The Gospel Road
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.97 You Save: $8.01 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.48 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Gospel Road
Movie Review: Low Budget, Yet Super Cool Christian Witness from Johnny Cash! GET THIS DVD!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are an active Christian and a Johnny Cash fan, you will LOVE this DVD! It is a labor of love, apparently funded by Johnny Cash himself, but you can tell by the look on his face that this project is very important and very fun for him to be doing!
They look like they grabbed a bunch of friends from the USA and flew everybody over to Israel to act out many Bible scenes on location. They show many scenes from the life of Jesus, mixed in with many Gospel songs by Johnny and a few others.
Johnny narrates throughout the entire film, and every ten minutes or so they show him on camera, talking into the camera about Jesus. You can tell by the sincere and content look on his face that this is a project that he is very pleased to be working on! He is not sleepwalking through any of this, he is on the set and eager to do this the best way they possibly can!
June Carter does GREAT in her brief scenes playing Mary Magdalene! She is very powerful and surprising. She shows the crying out loud joy of being in the presence of Jesus, and she is very endearing in her role here!
The music is great! I have some of Johnny's Gospel albums recorded over a decade before this movie was made. Those old Gospel albums are great to listen to, but they do display a definitely dated recording style that sounds like pop music before the birth of rock-n-roll. The music on this DVD sounds like the much more polished and sophisticated musical style of Johnny Cash or Elvis in the early 1970's.
The photography is very beautiful. There is great location scenery, and clever camera techniques used throughout.
At 83 minutes, it is a bit on the short side, for a theatrical release, when I like a film to be at least 90 minutes or more. But it is a very good movie, anyway.
My main criticism would be that they have a blonde-haired man playing the role of Jesus. He looks more like a viking than Jesus. They should have dyed his hair, since Jesus was definitely a Jew in the Middle East, 2,000 years ago, centuries before the blonde barbarians would join Western civilization. On the other hand, the blonde-haired Jesus makes him stand out from the crowd, as if he is special, so at first this seems like a mistake to keep the blonde hair, but then it seems like it helps reinforce that Jesus is one-of-a-kind in the scenes of this movie.
My favorite Christian project from Johnny Cash is his 16 CD set of his reading the entire NEW TESTAMENT of the Bible! This is very reasonably priced for 16 CDs, and I highly recommend it for any Christian fans of Johnny Cash.
I can also suggest that you check out THE GOSPEL COLLECTION by Johnny Cash, re-released in 1992. This CD contains the entire first two Gospel albums that Johnny recorded a decade before this movie was made, HYMNS BY JOHNNY CASH and HYMNS FROM THE HEART.
Actually, his first Gospel album, HYMNS BY JOHNNY CASH, has been re-mastered and re-released much more recently, in 2002, and sounds much cleaner and louder, with a nice CD booklet, so that is a good buy, too. But THE GOSPEL COLLECTION gives you both of his first two Gospel albums on one CD, nearly one hour of music, and is the only way to purchase his second Gospel album, HYMNS FROM THE HEART, as far as I can tell.
Movie Review: The Man Comes Around
Summary: 5 Stars
At last on DVD, this was Johnny Cash, June Carter and Kris Kristofferson's labor of love. The packaging, however, is somewhat misleading. Rather than tying in with the recent film, Walk the Line, it ought to be psychedelic and reflective of the concert gathering Explo '72. Sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ, Explo '72 rode the wave of '60s searchin' and caught the vibe of the Jesus People movement (which also made the cover of Time magazine).
Johnny Cash appeared at this very eclectic gathering, singing a song which later made the soundtrack for this film. Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge sang "In the Garden" (not the Dylan song. Billy Graham was there along with a varied roster that included Larry Norman, Randy Matthews, Andrae Crouch and the Disciples and the Speers gospel singing family. Before Keith Green thought of offering his albums free, Campus Crusade sent the record from Explo '72 to anyone who asked for it, as a tie in to TV shows which featured Graham and cuts from the concerts.
The Jesus People at the time rejected the Hollywood blonde-haired, blue eyed portrayls of Max Von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told and Ted Neely's personna in Jesus Christ Superstar, which in their view left off the end of the story. The downside of this film is that the actor playing the Man from Nazareth is also blonde-haired, but not because Cash doesn't know better. It's because the director plays the part, with June Carter as Mary Magdalene in similar anecdotal bits. This film is packed with music; Cash sings songs like "I See Men as Trees Walking", reprising his set at Explo '72, and June covers John Denver's "Follow Me," certainly as imaginative as Superstar's "I Don't Know How to Love Him."
This was never meant to be a complete life of Jesus, but rather a personal reflection following the portrait in the Gospels. Now on widescreen, this film shows both a seldom-seen hearfelt and passionate side of Cash and Carter, and recaptures what was once the calling card of the Jesus Movement: its enthusiasm and contagious joy.
Movie Review: This is a Movie About the Life & Times of Jesus Christ, As Told & Sung by the Late/Great Johnny Cash!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
According to the research, I've done, through watching, the DVD "The Gospel Music of Johnny Cash", and the book "Cash, An American Man" (p.104), Johnny Cash was not satisfied with the movies, he had seen, about the life, times, death & resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, him and June, along with friends, went to Isreal to make this movie. John & June's friends and native Israels, made up the cast. June portrayed Mary Magdaline. John & June spent $500,000 of their own money up-front to make this movie. It later became a movie by 20th Century Fox.
This movie was filmed during 1971.
In the movie, Johnny narrates, and sings the story, that is being portrayed. This is not amateurist at all. It is very professional. I've never seen the story of Jesus Christ told this way. It made me feel good, like I had been to Church. Like Charlie Daniels stated in the notes to one of his gospel ablums, "many people do not understand the simplicity of Salvation Through Jesus Christ", so Charlie wrote some songs, that would help those people.
Anyway, this is an excellent movie about the story of my Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ. It is told in a very, unique, and real way. It is totally based on the Bible. I agree with what Johnny stated, before he make this movie, he had never seen a movie protraying the story of Jesus Christ the way he believed it should be protrayed. Well, Johnny & June sure made a great movie, about the story of Jesus Christ. It's just very pleasant to watch, it's simple, very well protrayed, and is very "touching".
The DVD has 24 scene selections.
Thanks, and may God Bless!!!!
Movie Review: A Superb Job on Our Saviors life,Thanks Johnny!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was over whelmed to have seen this on dvd.It is a superbly done dvd about the Life of Jesus Christ,narrated by Johnny Cash.All the songs are sung by Johnny,June Carter and Kris Kristofferson.The movie is 84 minutes and was produced by 20th Century Fox in 1973.The Director was Robert Elfstrom who also played Jesus and Jesus as a young buy was played by Elfstroms son.The quality is not superb but great considering what year this was filmed.I own this also on VHS and the quality is far better than the VHS tape.What most people do not know about Gospel Road is this....It was not made for the theatres but was shown strickly in churches all across the country as a request by Johnny Cash.He also did not charge anything for it.He only wanted God's mercy, love and forgiveness to been seen through his eyes narrating the life of Christ.It was his way of ministering to the world.I feel he did a splendid job.No special effects,no extravagance, just the plain truth.It was filmed on location in the Holy Land.June Carter played Mary Magdalene.The bottom line is this....If you truly want to learn about our Savior,then this is a must.Buy it for that reason and not only because you are a Johnny Cash fan.I recommend this dvd highly and have the uttmost respect for Johnny for doing it.It shows his courage,true faith and love for God and bravery for producing this.Movie Review: The intimacy you don't get from superproductions
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a beautiful and simple account of the story of our Lord Jesus. There are three remarkable things in the story this time: It has real Israeli locations (enchantingly beautiful landscapes), plus the songs that are played as background themes to the story, and finally the narration by Johnny Cash himself. He makes it simple, he gets it right and to the point.
The film is a welcome change from the typical and expensive Hollywood versions; this time done with a lot more intimacy, delicacy and beauty. A pairing of Israeli scenery and music that achieves more realism than any movie, because it is done simple, without filling the screen with unncecessay extras or trying to tell "it all".
The few characters involved are not heard, nor need they be, as we hear the story in Cash's mesmerizing voice-over. The handsome man who plays Jesus looks just like what we assume Jesus to look like. And the Israeli sky and the light over the deserts and mountains is so awe-inspiring... If you want to spend an evening hearing Jesus' story once again but are weary of all the theatrics and dramatism to be expected, take this poetic and intimate trip. Meet Jesus in a simple way. Take away Hollywood and it will be just Jesus, a handful of people, and you, in the Promised Land.