Monday, June 30, 2008

The Cruciform Pose in the Movies - Part 2

Part 1 here. The cruciform pose (Jesus on the cross) isn’t going away anytime soon.In Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark is a self-made man who finds his conscious and tries to save mankind. Still, not much is Christ-like about him.
Click below for Spiderman, E.T., Robocop, Cool Hand Luke, and Neo.


A closer representation of Christ is in Spiderman 2 when Peter Parker sacrifices himself to save a train full of people.


They carry Parker's body and he is resurrected.


One not-so-obvious Christ allegory is Cool Hand Luke where Paul Newman’s Luke arrives in prison, fights the system, and is then sacrificed. He’s captured at a church after God doesn’t answer his prayer. He lives on at the end in the hearts and minds of the other prisoners. Right after eating 50 eggs, Luke does his cruciform pose - even crossing his feet.


The first film Christ allegory is The Day the Earth Stood Still, where a space alien comes to Earth to try to convince mankind to disarm and get along. Michael Rennie’s Klaatu is killed and reborn on his spaceship. His death scene has him falling in the pose (bottom center – they were much more subtle in 1951).


Likewise, E.T. comes from another world, dies, is resurrected, and ascends back into the heavens.


In Robocop, Peter Weller’s Officer Murphy is viciously and brutally murdered, then resurrected to save the good people of Detroit (filmed in Dallas). There’s a great Mary Magdalene (Nancy Allen – Officer Lewis).


In case you think I’m stretching, here’s Robocop walking on water.


Of course, the most "faithful" Christ allegory is The Matrix where Keanu Reeves’s Neo finds his calling, dies, is ressurected, then ascends into the heavens promising to save humanity. There’s Mary Magdalene (Trinity), John the Baptist (Morpheus), and Judas Iscariot (Cypher). (Just pretend the sequels don’t exist. Works for me.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't forget about superman, who is killed and is raised in the superman returns. the christological memory around that guy is never ending, with a solid crucifix pose as he's falling to earth in this last film.

Doctor said...

I had a brief mention but no image so I deleted it. He also gets stabbed in the side with a Krypton spear.