KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #6: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973, dir by Norman Jewison, USA)
In the year 2000, my friend Mo was going to see the Broadway revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. We chatted about the show, and she mentioned how famously terrible Ted Neely is in the movie. After she saw it, I asked. "How was it?" "Bring back Ted Neely."
When I saw that same production, my takeaway was that if the real life person who was Jesus had been anything like as annoying as this actor was playing Jesus, Christianity would have never caught on and we'd all be Jews today.
A few years later, I was at the Edinburgh Festival with a show, and I dragged my friend Blake to a production of Superstar. At the interval, he was like, "This isn't really very good. Maybe because it's high school kids?" And I was like, cheerfully, "O no, it's NEVER good! But the music is grand!”
Here's the thing with Jesus Christ Superstar: it is not a good show. It has never been a good show. There are some productions that have been good, but it's difficult, because it is really quite a not good show. That said, the music is perfect and it's one of my favorite musicals of all time. And at this point, the fact that it isn't good is part of its charm, to me.
The movie? Not good. But also great. I have a terrible habit of pausing films every five minutes, but with Superstar, I only paused after an hour 15 because I had to pee, or I would have been riveted the whole time, singing along, happily.
"HO Zanna,
HEY Zanna, ZANna Zanna HO Zanna
HEY Zanna Ho SANna!
Hey JC, JC you're alright by me
Zanna HO Zanna
HEY Superstar!"
I could go on. I will spare you.
The story is about Jesus and Judas and the Magdalena, and it's a whole big thing. Actually, in this version, it starts with a bus load of hippie actors driving into the Israeli desert to put on a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Then, at the end, they crucify Ted Neely and then all the actors drive off in the bus, except for Ted Neely. So it seems as though the whole thing was a plot to kill their fellow actor for being expressionless. Seems harsh.
Interestingly, the music is by Andrew Lloyd Weber who would famously go on to write such crowd-pleasers as Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. In a way, this fact kind of tips its hat to what kind of story this is. Still, there does seem to be some basic idea of equating the hippie protest movement of the 1960’s with Jesus, the Apostles, and their followers preaching peace and love in a time of extreme violence. I’m not sure that gets communicated though.
So watch Superstar, but don't blame me if it's kind of, well, bad. It's still glorious.
Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog
