There was an incomprehensible remake of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 2000. I rather liked “King Herod’s Song” in the new version. I haven’t see much of the rest of it. I did see “Simon Zealotes” or George Bush in the desert in the new version and it sucked. Jesus acts like he just discovered that some people can be fanatical. Simon Zealotes sounds more like a killer than a fanatic. He lost all the charm of fanaticism.
I loved the original version of this song, in the 1972 movie. For many years it was, with some qualification, my favorite 3 or 4 minutes of film.
Simon and his followers appear from nowhere and surround Jesus, and Simon Zealotes, played magnificently by Larry Marshall, tells Jesus that he now has the opportunity to rally his followers and lead a military insurrection against the Romans. He tempts him with power and glory, and advises him to “keep them yelling their devotion, but add a touch of hate at Rome”. His people will win themselves a home, and Jesus will be remembered forever. Simon’s followers dance frenetically throughout this scene, and it is clear that Jewison staged the dance over and over and over again until the dancers were exhausted– in the last few cuts you can see them flailing about and sweating and losing equilibrium as they try to move faster and faster. Judas (Carl Anderson) watches from a distance, disturbed.
By the way, no, the music and singing was not recorded during filming. It was recorded in a studio in England. The singing that you hear is not coming from the dancers on the screen.
It’s a brilliant scene– all the more brilliant for Rice’s remarkable insights into Christ’s response: he tells Simon that he doesn’t understand power or glory, and that, to conquer death, you only have to die.
At the time the movie came out, I took Simon Zealotes to be a leftist revolutionary, promising political and social paradise to his deluded followers, ready, in chapter 2, to become a fat, corrupt King Herod. And he probably was meant to be a Che Guevara type. Today, you might just as well take him for George Bush: with a complete and utterly foolish belief in the power of force to bring lasting peace and justice. But in George Bush’s version, Jesus does grab a Kalashnikov and joins the gang.
I liked the original version much better than the TV movie version released in 2000. Not surprising, really: the original was made by Norman Jewison. And Larry Marshall (Simon Zealotes) is fabulous. Not everyone can take him. I’ve seen ridiculous comments on Youtube about how he looks like “an ape”. Would you have preferred Danny Bonaduce? Or Barry Gibb? Some people confuse art with tranquilizers.
I think he is absolutely hysterically beautiful.
Somewhere in the desert in Iraq, George Bush isn’t dancing anymore. He continues to wave his Kalashnikov. He still thinks he can stop the pagans with bullets and technology and Burger Kings and Walmarts. And the girl in the tight brown pants kicks her leg up so high you want to jump into the air with her and twirl and sweat and scream and keep yelling your devotion.
One of the things I loved about the original version: there is a girl in an orange skirt with short brown hair. As the camera pans over the group near the end of “Simon Zealotes”, she moves out from behind another dancer, without even looking up: here I am. Obviously, the dancer, the fanatical follower of Simon Zealotes, is not supposed to be “aware” of a camera. And that is exactly what I found quietly endearing about that moment: just a quick, discrete flash of the dancer’s ego, which she accomplished without even seeming to look up.
Another girl wearing low-cut slacks tugs on them several times, after executing a high leg kick. Why? Were they falling down? I can’t tell you why but I didn’t mind the girl in the orange dress. There was something charming about that moment of vanity. But I was annoyed with the other girl: a true zealot wouldn’t have cared if her butt-crack was showing or even if her pants had fallen down.
It hurt the illusion of the film because unlike the girl in the orange dress, it was gesture of concealment rather than exposure.
The actor playing Jesus, Ted Neely , married the girl in the brown tights.
