While we now ridicule the image of a light-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, it was de rigueur in 1973, and Elfstrom is so Caucasian heвЂ™s positively Nordic. CashвЂ™s wife, fellow singer June Carter, plays Mary Magdalene (and is the only actor with lines).Дirector Robert Elfstrom also doubled up as the lead. The relatively low budget forced some creative solutions to certain scenes: Jesus is never surrounded by crowds, but instead sound effects are used along with the music to produce the right atmosphere. He appears as narrator and his songs provide the soundtrack.

Here are the top 25 movies about the man we can thank for the enormous amount of chocolate we eat at various intervals throughout the year: 25.В Gospel Road: A Story Of JesusВ (1973)ДЄn enthusiastic convert to Christianity, Johnny Cash dug into his own pockets to make this film on location in Israel.

Religion can also make for contentious filmmaking: too earnest and the movie feels sanctimonious and dull, too irreverent and you risk making вЂњa holocaust movie that has the power to destroy souls eternally,вЂќ as a nun once told Martin Scorsese about his 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ. At the beginning of the last decade, we saw big movie star vehicles based on Old Testament tales in Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings, and when those didnвЂ™t pan out, we still got Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara trying to bring an indie sensibility to Mary Magdalene. IвЂ™m sure Cadbury would spring for the costs to reshoot.The Biblical epic keeps appearing as if itвЂ™s on the cusp of a resurrection. Maybe next year the cut can become even more family friendly by having a rabbit pass in front of Jesus on the cross and lay an egg, therefore tying in the Easter Bunny. Instead heвЂ™s created more of a Passion- lite version, for those Christians who canвЂ™t stand the reality of their own faith, ready to be redistributed to theaters each Easter as a less-grim reminder of what the holiday is all about. IвЂ™d even accept him doing that but still cutting graphic footage from the film - then at least it would be closer to his original intentions. I think IвЂ™d have more respect for Gibson if he had altered the film to bring it more in touch with his original vision by removing the subtitles. With these changes I wonder if Gibson hasnвЂ™t tainted the original cut and lessened the significance of the film. I felt the original cut of The Passion bordered on being one of my вЂњImportantвЂќ films - movies everyone should see, regardless of its graphic nature, because the content was important. This is a hard movie to watch because it is an extremely graphic, hyper-realistic depiction of a manвЂ™s death, and removing five to seven minutes of that doesnвЂ™t change what youвЂ™re watching, it just changes how graphic that depiction is. For others this is a hard film to watch because itвЂ™s almost the equivalent of watching a snuff film - a snuff film starring the lord and savior of mankind, but a violent snuff film nonetheless. Maybe that was in the cut footage though. Well, I checked the end credits and didnвЂ™t see my name up there, so IвЂ™m pretty certain I didnвЂ™t cause the scourging. To them, this torture and inevitable death shown on screen was done by them - Christ died because of their sins. For a lot of people itвЂ™s a hard movie because of their beliefs. No matter how you cut (or recut) it, this is a hard movie to watch.

Personally, I donвЂ™t think anyone should watch a movie this powerful and devastating often enough to catch the changes, but IвЂ™m sure there are some out there who have. IвЂ™ll be honest, I havenвЂ™t watched The Passion of the Christ enough to catch all of the changes in The Passion Recut, although some of the more gratuitous shots are obviously missing. How does removing five to seven minutes of that open the picture to a wider audience? I get that Gibson felt he was making the movie more attractive to a broad audience, but at the end of the day this movie showcases Jesus being tortured. The film, which is about ChristвЂ™s capture, torture, and eventual death, is now having some of that torture removed. This is a movie I donвЂ™t quite comprehend. Now, a year after its initial release, Gibson has compromised his film again, releasing The Passion Recut, his same film minus around five to seven minutes of graphic violence (the reported amount of time cut seems to vary from interview to interview).

The passion of christ movie length