The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
Cringe Factor: 5
(Directed by: George Stevens)
...is a colossal bore, to be frank. Although scripturally accurate, this epic starring Max Von Sydow (The Exorcist, Minority Report) moves like a geriatric dinosaur and is built on such lacklusters performances and vapid dialogue that trying to watch it straight through feels like being slowly bled to death, or being locked in a room with a leaking gas valve for three hours. In fact, that might even be preferable to watching this movie, because at least then you'll be dead afterwards and not have to deal with the fact that The Greatest Story is three hours and nineteen minutes you'll never get back again.
The problems in the movie are many and severe. Like every other historical epic that came out of Hollywood in the 1950's-60's, the narrative takes forever to meander through its plot and the telling of it is monstrously overblown. In this case, the movie begins with Jesus' birth and recounts the flight to and from Egypt, his temptation, 3-year ministry, crucifixion and resurrection. But it also includes John the Baptist's work, arrest and death, and the political schemings of Herod, Pilate, and the other Roman leaders. That's a lot of ground to cover, much of it expositional, that only serves to demonstrate the filmmaker's complete lack of pacing. Each event is stretched to a maximum of screen time, and bogs down in its self-importance. The result is that for most of the film nothing seems to be happening.
"I knew we shoulda got more than five bucks's worth of gas!"
Compounding this problem are the bad script and the wax museum performances by the cast. The dialogue is, in many, many instances pulled straight from the King James Bible and recited verbatim. The filler talk that the writers had to invent is purely serviceable, makes everyone sound the same and shows absolutely no effort to be interesting. The same goes for the acting. The entire cast seems to be functioning one level above zombie, and mutter their lines in library voices, apparently even more bored making the film than the audience is watching it. The one exception to this is John the Baptist, who is played with fervor and skill by Charlton Heston. Unfortunately, the Baptist bites the dust fairly early on, and Heston's energy is sorely missed in the rest of the movie. He's the only one who seems remotely invested in his character and his scenes are really the best parts of the film. The worst offender, though, is Max Von Sydow, whose tall, gangly Christ must have supernatural powers that we can't see, since there is absolutely no way that his drugged, robotic preachiness could ever invigorate a crowd. He doesn't really get a chance to act; he stands and preaches, he sits and preaches, he walks around and preaches, and occassionally he'll smile weakly. And during his tortuous execution, he looks mildly depressed at his predicament. This is supposed to be the story of one of religion's most popular and controversial figures, people! Look alive, willya?
Which opens another issue that really irritates me. There are four recognized sources on the life of Christ, each one chock-full of interesting miracles (calming a storm, feeding multitudes, casting out demons, etc) and tense, dramatic run-ins with the Jewish leaders. There's tons of material in the history of Jesus that would make a good movie. The Greatest Story Ever Told, however, makes much ado about Jesus' smaller, more mundane experiences and glosses over his big-budget accomplishments almost as an afterthought. I suppose maybe the director/producer was trying to go for a more human, stripped down story of Christ, but in that case, the audience deserves an interesting protagonist and some human drama to drive the plot.
Crucifixion--Now in stereo!
Since The Greatest Story has neither of those elements, and expends so much effort to make everything little thing that Jesus says and does seem larger than life, he doesn't live up to the hype. If this guy is supposed to be worth three hours of audience attention, then he better do something to deserve it! The sad thing is, Jesus did do and say some pretty "entertaining" things, and wasn't anything like what this chronically-fatigued sleepwalker of a film would have you believe.
Full of interminable shots in which nothing happens, grandiose but oddly plain sets, crowds of dingy extras and a palacial orchestral score complete with choir and Handel's Messiah, The Greatest Story Ever Told has everything an epic should--except an involving plot and interesting characters. It fails to hold interest and fails to do its subject matter justice. All it does is put you to sleep, and there are plenty of more enjoyable (or a least less painful) ways to even do that.
