miniseries is called "Jesus of Nazareth" and yet there is so much time spent on Joseph, the husband of Mary in the beginning, for instance, that when he dies, the rest of the show NEVER feels the same again because the audience was so heavily invested in Joseph as a primary character. Robert Powell is a terrific actor, but he lacks the warmth of the actor who played Joseph, and so Joseph emerges as a more likeable and sympathetic protagonist than Robert Powell's version of Jesus, which should not have happened.
It was very unnecessary to make up a fictional "backstory" for Mary and Joseph, as if they were an amorous couple from 'Fiddler on the Roof', when this goes against the traditional understanding of Jesus's mother and foster father, and then Mary is reduced to a sober widow as the story progresses. They go to great lengths to portray how joyous and festive Mary and Joseph's betrothal and wedding were, but then they make the MOST BAFFLING DECISION of omitting the entire WEDDING OF CANA later in the miniseries, which is one of the most well-known episodes from the New Testament - it was actually the First Miracle that Jesus performed in public, at Mary's behest. It makes zero sense to leave such a significant and beloved story out of this screen adaptation! In fact, I don't think Mary and Jesus ever even speak to each other here after Jesus becomes an adult, except when He is on the cross. Very bizarre, and makes no sense at all in light of the great lengths taken by Franco Zeffirelli to depict how Mary and Joseph became a family in the first place (above and beyond what the Bible tells us).
Mary Magdalene is introduced as a formidable character, but we barely see her with Jesus either except in one scene. We don't even see Jesus casting the seven demons out of her. What drew her to Jesus in the first place after living the kind of lifestyle she did is only hinted at, and there is NO TIME spent showing her integration into the community of Disciples. Hence, her last scene with the Apostles seems very discordant and strange - the director seems to want to make the point that the Apostles were misogynistic and didn't take her seriously, but it could have been depicted in a more nuanced and polished way. When Mary Magdalene storms out in anger at the end, it completely undermines the whole message of love and forgiveness that Jesus had spent so much time preaching! It's as if the director prioritized making some Unbiblical, Angry Feminist statement, over what would make logical sense in the context of the actual narrative. If most other things about Jesus and the Disciples were not portrayed in a modern revisionist kind of way, it makes no sense to take a modern revisionist position with Mary Magdalene at the end.
Also, Anne Bancroft's performance begins brilliantly, but becomes weak and amateurish as the story reaches its conclusion. Mary Magdalene definitely wouldn't have smiled EVEN ONCE at the foot of the Cross, whereas here they concoct some ridiculous moment where she is ALL CHUFFED that the Roman soldiers' attempts to keep her away are thwarted by the Virgin Mary 'agreeing' that she is Family. Anne Bancroft looks more like a child who managed to get ahead of the queque at a lemonade stand in that scene. And the scene where she relays the Resurrection to the Apostles is enacted in a way that can only be described as COMICAL. Perhaps she was trying to be all grand and Shakespearean, but it makes her look so ridiculous that you can't blame the Apostles for not taking her seriously.
They clearly dubbed Olivia Hussey when she is shown crying and wailing over the Body of Jesus after he dies. That does not sound like her voice, and it's also not synced with her mouth at all. The fact that Mary would break down like that AFTER Jesus died also doesn't make sense, when the director depicts her in a more stoic manner in the moments leading UP to his death for the most part. The Virgin Mary of all people would have known about the Resurrection of Jesus, but here she acts as if she will never see him again. Doesn't fit the portrayal of Mary up until that point, who understands the message of Jesus so well, that in this miniseries it is SHE who says that anyone who does the will of God is the brother, sister or mother of Jesus (which is something that Jesus himself says in the Bible). So again, very unwieldly and incoherent.
The series is ALL OVER THE PLACE in the end. I can go on and on, but you should get the idea. Even the RESURRECTION OF JESUS is very ambiguously depicted at first, and then suddenly there's a brief concluding scene of the Risen Jesus talking to the Apostles which feels like it was just tacked on at the last minute and is ANTI-CLIMACTIC. It also feels like He sent Mary Magdalene to tell the others He was risen for nothing, because we don't see Peter and John run to the Tomb after what Mary says, as presented in the Bible!! Instead, here the viewer is left with the erroneous and totally inexplicable sense that Jesus sent Mary to tell them what she saw - they don't believe her, she gets angry and storms off - only for Jesus to just appear there later on, and completely ignore the frustration that Mary Magdalene had just undergone a little while ago (for no reason apparently). Again, this is not what happens in the Bible. John and Peter confirm that the Tomb is empty THEMSELVES in the Bible, having taken what Mary Magdalene said to heart.
The MUSIC/SCORE is not only repetitive and quite grating after a while, but it's also SO OMINOUS AND EERIE more often than not, that it totally undermines the fact that Jesus came to spread *GOOD NEWS*. The Gospel literally means Good News, and this is supposed to be the Gospel story here, because Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel/Good News are synonymous, but the music score here makes you feel like this is only a few steps away from being a HORROR story. Even Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" proves to be much more spiritually uplifting than this!!
The 'horror' element is also unfortunately present in the depiction of Jesus Himself from childhood to adulthood. As a child, he just stands around SILENTLY AND CREEPILY as if he were Damien the Demon Child from THE OMEN - which makes zero sense. In the Bible, it's JOSEPH of Nazareth who doesn't actually say a word, but instead here we get an INCESSANTLY TALKATIVE Joseph from the beginning all the way through his death scene, while the Boy Jesus doesn't speak one word except in the Temple. The director was clearly aiming to evoke a sense of REALITY and *VERISIMILITUDE* in this miniseries, so having a creepily mute Boy Jesus for so long only generates the effect of a VERY DISCONCERTING HORROR-STORY-IN-THE-MAKING.
Robert Powell himself - again, despite his prowess as an actor - does not exude the LOVING, HEAVENLY persona that Jim Caviezel embodied to PERFECTION in all the flashback scenes in 'The Passion of the Christ'. While Powell has his moments, they seem to be few and far between, because he either enacts Jesus as some mysterious, practically ominous otherworldly being/Angel of Death type of figure......inexplicably staring into space and acting like he is in a trance (whereas Jesus in the Bible went away from everyone to PRAY ALONE when he needed to commune with God the Father).....or he goes the complete opposite direction and acts like a British Bonvivant from the modern era, such as in the scene where he is eating and drinking with the Pharisees. The way he contrasts himself with the ascetic John the Baptist there also seems to completely miss the mark - Robert Powell acting like he's suddenly unleashing his INNER PARTY BOY and as if he almost PITIES John the Baptist for having been so austere, whereas in the Bible, Jesus is simply calling out his opponents for their "damned if one does and damned if one doesn't" attitude.
I really don't want to go on and on, because it would be very easy to do so, but although it's worth seeing this once through, it is *A FAR CRY* from the definitive screen adaptation of Jesus of Nazareth. NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!! It seems to be a strange attempt to merge the secular with the spiritual, accomplishing neither one nor the other in the last analysis, and the effort to try and make it seem like Pontius Pilate was the ultimate, villainous arbiter of Jesus's Crucifixion is also BLATANTLY FALSE in light of what the Gospels present. The director tries to be a Historical Revisionist at some points, while also trying desperately to maintain fidelity to the King James Version of the Bible in his next breath, resulting in a DISJOINTED DEPICTION of the narrative.
Please also watch the late 1920s silent film version 'King of Kings' (Cecile B. DeMille) and 'The Passion of the Christ' etc, if you watch this. They are far from perfect, but they flesh out a lot of things which this miniseries only glosses over, despite arriving at such a BLOATED LENGTH of over 6 hours. If a miniseries is going to be as long as this, one must be EXTREMELY JUDICIOUS about what is portrayed and what is not - but those decisions seem to have been made in a THOROUGHLY HAPHAZARD AND ARBITRARY way here. We barely even get a sense of the extent of the Suffering that Jesus underwent on the way to the Cross and on the Cross.