Pontius Pilate on Screen : : Soldier, Sinner, Superstar / / Christopher McDonough.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 English
• VerfasserIn: McDonough, Christopher,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Screening Antiquity : SCAN
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (296 p.) :; 19 B/W illustrations 19 black and white illustrations

Pontius Pilate in film from the silent era to the twenty-first centuryOffers an extended discussion of the history and tradition of Pontius PilateLooks at topics connected to Pontius Pilate’s reception, including the sound of his voice, his use of his hands, his wife Claudia Procula, and his Roman soldiersWho is Pontius Pilate? Who do the movies say that he is? What is truth? Pontius Pilate On Screen deals with one of history’s most controversial characters. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Pontius Pilate is a figure of evidently endless fascination to filmmakers. The Roman prefect is depicted at times as the hapless victim of machinations beyond his control and at other times as the heartless villain of the piece. If in films about the Passion Jesus represents eternal truth, Pilate symbolises the values of the present – whether it is the lingering trauma of the Holocaust, the ongoing struggle over Civil Rights or the polarised politics of the current day – as filmmakers endeavour again and again to portray in Pontius Pilate a compelling counter-figure to Jesus himself. This book considers portrayals of Pontius Pilate in film from the silent era to the twenty-first century. It discusses over 25 films in detail, including Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings (1927), Norman Jewison’s Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Sony’s Risen (2016). Based on extensive archival research and original interviews with actors, screenwriters and producers, it offers an extended discussion of the history, tradition and reception of Pontius Pilate.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Series Editors’ Preface -- Frontispiece -- Prologue: ‘Do You Enjoy Being a Symbol, Pontius?’ The Trial of Pontius Pilate and Governor Collins -- 1 Quod Scripsi Scripsi -- 2 The Silent Pilate -- 3 The Roman in the Living Room: Pilate on TV in the Early 1950s -- 4 Mrs Pilate: Claudia Procula and Clare Boothe Luce -- 5 Pilate in CinemaScope, or Notes on Roman Camp -- 6 Finding Meaning in the Middlebrow: Pilate in the 1960s -- 7 What Is Truth? Pilate as 1970s Moral Relativist -- 8 Michael Palin’s Accent in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and a Few Others -- 9 Grand and Not-So-Grand Inquisitors of the Reagan Age -- 10 ‘We at War’: Pilate for the New Millennium -- Epilogue: A Time of Handwashing -- Works Cited -- Index