Translated material
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“Maria” by Abel Ferrara on Moscow screens
A round stone moves to the side, revealing the entrance to the cave - as if the lens of a movie camera had been opened. “And Mary stood at the tomb and cried. And when she cried, she bent down into the tomb and saw two angels sitting in a white robe, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus lay. And they say to her: wife! Why are you crying? He says to them: They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him. Having said this, she turned back and saw Jesus standing; but I didn’t recognize that it was Jesus.”...And then the shooting ended. They turned off the lights, began to roll up the wires and assemble the costumes. And the de-made-up Savior, the world’s radical independent director Tony Childress (Matthew Modine), creator of the obviously scandalous film “Here Is My Blood,” is already waving to Maria Palese (Juliette Binoche), the actress who played Magdalene for him, from a luxurious limousine: “Hurry, here.” We’ll miss the plane!” But for her, Maria, nothing was over yet. And she refuses to go to the airport. And he sets off on foot to Jerusalem.
Ted Younger (Forest Whitaker) hosts the popular television talk show Jesus: The True Story. Day after day, he hosts specialists of all stripes in his studio, who either talk about how Christ broke “social taboos” or claim that there was “nothing extraordinary” in the Crucifixion. Of course, he can't ignore Childress's film. “Why did I take up this topic? Gibson's film made millions, right? - the director laughs live. But the routine is changed by a phone call, a connection with Israel. And on the line - Maria...
In fact, Abel Ferrara spent his entire life making films about the search for God - and everyone thought that he depicted the everyday life of corrupt police officers, murderers, gangsters and drug addicts. It was indeed quite difficult to understand this. But lately the former enfant terrible has been somewhat transformed - it seems that the eternal unhealthy (from bad chemical excesses) gleam of the eyes has been replaced by an no less feverish preaching gaze. And Ferrara’s previous film, “Our Christmas,” although it had a family of drug dealers in its heroes, bore its name more than rightfully. This is how characters who have recovered from severe drug addiction usually turn to religion. They hastily and not particularly discriminatingly fill the gaping abyss that has formed in the soul with anything, overwhelmed by an irresistible call. Very rarely do they come to God through consistent and thoughtful comprehension of the mysteries of the church. More often - as can be seen in the example of Ferrara's film - stumbling upon some sensation, like the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, to which both Ferrara Childress's alter ego and the director of "Mary" himself refer. Discussing and condemning someone else's spiritual path is the last thing. But this does not apply to the purely artistic merits of the film (quite, it must be said, modest, despite the excellent cast). It’s just that even in “Christmas” an hour and a half passed in some bewilderment: is everything all right with the once loud director if he is not shy about such frontal symbolism and completely elementary moves? But literally half an hour after the end of the film, an inexplicable, blessed calm descended from unknown levels: what a good and correct film this was after all. After “Maria,” alas, you can wait much more than half an hour for something like this. Or don't wait at all.
Forest Whitaker: The perfect movie about Christ has yet to be made
— It would seem that your hero, as the host of a religious talk show, should know more about God than others. But why didn't his knowledge sharpen his faith? Why didn't he believe in God at the beginning of the film?
“I think he had faith in him at the beginning, but not much.” Then he met Maria, she asked: “What do you know about God?”, and he answered: “I think God existed, but I don’t know anything else.” The spiritual ascent of my hero began according to the usual system - he had doubts that God existed, but he did not exclude the possibility of his existence. And this opportunity grew because my hero had no other choice.
- Your hero is the host of a religious talk show. Are there many similar programs in America?
- We have many evangelical television programs, many pastors who read sermons from the screen in the USA, priests from other countries come to us and preach on our television, many programs about the Holy Scriptures. So many.
- And are they popular?
- Well, I don’t know how popular they are, I don’t know the ratings, but I catch these programs on TV many times a day. I don’t know the statistics, but I think most people... maybe forty to fifty percent, that’s a lot... They are successful, since there is demand.
— Has your own attitude towards religion changed after participating in this film?
— I was a believer before the film, but now I have grown in God even more. What I mean is: my understanding of God has changed. I believed more deeply, began to try to look at him and at myself, and felt closer to God in my soul.
--Would you like to play any biblical character?
-- ABOUT! Maybe Thomas. This character felt very close to the representation of God on earth. I think it's a very pure concept.
- Was this a disciple of Christ?
- He wrote the so-called Gospel of Mary Magdalene, or otherwise the Gospel of Thomas. This book was not included in the main Bible.
— How does it differ from canonical texts?
--The concept of this text is that the divine is hidden within us. That we must work to cultivate it, to hold Christ as a mirror before us. Some say that the Gospel of Thomas is the words that Christ spoke to his twin. This is the path of a new vision of oneself, a new standard of feeling God within oneself. That's why this character is close to me.
-- Do you have favorite films on a biblical theme?
- I don’t even remember... I like the film based on the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” If we talk about “The Passion of the Christ,” I probably don’t like the fact that this film is now called the most believable on a biblical theme. And the point is not that the story of Christ is not shown there in full - what is more important, the question of Jesus’ sacrifice, in the name of what it was, is not covered. And what we must go through to understand his love for the whole world. So the perfect film has yet to be made.
Abel Ferrara: I would never let a man with a movie camera into Jerusalem
-- Is the Gospel of Thomas available in America? Do people read it?
- It has been published and is very popular. It was found in 1945 during excavations. There were other gospels, the ones we know about. Other descriptions of the time and the deeds of the man we call Jesus Christ.
- But this is not a canonical book, how does the church treat it?
- The Church does not want to discuss this issue. The book "The Da Vinci Code" reveals the story of the Gospel of Thomas. It says: Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper depicted a woman. Have you read The Da Vinci Code?
- Yes.
- Well, of course, this is a world bestseller. So Mary Magdalene was there. It is on the role of Magdalene in the life of Christ that the Gospel of Thomas is based. People should read it.
— Your film shows both modern America and biblical times. What part of the Bible would you film?
- I would, of course, remove the Gospel of John. I would like to dive into the history of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, the history of the Diaspora at the time of his death - that is, the end of Jerusalem, which came forty years after the death of Jesus. And into the relationship between Rome and Jerusalem, the Romans and the Jews. In “Maria” we went to film Jerusalem. This is a place that I personally would never allow a person with a movie camera into - there really is a lot of Jesus there.
-- The hero of your film is the host of a popular talk show on religion. There are no such shows in Russia, at least they are not that popular...
- What my hero did every day was to focus on the industry that flutters around the image of Christ. America is all based on talk shows: on television, on radio, even on the telephone. I don't know if your church would allow such shows.