Part of Bowie On Film.
THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, by Martin Scorsese, is a towering achievement. Though it initially engendered enormous controversy, the film can now be viewed as the remarkable, profoundly personal work of faith that it is. This 15-year labor of love, an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s landmark novel that imagines an alternate fate for Jesus Christ, features outstanding performances by Willem Dafoe, Barbara Hershey, Harry Dean Stanton, Harvey Keitel and David Bowie (as Pontius Pilate) — with bold cinematography by the great Michael Ballhaus and a transcendent score by Peter Gabriel.
“Though the choices that shape this exceptionally ambitious, deeply troubling and, at infrequent moments, genuinely transcendent film are often contradictory, they create an extra dimension.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times (1988)
“One of the finest religious films ever.” —Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
“A deeply moving consideration of the humanity of Christ as well as the divinity, and reconciles them in a way this lapsed Baptist had never considered before.” —Jim Ridley, Nashville Scene