I watched The Last Temptation of Christ this morning, and got sidetracked with the Leprosy scene.
Anyone know anything about this disease. Most people considered it one of the worst diseases ever, but I'm not sure that's true, according to Wikipedia.
The Last Temptation of Christ
David Bowie and William Defoe Great scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXGsio9H1xs
I was at one point involved in a film production where the main character was a leper, but after some negative developments it started to deteriorate until the whole thing fell apart.
shareMan you are really trying to piss me off :)
shareI didn't finish Last Temptation this morning. I have 45 minutes left tonight. Its a really good film. I like the take on Jesus as someone who had a choice to live a normal life.
Harvey Keitel as Judas is genius casting.
I'm there with you about Last Temptation as a great film. As many have no doubt touched on before, I think Scorsese uses Jesus effectively as a character to explore the notion of Catholic guilt.
And yes, Harvey Keitel is reliably great here.
Side note: Since Harvey Keitel and Nicolas Cage have both played the lead in the tenuously related Bad Lieutenant films, can we get a crossover with both of them playing so-called "Bad Lieutenants" together in the same flick? It could be a miserable drug-laden buddy comedy. Think about it!
This is my 2nd viewing. I'm an atheist, who really loves, history?. I think this film is perfect.
shareWas that film project by any chance based on the Thomas Covenant books? I can see why the project fell apart if so, the protagonist of those books just isn't likable.
Anyway, Leprosy is now known as Hansen's Disease, and it's now curable. It was never very contagious, so the old exclusion of lepers was never necessary, but it was a horrible disease before the 20th century. It killed slowly, over a period of years, and caused horrific deformities on the way. Don't google pictures, if you like sleep.
It's been a while, but I must have read both trilogies three times, likely as many times as LotR! I wonder how they'd hold up...
shareThere were more than three Covenant books, and when I googled yesterday to find out the name of those books I read decades ago, I found out that there were actually ten rather than three!
I think I read four of the things, before deciding that I didn't want to spend any more time with Covenant himself. Not a likable character.
Can see your logic, as the second trilogy is more of a downer and our "hero" commits a heinous act upon his re-arrival to The Land.
I. too, had no idea Donaldson had written more, let alone a whole additional quadrilogy, after the first two trilogies. Think I'll leave my memories be...
In the early 2000’s I spent about a week doing contract work at the Hansen Disease Center in Carville Louisiana. The hospital, that had been there since the 1800’s and was dedicated to research and treatment of Leprosy, had been closed for a few years. There were small homes behind the hospital that still had people with Leprosy living there. I never met them but I was told that they were all elderly and after they died the housing area would be closed forever also.
I assume the practice for years had been to quarantine these people completely away from society. It seems so sad.
I think its just a bad myth thats been put forth over and over. From what I read, its not that transmittable. Its obviously rare today, but interesting how we view diseases.
shareIt's not that contagious, but there's a very long history of hysteria and exclusion, going back to Biblical times at the earliest. The latest mass hysteria and exclusion was in 19th century Hawaii, where fear of the disease combined with anti-Asian prejudice, and a lot of people were torn from their homes and left to die on the famous Leper Colony on Molokai.
Things got a LOT more human when effective treatments for the disease came in, in the 20th century.
I would assume they would have all been treated for the disease and no longer have the infection by then except for the disfigurement.
shareMessala tells Ben-Hur where his mother and sister are
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPl05d5mi54&t=90s
I will never understand how one man who theoretically fought so hard for love and peace, could cause the most deaths in the world.
shareBut when those people die they go to heaven. That still sounds love and peace to me.
shareIt may be a myth, but it could also be that given the almost complete lack of knowledge of infectious disease transmission in ancient times caused a not-particularly-bad disease to wreak havoc on populations either through pure chance or due to particular social/cultural practices specific to those times
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Isn't leprosy caused by a bacteria? I'm not looking it up at the moment because that's a rabbit hole that can wait until tomorrow, but if it is a bacterial infection, just modern day sanitation would give us a huge advantage over older civilizations. I can see how it would be concentrated to one area of infection because of that.
If I'm totally wrong please ignore all of that.
No Thats why I asked. Wouldn't it be cool if we had a real doctor as a poster to answer these questions.
shareSo, i had to look up what it is. Leprosy a bacterial infection caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae. I also saw something about squirrels and armadillos. Lol enough rabbit hole, I'm going to bed.😊
shareEVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNED FROM STEVE MCQUEEN IN PAPILLON...YOU HAVE WET AND DRY...DRY YOU CAN SHARE A CIGAR...WET AND YOU'RE GONNA GET IT.
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