Re: The Last Temptation...

[Alex Ferguson <alex%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>]

Deb Wentorf writes:
>  In a totally un-Kate-related note, I would just like to let you all
>know that I was fortunate enough yesterday to locate _The Last Temptation
>of Christ_ video.

Un-Kate-related? Don't you all know that KaTe is God, and St. Gabriel
is Her Prophet? (Or was that the other way around? My theology was always
a bit shakey. Like Scorsese's? :-) )

>If anybody out there is a Gabriel fan who appreciated his _Passion_ album
>you may well enjoy hunting down the movie to see where all the music got
>tied in.

I think most Gabriel nuts probably saw the film at the cinema, and then
spent several months anxiously awaiting the soundtrack. Certainly I was in
such a situation.

>Martin Scorsese did a GREAT job on this movie...VERY powerful.
>I trembled through most of it.  And while the movie could definitely prove
>upsetting to devout Catholics, etc., and David Bowie's cameo as Pontias
>Pilate was a tad too BRITISH-sounding, the movie was very well done.

This is an interesting sidelight to much of the commentary on the cinematic
release here, on the lines of "Christ with an American accent? Give me a break!"
Personally, I wasn't unduly upset by this, as it was clearly trying to avoid
the historical-epic kind of cliche'.
Did you note the "convention" of having the good guys speaking with American
accents, and the bad guys (Pilate, the "angel") in English ones? Rather
counter to the normal practice, even if it wasn't deliberate or not.

>  Check it out, if you haven't already.  I'd be interested to hear what
>others have to say.  And, if by some chance you haven't gone out and gotten
>Gabriel's _Passion_ yet, all I can say is "What are you waiting for?"

Seconded. Ignore the faint-praisers who've been calling this album
"Birdy-esque" (much as like that album), this is an original, and powerful
piece of work.
-- 
Alex Ferguson.
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"You mean you could have walked the galaxy and you simply never bothered?"