Recalling "Jesus of Nazareth": The Acclaimed TV-Mini-Series from 1977

A Reverent Retro Look Back

[Note: This article is a work of nonfiction based on the author's opinion. It features edited material from the upcoming book, The Greatest Stories Ever Told On Screen: A Cinematic Religious Experience by Herbie J Pilato.]

Over the last few years, The Chosen, starring Jonathan Roumie, has become one of the most popular big-and-small-screen adaptations of the life of Jesus Christ. A new animated rendition of Christ’s life, The King of Kings, premiered this year, featuring actor and former Christian ska band member Oscar Isaac as Jesus. Both productons are noble attempts to tell a reverent story on a mainstream media platform. As a result, millions will be introduced to who Jesus was on Earth and who He remains to be in Heaven and the hearts, minds and souls of countless true believers around the world.

Many Have Played The Messiah

Previous films, and TV shows have also explored the life of Jesus with grace, dignity, and elegance, and at times, controversy.

H.B. Warner portrayed Jesus the Christ (note the “the”) in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1927 original, haunting silent black-and-white film version of The King of Kings. Jeffrey Hunter played Jesus as directed by Nicholas Ray in the 1961 remake, titled King of Kings (minus “The”). Max Van Sydow was the Messiah for director George Stevens in 1965’s The Greatest Story Ever Told. In 1979, Graham Chapman was mistaken for a similar type in a satirical spiritual interpretation known as Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Jeremy Sisto played the title role in Jesus, a CBS-TV mini-series from 1999. In 2003, Henry Ian Cusick played a Peruvian-Scottish in The Gospel According to John, which based its screenplay directly on the Biblical passages. In 2004, Mel Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ, starring Jim Caviezel in the “leading” role, while both will return for the sequel, The Passion of the Christ 2).

A Focus on Zeffirelli’s Vision and Version of Jesus

The spectrum of playing Jesus has ranged from the reverent to the irreverent. But for many, it’s British actor Robert Powell who delivers the most realistic, complex, and compelling performance in the role. Powell portrayed the Savior in writer/director Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, which premiered as an NBC-TV mini-series in 1977 and was later released theatrically around the globe.

At a cost estimated between $12–20 million, this mini-series, executive produced by Sir Lew Grade, had a budget equivalent to many feature films of the time and was by far the most expensive made-for-television movie made at the time of production, a record it would hold for several years.

Jesus of Nazareth was watched by millions worldwide. Even the Pope watched it. Enjoying the production so much, his Holiness gave the production his official endorsement.

Acting alongside Robert Powell was a cast of Hollywood greats, including seven Oscar winners: Christopher Plummer, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Peter Ustinov, Anne Bancroft, Anthony Quinn, Rod Steiger, and Ernest Borgnine; and six Oscar nominees: James Mason, Sir Ian Holm, Ian Bannen, James Earl Jones, Valentina Cortese, and Sir Ralph Richardson.

Alternate Casting

Tom Courtenay was originally announced for the title role, along with Alan Bates as Herod, Dustin Hoffman as Judas, Burt Lancaster as Caiaphas, Nino Manfredi as Barabbas, and Peter O’Toole as John the Baptist. The originally announced cast also included Laurence Olivier — who would in fact play Nicodemus — as Pontius Pilate and — in unspecified roles — John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, and Terence Stamp.

McShane was originally offered the role of Joseph of Arimathea. He turned it down but held out for the more-challenging part of Judas Iscariot.

Franco Zeffirelli had wanted Marcello Mastroianni for the role of Pontius Pilate, but they couldn’t agree on financial terms. Zeffirelli was pleased in the end as he felt that Rod Steiger was a “magnificent Pilate.”

Maria Schneider declined the role of the Virgin Mary, a decision she ultimately regretted. Schneider would later make a cameo appearance in Zeffirelli’s 1996 film edition of Jane Eyre).

Vocal Techniques

In the voiceover department of Jesus of Nazareth, Norman Eshley is the voice of Joseph. Robert Rietti is the voice of the rich man who is told by Jesus to sell his wealth, one of the shepherds, a Roman soldier, the head of the census, the blind man healed in the temple, and the messenger who talks about Lazarus.

Actor Yorgo Voyagis (Joseph) can be seen speaking in English, but his voice was dubbed by an uncredited actor. Voyagis’ real voice can be heard in The Little Drummer Girl (1984). Zeffirelli also used this technique with a few of the cast members in Romeo and Juliet (1968), which co-stars Olivia Hussey (who plays Mary in Jesus of Nazareth).

According to what Ernest Borgnine (The Centurion) once noted, many local extras had to be dubbed because they couldn’t speak English very well. Zeffirelli decided to avoid recording sound altogether in many parts and simply sent the principal actors and actresses to dub their characters in the studio later.

Sir Lew’s Wife Suggested Powell

The idea to cast Robert Powell as Jesus originated with executive producer Sir Lew Grade’s wife, Kathie Moody, who told her husband the actor had “wonderful blue eyes” after watching him perform in Jude the Obscure.

Powell went on a near-starvation diet (eating just cheese) for twelve days before shooting the crucifixion scenes to appear physically emaciated following Jesus’ imprisonment and torture. Because he resembled Jesus in pictures, every time Powell exited his dressing room in costume, the foul language the crew was using would suddenly stop.

Rarely during the movie does Powell blink his eyes. Franco Zeffirelli decided on this as a means of creating a subconscious visual mystique about the character that not only differentiated Jesus from all of the other characters, and is eerily effective. The boy Jesus in the Temple blinks twice in the Temple, and the adult Jesus blinks only once on film.

Adding to all of this was Powell’s eye makeup, which consisted of a thin line of dark blue eyeliner on the upper lid of the eye and a thin line of white eyeliner on the lower lid. Such had the effect of highlighting the piercing blue of his eyes, thus giving him a penetrating stare, when combined with very little blinking, making the character appear surreal and supernatural.

Powell’s Perceptions

In a 2019 interview, Robert Powell admitted that, while he wasn’t personally religious, he did have, what could be described as a religious experience when shooting the Sermon on the Mount scenes in front of hundreds of rapt and tearful extras. The crew was also highly emotional afterward and congratulated Powell for his powerful performance.

Conversely, Powell came under severe criticism from religious groups for “living in sin” with his companion, dancer Barbara Lord (of Pan’s People), while intending to portray Jesus. The couple married shortly before production began.

Powell has stated his dislike of how some Christian churches utilize photos of him as Jesus as objects of worship.

Jesus Meets R2-D2

While shooting in Tunisia, the set of Jesus of Nazareth had a surprise visit by R2-D2. Legendary producer George Lucas was filming Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) at the same time and, according to actress Koo Stark, “Operated by remote control, R2-D2 had to trundle off camera and disappear behind a sand dune. But the remote control failed to stop the robot and he wanted onto the set of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Meanwhile, some portions of Life of Brian were filmed on the same sets and locations as Jesus of Nazareth mini-series. Monty Python troupe director Terry Jones remembered that some extras had worked on both productions and would occasionally comment, “Franco would never film it like that!”

Banned in Egypt

No one was laughing when Jesus of Nazareth was banned in Egypt after religious leaders objected to its content.

At one point in the film, Jesus says “Talitha Cumi.” That occurs when he brings the girl back to life from death. Talitha Cumi is Aramaic which means “little girl, rise.” Aramaic was the language of first-century Israel. Aramaic continued to be the language of Hebrews in the early second century A.D., until Simon Bar Kokhba tried to revive the Hebrew language, and tried making it the official language of Hebrews during the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 A.D.).

According to the book, Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World by Kimberly B. Stratton, Dead Sea Scrolls archaeologist Yigael Yadin suggests that Bar Kokhba was attempting to revive Hebrew by decree as part of his Messianic ideology.

Sir Lew Grade and Franco Zeffirelli insisted their adaptation of Christ’s life should be “ecumenical,” coherent, even to non-believers, and “acceptable to all denominations.” To ensure the movie’s accuracy, the producers consulted experts from the Vatican, the Leo Baeck Rabbinical College of London, and the Koranic School at Meknes, Morocco. However, when Zeffirelli asked Rabbi Albert Friedlander to help him create Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah scene, the latter replied that such ceremonies were practiced only from the fifteenth century on. However, Zeffirelli insisted on having it, and Friedlander tried to teach Lorenzo to read a short portion of the Pentateuch in Hebrew, though he mumbled it, and Zeffirelli was not satisfied (in the movie, the boy Jesus reads mostly in English).

By the Book

In Jesus of Nazaren, Christ’s opposition against the scribes and the Pharisees (“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees!”) comes from Matthew 23 and Luke 11 in the New Testament. Although the gospels of Matthew and Luke present Jesus’ biggest opponents as the Pharisees and the scribes, this opposition reflects more accurately the situation of the early Christian community during the ’80s CE when the gospels of Matthew and Luke were written.

The early Christian community vied with the Pharisees to claim the mantle of the true successor of the Israelite religion after the destruction of the Temple and antagonism between Christians and Pharisees during this period known as “The Great Divorce” was much greater than in Jesus’ day. The Pharisees obeyed the Traditions of the Elders (“Mashlmanwatha da Qashishe” in Aramaic) which represented an oral tradition that accompanied the written Torah. Jewish sects, among whom the early Christians were counted, differed in their attitudes toward the oral law (the Sadducees, for example, did not believe in the authority of the oral law). This oral law was codified in the Mishnah and went on to become the basis of the reflection and commentaries that became the Talmud.

Over the four days of Easter in 2016 (Good Friday, Saturday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday), the U.K.’s Sky Arts television channel played one episode of Jesus of Nazareth in order per day. The version broadcast was the original four two-hour blocks (with commercials), totaling eight hours (seemingly from a High-Definition re-mastered version). This was repeated over Easter 2020.

The Real Jesus of Nazareth

In 2019, some forty years after Jesus of Nazareth’s debut, Robert Powell revisited the experience with The Real Jesus of Nazareth, a four-part television documentary series. This program, which aired on TLC, followed the actor as he traveled through the Holy Land exploring the life of Christ, asking questions, and challenging the perceptions we have.

As Powell said at the time, it was different for him returning to the story of Jesus because he was “returning in a completely different way.” That was one of the reasons he wanted to do the series. Originally, forty years before, he was avoiding Jesus completely. He and Zeffirelli originally thought that they could combine the divine Christ with the human one and that they would be able to show the human side of him, “but we discovered that it was just not possible,” Powell said.

“You go as an actor and work subjectively but the moment you start to try and play him as a real person you lose the divinity completely,” Powell continued to observe. “With this story, the most important element that this character has to be is extraordinary.”

As such, from that moment on, Powell played Jesus objectively without any recourse to giving Him any particular idiosyncrasies, quite deliberately avoiding the normal human things. “To try and play a god and get the idea of it is a shortcut to a nervous breakdown,” Powell said.

So, Powell backed off completely, and found a way of playing the part that was counter to an actor’s typical approach.

“The reason for Jesus’ success over 2,000 years plus is the fact that he is whoever you wish him to be,” Powell noted. “He is not a person. He is not a person with characteristics or idiosyncrasies or mannerisms, you can impose on him whatever you like. However, you wish your Jesus, to be, that is your Jesus, and that is why people can take him with them wherever they go and everybody has a different one, a different image in their head. I think that that’s what we allowed in our film. The tens of thousands of letters that we got all said the same thing, ‘It’s exactly how I imagined him to be,’ on that level we succeeded in spades, we really did. We managed to make it so non-specific.’”

The Remarkable Audience Response to Jesus of Nazareth

The audience response to Jesus of Nazareth has frequently proved remarkable.

For example, Robert Powell once received a poignant letter from a woman who worked in a senior community home in South Africa, where she screened the mini-series for the residents. “I sat next to an unwell woman in her eighties,” the woman wrote. “When it came to the Crucifixion, I looked at her and she was sitting there with tears running down her face and a huge smile, she died two days later. That was the last image she had before she died.”

Upon learning this, Powell was stunned. “Wow…you suddenly realize the power of something like this. It’s phenomenal. I always try and play it down but I’ve been gob-smacked over the years. I get stopped in the street now in Greece, even with short hair, glasses, and no beard.”

For Powell, the person of Christ and the film Jesus of Nazareth have made such an impact on culture and managed to reach such a large audience “because we were so non-specific in our approach to Jesus. There are some other fantastic performances…but for every person who says what a great performance you’ll have ten thousand who say ‘That’s not my Jesus, that’s not how I imagined it and therefore I can’t watch it.’”

“By presenting them with something where they do all the work then you can be Jesus for everybody,” Powell concluded. “I never had anyone say that’s not how I imagined him to be.”