Lenten Blog – Day 31 – Christ on Film - “Godspell” (1973)

This film had such impact on me that, when I was baptized as a baptismal gift I asked for, and received the soundtrack. I think I still have it somewhere (this was noted in an earlier blog post but unless you haven’t been following along…).

Soundtrack.  I played this.  A lot.

 

When I was trying to come up with a description of this film that didn’t involve the words “hippie” or “free love” – I found this from IMDB:

A modern-day version of the gospels, opening with John the Baptist calling a disparate group of young New Yorkers from their workaday lives to follow and learn from Jesus. They form a roving acting troupe that enacts the parables through song and dance, comedy, and mime. Jesus' ministry ends with a last supper, his Crucifixion in a junkyard, and, the following morning, his body being carried aloft by his apostles back into the world of the living on the streets of New York.

Clowns or mimes or street performers or homeless people....

Based on the stage musical and the full title being: “Godspell: A musical based on the Gospel of Saint Matthew” (though three of the parables come from Luke), we in the Terry household have watched this film, traditionally, on Holy Saturday.

Where people may dismiss the film as hippy-dippy claptrap that is very much a product of its time, I still find the film powerful in its own way and very much enjoyable. And the songs, well, as Tony-the-Tiger would say: “They’re GREAT!”

A couple places where the film fails is the overt use of ADR. ADR is a term in filmmaking circles and it is short for “After Dialogue Recording.” Typically any film that is made, for some reason, the dialogue isn’t picked up in a scene or two so the actors are called in at some point to do ADR. Speak in a microphone and the sound guys match it up with the scene. If it’s done flawlessly you won’t notice.

Twin Towers played a significant part in one of the songs.

Recently, while watching the show “Top Chef” it was obvious that they did some ADR as Padme Lakshmi’s voice went from one octave to a lower octave back to the original octave. It’s not something that people particularly notice and, when it’s done well, you won’t notice it AT ALL – but I’m kind of a geek when it comes to film so this type of stuff I notice. Just like the time on “Dance Moms” when, for some reason, the filmmakers reversed a shot of a mom blinking and it looked weird…but I digress.

In Godspell it appears that this group of mimes, artists, clowns – once they go on their adventures have the run of the city. You see NO ONE ELSE - kind of in a creepy zombie type way.

In this scene, stuff just got real.

How did the film makers not have the sounds of the city? How did the film makers remove all the minutiae from an enormous city and focus on just these few characters?

Simple: ENTIRE ADR. From what I can tell, they recorded no live sound. No microphones (boom or otherwise) and just filmed the entire movie with whatever sounds were around them. Then, in post, they had to layer on all the sounds. Sound effects, songs, dialogue etc. Every bit of it. They do it very well, don’t get me wrong but once you realize what they’ve done, you can’t un-see it or un-hear it. So for that aspect of the film, I become detached from the story. Much like it’s difficult for me to look at, supposed, “historic” films of Jesus’ life and see a white guy from Green Bay or some Swedish dude. I can’t help but be a bit detached from the goings on.

Godspell doesn’t break new ground nor do I think that people were up-in-arms about it. No protests here. I can understand why people would dismiss its hippy-dippy 1973 stuck in a time-warp world…but, again, I find the film powerful and enjoyable on many different levels.

And maybe that’s the biggest thing: It’s different.

Victor Garber...then.

Side note: After watching it one time I researched out the cast only to find a couple of them had died of AIDS. Victor Garber, who played Jesus, has had an amazing career beyond this film (128 credits according to IMDB) – even designing the “Titanic” in James Cameron’s Best Picture winner. He still shows up in multiple films or TV shows and I always compare him now to the frizzy haired Superman T-Shirt overall wearing Jesus and laugh.

Victor Garber...now.