It stars Robert Powell as Jesus, and features an all-star ensemble cast of renowned actors, including eight who had won or would go on to win Academy Awards: Anne Bancroft, Ernest Borgnine, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quinn, Rod Steiger, James Earl Jones and Peter Ustinov.
Jesus of Nazareth premiered on 27 March 1977, on the Italian channel Rai 1, and was first aired in the United Kingdom, on 3 April 1977, on the ITV Network.
Screenwriter Anthony Burgess later recounted the launching of the project in an essay entitled "Telejesus (or Mediachrist)":The notion of making a six-hour television film on the life of Jesus Christ was proposed by an ennobled British Jew, with the golden blessing of an American automobile corporation.
Fired by this announcement, the Romans laid on a great, as it were, First Supper, which the Chief Rabbi of Rome attended, as well as various cricket-playing British ecclesiastics.
[7] To ensure the film's accuracy, the producers consulted experts from the Vatican, the Leo Baeck Rabbinical College of London, and the Koranic School at Meknes, Morocco.
[8] However, when Zeffirelli asked Rabbi Albert Friedlander to help him create Jesus's Bar Mitzvah scene, the latter replied that such ceremonies were practised only from the 15th century.
The director, however, insisted on including it, and Friedlander tried to teach child actor Lorenzo Monet to read a short portion of the Pentateuch in Hebrew.
[10] Ernest Borgnine, who portrayed Cornelius the Centurion, recalled that since regulations required hiring local extras—most with poor English—for many of the smaller roles, they had to be dubbed.
Zeffirelli decided to avoid recording sound altogether in many parts, and simply send the principal actors to dub their own characters in the studio later.
For example, Hoffman and Pacino both stand at just 5'6", and neither man's face bears a resemblance to Jesus as depicted in art, which has been based for many centuries on the image found on The Shroud of Turin.
[20] The idea to cast Robert Powell originated with Grade's wife, Kathie Moody, who told her husband the actor had "wonderful blue eyes" after watching his performance in a BBC television adaptation of Jude the Obscure.
Powell came under criticism from religious groups for "living in sin" with his companion, dancer Barbara Lord of Pan's People, while intending to portray Jesus.
[23] On Palm Sunday, 3 April 1977 – the date of the airing of the second episode – the Pope endorsed the programme in his public address for the holiday and recommended the faithful to view it.
[24] Jesus of Nazareth turned into a massive commercial success and is one of the most widely marketed, most critically acclaimed and best-known productions about Christ's life.
"[1] Famously, Pope Paul VI praised Zeffirelli's film, both in private comment and in a public address on Palm Sunday prior to the miniseries’ Holy Week debut on Italian television.
Writing for The Washington Post, Tom Shales was effusive: “One is tempted to call it a miracle… [Zeffirelli] has an eye for composition and lighting that is unprecedented in television films…There may never have been a religious film with so pervasive a sense of place and period….
Though it may be commendable that he in no way resembles the fair-haired Aryan stereotype dominant in such films for years, Powell looks so wan and gaunt that one fears for his health.
[38][39][40][41][42] Before its initial broadcast, Jesus of Nazareth came under ideological fire from some American Protestant fundamentalists, led by Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, and Dr. Bill Bright, because they felt the TV movie had to have the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be true to the Gospel account.
Zeffirelli had told an interviewer from Modern Screen that the film would portray Jesus as "an ordinary man – gentle, fragile, simple".
Their financial support allowed the mini-series to be screened after a simulated resurrection was added at the suggestion of Dr. Ted Baehr, a theologian and media pundit, who was friends with the producer, Vincenzo Labella, and acquainted with the protesters.
Some of these deviations have a basis in time-honoured, extra-Biblical traditions (e.g., that the infant Jesus was visited by three "kings"; the Bible calls them magi or "astrologers", yet does not state how many there were).
Other deviations were invented for the script: Jesus of Nazareth received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Special Drama.
Additionally, James Farentino, who portrayed the apostle Peter, received a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Drama Special.
The two additional scenes – a private meeting between Judas Iscariot and Zerah, and the opening betrayal sequence during the Last Supper – were actually added in the repeat UK screening 2 years later and therefore are not included as the DVD is the original 1977 cut.
Similar to other special interest content, the film's copyright has only been loosely enforced in more recent years, resulting in it appearing on Google's advertising-paid platform YouTube in its entirety.
In the 1980s and 1990, the film was re-broadcast on NBC in three installments of two- and three-hour episodes, released on VHS and DVD as one complete presentation with one set of credits.