The Face - Jesus in Art
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bill Moyers, Craig MacGowan, Edward Herrmann, Mel GibsonDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: USCCB Publishing
Movie Reviews of The Face - Jesus in Art
Movie Review: Icons Are Windows Upon the Eternal
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a fabulously beautiful documentary of iconography of Christ through the centuries, and the narration and background music are overall (i.e., in spite of occasional oddities) perfect complements. I sort of wonder why Mel Gibson and Ricardo Montalban were asked to serve as narrators here, but Gibson gets extra points for pronouncing Hagia Sophia so creditably :-) The bit where the computer graphics move from face to face is marvelous. The music for the interior of the cathedral at Chartres is, surprisingly, rather brutal; and (I think I remember this running during a shot of San Giovanni in Laterano) the synthesized "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" from the Brahms German Requiem is an odd choice, though it doesn't sound godawful. For me, a composer with an artist wife, the low point was some of the (by turns) hideous and sickly-sweet modern stuff, because it is certainly possible to do new work which is beautiful, and to do beautiful work which is not saccharine - and iconography of Christ ought to be beautiful, and ought not to be sugary. But these moments occupy relatively little space. Occasional weird things in the narration - how, exactly, are Christ's features in Michelangelo's "Final Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel those "of Apollo"? - there is glancing reference to the Sistine Chapel being the "most private chapel in the world," yet considering the flood of tourists which passes through it every day, it is actually, more likely, the most PUBLIC chapel in the world. For the most part, though, the narration is simply informative, and balanced. Our century, with its own morbid preoccupations, holds the grotesque work of Hieronymous Bosch in high regard; and the narration rightly says that it inspires horror; we then move to the Chartres cathedral, and quotations from the age to the effect of the beauty of the architecture and art raising our earthly souls to an awareness of heaven - and here, in this seeming aside, we have the heart of iconography. The depiction of Christ serves a spiritual purpose, it is not a mere exercise for a modern artist to express his personal dissatisfaction with the world around him (like the Belgian artist who self-servingly "equates" public dislike for his "art" with the sufferings of Christ ... puh-leeze ... his beef is with an allegedly "cynical and stupid" public, but perhaps he should have taken a good look in the mirror).But these (for me) flaws are abundantly compensated for, there are wonders which space does not allow for much more than listing ... the ancient Ethiopian icons, with the peculiarly primitive heads, no less devotional; a peek at Raphael's "Triumph" in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican (in the same room facing the School of Athens, though generally less famous except to artists and theologians); the incomplete sculpture Michelangelo had intended for his tombstone; Rembrandt's self-portraiture in the Crucifixion (i.e., one of those raising the cross ... nothing like the self-proclaimed martyrdom of the Belgian, above) and the Descent from the Cross; the Veronica icon, and the Pantocrator from the monastery at Mt Sinai.
Some wonderful surprises, too, such as the "three-headed" Latin American depictions of the Trinity which, while they are dubious as iconography, are fascinating cultural and artistic documents; and a Latin American Last Supper, featuring a roast pig at the Passover which must be a visual malopropism for the ages ....
Beautiful, stunning and informative.
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