Jesus of Montreal
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Jesus of Montreal (Jésus de Montréal) is a 1989 Canadian film directed by Denys Arcand.
Plot and allegory
The film centres on a group of actors in Montreal, Canada who are gathered by Daniel, an actor hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play in its gardens.
The sanctuary is implied to be Saint Joseph's Oratory (although this organization actually refused permission to film there). In fact, the idea for the film came to its director after an actor apologized for appearing with a beard at an audition. The actor explained that he had the role of Jesus in a passion play at St-Joseph's Oratory. Arcand went to see the play and recalls "I saw actors in a mediocre production which received shouted applause from the tourists. I decided I had to make a film".
The actors' interpretation of the life of Jesus is unconventional (including, for example, the statement that the biological father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, who left Palestine shortly afterwards). Still, it draws on current academic theories and research. The challenging production becomes the toast of the city. The higher authorities of the religious order that controls the sanctuary (or of the Roman Catholic Church, this is left vague) strongly object to this Biblical interpretation, and forcefully stop a performance.
After an ensuing accident, Daniel is first taken by ambulance to a Catholic hospital. He is completely neglected there and leaves. He then collapses on a Montreal Metro platform. The same ambulance takes him to Jewish General Hospital. Despite immediate, skilled, and energetic efforts by the doctors and nurses to revive him, Daniel is pronounced brain-dead. Daniel's doctor asks for the consent of his friends to take Daniel's organs for donation (since Daniel has no known relatives). Daniel's physician states that the staff would have been able to save him, if he had been brought to them half an hour earlier.
The film is structured so that Daniel's story parallels that of Christ. Some of the points of contact are:
- Daniel has returned to Montreal after spending a long period travelling in "the East".
- Contradictory and uncertain stories are told about Daniel's life story.
- In the opening scene, one actor points to Daniel, calling him "a much better actor", which echoes John the Baptist foretelling the arrival of Jesus the Messiah.
- The first actor later "sells-out" and lets his head be used in an advertisement, paralleling John the Baptist's beheading.
- The actors then gather for the Passion play, some of them leaving safe jobs to do so, recalling Jesus gathering the disciples.
- Daniel wrecks an advertising casting session, where the casting director enjoys humiliating participants, and displays deep contempt for them. This is a parallel of when Jesus casts the money-lenders out of the Temple.
- Daniel's arrest and court appearance before an indecisive judge, played by the film's director himself, parallels Jesus' appearance before Pontius Pilate.
- The smooth elite lawyer, who lays out a grand commercial career for Daniel, looking down from a skyscraper at the city, refers to the temptation of Christ by the devil atop a high pinnacle.
- Daniel is disconnected from his life support at the Jewish General Hospital, mirroring the Christian belief that Jews killed Jesus
- The Good Samaritan Parable applauds the Samaritan - an outsider of the community to which Jesus preaches - for behaving as a true neighbour should. Daniel is not helped at the Catholic hospital - his own community - but is instead helped at the Anglo-Jewish hospital - a religious and linguistic group very different from Daniel's.
- The resurrection of Jesus is depicted as the donation of Daniel's organs, which live on in the lives of others.
- Daniel's eyes are used to "heal" the blind.
- The founding of the Christian church becomes the plans for an experimental theatre company, which is "incorporated".
