NEW MOVIE LOOKS AT JESUS RACIAL HERITAGE

Color of the Cross filmBy Mark Pattison 10/12/2006 Catholic News Service

This time his appearance will not be as heralded as it was three years ago in Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ," which collected more than $370 million in box office receipts. "Color of the Cross," which depicts Jesus as an African Jew, will debut on only 30 screens – mostly in urban centers – when the movie is released Oct. 27.

While Gibson wrote and directed his film, Jean-Claude LaMarre tops him in that he wrote, directed and played Jesus in "Color of the Cross." He also composed the score, the first film score in LaMarre's career.

LaMarre said he hopes word of mouth will expand the film's reach to 200 screens by the Nov. 10-12 weekend.

"I don't think Mel Gibson holds a monopoly on the story of Jesus," said LaMarre, the son of a Protestant minister who attended a seminary himself to see whether he had a ministerial calling. "That was a successful film and widely received by the Christian community, so I don't mind being compared to it."

LaMarre's acting turn turned out to be the film's savior.

"My intention was not to be in the movie. The subject was so big I didn't want to do it," LaMarre said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he was working on another film project. "But our lead (actor) fell out 24 hours before we were to shoot, so I just jumped in."

He discussed the degree of difficulty in shaping "Color of the Cross."

"It was certainly the most challenging (film) in that it required a lot more research than anything I'd done before it. When you're dealing with the subject of religion, you have to be very careful about the amount of attention you pay to details You have to pay attention to the facts. You can't be too flippant, or you might really offend or agitate the very people you're trying to make the film for. In those regards, it was very exhausting," he said.

"But on the other hand, as an actor it was probably one of the easier roles I've ever played," despite one-day notice on landing the lead role, LaMarre added. "When you're a writer-director, you live with the vision of the picture for years. You know every character in the movie intimately. When I write, I act out the roles anyway as a way of developing texture with the characters. ... I'd lived with the character for two years."

The assertion that Jesus was an Afro-Asiatic Jew led Father George Stallings, then a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, to split from the Catholic Church in United States. He used the assertion to launch the breakaway African-American Catholic Congregation in 1989. Now Archbishop Stallings, he incurred automatic excommunication in 1990.

LaMarre said he wasn't necessarily making the same assertion himself, but saw the movie "closer to the what-if scenario."

"I'm not a theologian and I'm not a sociologist; I'm a filmmaker with a point of view. It's just my opinion," he said. "Here's a new way to look at a story that we're all familiar with and then let the audience decide."

He took note of Gibson's troubles with some Jewish leaders over the depiction of Jews in "The Passion of the Christ." Some charged that the movie blamed the Jews collectively for the death of Jesus.

"I have screened the film for several rabbis who absolutely loved the film," LaMarre said of his own movie. "One of the issues from the onset that I wanted to tackle was presenting the Sanhedrin, the priests of Jesus' day, as a multifaceted organization with different points of view, not just one anti-Jesus body. We in this film present arguments, (with) rabbis presenting different arguments they probably would have had within the chambers."

If "Color of the Cross" proves successful, LaMarre is positioned to make other films in a similar vein, available through an online service he has created called blackchristianmovies.com, a DVD movie service. Already in its pipeline are "Color of the Cross" and a drama titled "Pastor Jones."

SOURCE: www.catholic.org

Color of the Cross