Godspell
by David Greene
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Haskell, Gilmer McCormick, Joanne Jonas, John-Michael Tebelak, Merrell JacksonDirector: David Greene
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Georgian (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-04-04
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Godspell
Movie Review: Beautiful City
Summary: 5 Stars
Twenty-five years ago I did not like to admit that stage and screen are different media, driven by utterly incompatible engines -- but time has shown that some wonderful stage productions are just plain unfilmable; and by rights the early '70s New Testament Rock Musical Godspell should have been more unfilmable than most.
Yet somehow director David Greene managed to pull the thing off. Released in 1973, Greene's film version of Godspell stripped the Broadway show of its dead weight, refined its design and musical score, and siphoned off the best players from several stage productions (notably Victor Garber from a Canadian production and David Haskell, Robin Lamont, Gilbert McCormick, Joanne Jonas and Jeffrey Mylett from New York). That alone would not have insured success. But Greene's gimmick -- that of setting the show's action in the middle of a deserted, pristine New York City, retained the flavor of the stage production while placing it within an entirely filmable framework. Suddenly Godspell was as much movie as stage show. The fact that it never really clicked with a mass audience says more about its timing than it does about the value of the film.
Godspell came along just as the Broadway Musical was taking its last gasp of fresh air -- and about ten years after the Hollywood Movie Musical had begun to rot in its grave. Not long after Godspell came Bob Fosse's Pippin and a little show from out of nowhere called Grease (since butchered and bowdlerized in its transition to film, and altered even more offensively in its transition back from film to stage); by then, Andrew Lloyd Webber had begun to dig his toes in, and it would not be long before the Brits effectively put us out of our own theaters.
If Hair capitalized on the cynical, rebellious side of hippie subculture, Godspell's emphasis was on the sweetness and innocence of that same movement. It began as a college theater project that set the Gospel According to St. Matthew in a modern junkyard, and presented Christ as a heartfaced mime in clown pants and a Superman sweatshirt, leading a company of costumed Flower Children in musical enactments of the parables. As such, even the stage version came about five years too late. Flower Children were already trite stuff for all but those -- like myself -- who had just missed that bus flashing by at psychedelic speed. Godspell had to rise above the Flower Child, and it did so on the charm of Stephen Schwartz's musical score, on a glib mixture of stage technique and most especially on the vitality of its players.
By the time of the film's release, the sad old Flower Child was looking horribly, grotesquely passé. Godspell was a relic before it ever hit the screen. It's distributor, Columbia Pictures, didn't know how to market the thing. Nor did ABC TV, when they aired the movie, just once, a year later. After that, Godspell dropped out of sight faster than a brick in a murky pond. Its director managed to cop a good career for himself helming television mini-series, notably Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots. Of its actors, only Victor Garber (lately Goldie Hawn's Evil Ex in the film version of The First Wives Club) has carved out anything that remotely resembles name recognition, though a few -- among them Tony Award winning Lynne Thigpen (currently host of the PBS children's series Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego) -- still turn up from time to time in films, commercials and sitcoms.
Given that Home Video didn't begin to take off until the mid-to-late eighties, it has still taken better than a decade -- nearly a quarter of a century after its screen release -- for Godspell to finally turn up on video. It is perhaps more difficult to market than ever -- Columbia at first washed its hands of the picture, leaving its video release to a bootlegged version from a company called Bridgestone. Perhaps the bootleg served its purpose by demonstrating to Columbia that there was a market for the film after all: one year later, the studio has finally followed suit with an official video release.
In 1973, it was not a movie to suit every taste. That remains true today. Modern viewers are likely to feel as if they have wandered into a Big Hair Convention by mistake. Whatever horror we might experience at the sight of '70s fashions and hairstyles is moderated by the device of setting the action outside of the real world, in a city outside of time, combined with the deliberate eclecticism of the costuming and performance styles; but Godspell is still very much a product of its decade. Nonetheless, its vitality and freshness still shine bright.
We love its playfulness, its color and joy; we love its cheerfully talented cast. Some critics, notably Judith Crist, objected to the funny voices, the deliberately broad performances, the skipping, the adults acting patently like children -- but these are essential to Godspell's theme: that we are all children in the face of Eternity, that to renew one's spirit is to become a child again. If that message has no meaning to you, then this is not your movie. If it does have meaning to you, then you need not be a Christian to enjoy what Godspell has to offer.
Director Greene brings a full range of film technique to bear on the material, an artist's eye and a dramatist's sensibility. He moves his camera only to achieve deliberate effect, and choreographs his shots as carefully as he does the actors. Joy is a terribly difficult emotion to convey, so easily brushed aside by audiences at the first sign of a false note. Yet Greene and his youthful cast succeed at infusing the entire film with Joy -- it is probably the last great Movie Musical to have been filmed, one of the happiest ever.
All that is outrageous eventually becomes established: Godspell and its darker cousin Jesus Christ Superstar were roundly condemned at the time of their release by the religious right, whereas both are now, seemingly, being embraced by the same people. We raise our eyebrows at the thought that religious types are now supporting a film that has the balls to present the Resurrection matter-of-factly as a metaphor, not as a physical event. For several months after we saw Godspell in its initial release, we walked around feeling very high-toned and religious, which seems as silly to us now as all of the marketing heebie-jeebies still surrounding the movie. Godspell the movie has about as much to do with religion as Robert Schuller, which is to say very little. What it really preaches is what the religious right likes to call Secular Humanism -- the Brotherhood of Mankind.
But even that message is not the film's primary concern. Godspell is a Director's Movie; just as the stage version was, more than anything else, about theatrical technique and the ways in which old stories can be freshened up with modern presentation, the film version is about the ways that film techniques can be applied to the same end. Renewal is its theme; how appropriate then, that it has been returned to us after all these years.
Summary of Godspell
No Description Available.Genre: Musicals
Rating: G
Release Date: 7-FEB-2006
Media Type: DVD
Comparing Godspell to its near-contemporaries Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair is unavoidable, but Godspell has developed its own unique following. With their thrift-store-meets-circus-performer garb, the characters in David Greene's adaptation of the popular off-Broadway production may look more like the hippies in Hair than the biblical personages of Superstar. But Godspell isn't really about the "Age of Aquarius," nor does it adopt a dark or operatic tone towards its subject matter, the Gospel according to Matthew. The mood is, instead, upbeat and uplifting (at least until the crucifixion sequence).
The film opens with youthful city dwellers from various walks of life dropping their activities to follow John the Baptist (David Haskell from the original New York production). They sing ("Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord") as he leads them into a fountain where they are (metaphorically) baptized. There they meet Jesus (Victor Garber). Frizzy hair and mime makeup aside, the handsome young Garber (Titanic, Annie) is convincing in his film debut. Once baptized, they follow him around various scenic New York locations, singing and acting out passages from the Scriptures.
The largely unknown cast is talented and charismatic, but the film is only fitfully engaging on an emotional level because only Jesus, John, and Judas (Haskell again) emerge as distinct characters. Stephen Schwartz's pleasing pop-rock score, however, helps to smooth over the rough spots, and Robin Lamont's hit version of "Day by Day" remains a highlight. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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