Von Sydow was the tallest Jesus ever!
at 6'4" he could've been a guard on a basketball team.
shareCompared to Jim Caviezel....not sure how tall he is, but you're right, Max von Sydow could've been the tallest man ever to play Christ.
share
MovieChat Forums > The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) Discussion > Von Sydow was the tallest Jesus ever!
[deleted]
I dunno - that dude who played him in 'Ben Hur' looked to be about 7' tall :-)
Not only that. This movie beats the records of miscasts. Jesus the man could not be blond with blue eyes, he was the son of jews. They have curly hair, dark skin and eyes, brachicefalus crane shape...
Mary Magdalen is played by a chique modern escort, Jose Ferrer plays Herodes Antipas known historically to be a large (probabaly swollen by kidney disease that killed him) and fat man...
George Stevens was probably financially broke at the time to accept to direct this crap...
Since he was also the producer can someone tell how this movie performed at the box office. Did he make ends meet?
I like Max in the role, didn't even let the role keep him from being in other great films later on.
I would've prefered him to have longer hair though. I too used to Jesus with shoulder length hair.
For DEMONIC TOYS and updates on Full Moon Films:
www.freewebs.com/demonictoys/
Yes, production staff were criticised for Sydow's "bad, lanky wig." I believe by that time Max had a noticeably receding hairline, so maybe the wig was the only way to go. Just a few years later as Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist, Max was wearing a much more believable hairpiece, thanks to Dick Smith and crew...
shareIt's a shame no one ever sought to cast Max von Sydow as Abe Lincoln. He would have been awesome!
shareKirk Douglas is a Jew. So is Kate Hudson. There are many Jews with blond hair and blue eyes. A person can be a Jew without having classical "Semitic" features.
share[deleted]
The House of David of the line of Solomon would have been Teutonic looking.
While the prophecies concerning the 12 tribes seem to be fulfilled largely by European nations, physical Hebrew ethnicity seems to be a bit less Teutonic. While the transplanted European Jews have had 1,900 + years to “mingle” (Hitler unfortunately recognized this and in his zeal many were killed), the Jews of ancient Palestine were obviously quite distinguishable from their Roman conquerors. A bit darker in complexion than a Roman, but not quite what we might denote as African in appearance. Archeology suggests the Jews of ancient Israel to have been of an “olive” complexion with short, curly hair (somewhat like a perm). The Bible says that Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Egypt (and apparently fit right in) until King Herod the Great, died. Most Egyptians did not resemble their Greco-Roman conquerors.