VS jesus of nazareth

NO COMPARISON! "JEsus of Nazareth" was VERY WELL Made... Although it had an all star cast.. They each played their roles Superbley The musical score, cinematography, the Acting were incredible. "Greatest Story"..was just missin alot. not to mention a bad pick for the role of Christ..

I love both movies very much for very different reasons and would say that The Greatest Story Ever Told is worth renting and watching at least once. Then you can draw your own conclusions.

Jesus of Nazareth, no contest. The Greatest Story Ever Told is a good movie, but not a great one. In my opinion, GSET suffers from being too pretentious for its own good. There are hardly any closeups in that film. Most of the shots are composed of the actors being like 50 feet away from the camera with the main focus being the grand sets and locales. The whole thing feels very detached and moves at a snail's pace so that the audience can take in how "big" everything is. In comparison, Jesus of Nazareth is very grounded and has the emotional core GSET is lacking. And even though it's twice the length of GSET, JoN moves by at a much better pace. One thing I will say that GSET is better at than JoN is its cinematography. JoN is admittedly rather drab to look at, but considering it was a tv miniseries from the 70's while GSET was a big budget theatrical venture, that's understandable. I do think GSET is worth seeing once, though, but JoN is far better.

I know that every one will have their own opinion about which Jesus film is the best. I personally am into historical accuracy of which The Greatest Story Ever Told definately the more accurate to the time period. For example, we know from historical documents of the period that Jesus was considered by the Romans and the Jewish sanhedrin to be a mild nuisance during his ministry rather than a major threat, at least until he entered Jerusalem during his final week. This comes across much clearer in TGSET than it does in JON.
Also, in JON Robert Powell gives us a very untouchable reverent portrayal. Although Max von Sydow is very reverent in TGSET, he is no more so than the rest of the film, and at least he smiles, occasionally giving us a glimpse at the human side of Jesus. In JON Powell never even smiles except when he's given an ethereal oh-so-divine appearance as when he first meets Peter.
Don't get me wrong. I love JON as well, but in subsequent viewings I have realized that the film, especially during Jesus' birth and childhood stories, is too reverent for non-Christians. (Once Jesus starts collecting his apostles, the film definately picks up.)

P.S. I wish they would show the director's cut of TGSET, in which we see Judas hanging himself before falling into the pit so that people wouldn't keep criticizing the film for this one element. (Remember that in the Bible, there are two different contradictory versions of Judas' suicide, one in Matthew and the other in Acts, despite the fact that everyone automatically takes as fact that the hanging in Matthew is the true story.)

As far as I'm concerned, JoN is the gold standard for Jesus movies. It covers his life from beginning to end. I was especially interested to see it gives generous time to St. Joseph and Blessed Mary.

I was really grateful that it zeroed in on 1st century Jewish customs, dress, attitudes and worship. It was the first movie that I know of that showed Jesus as a pious Jew and his love for the faith.

I'll make my decision later, but I've come quite fond of GSET.


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