Life and Passion of the Christ (1903)

Original title

La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ

Directed by

Lucien Nonguet, Ferdinand Zecca

Genre

drama film, silent film, religious film, biographical film

Country

France

Runtime

44 min

Rating

6.6 of 10 from 38 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This silent film shows scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. Each event is introduced with a title card and then acted out in tableaus that imitate famous illustrations. The story follows the Gospel narrative from the Annunciation through the Crucifixion.

statelyreverentpictorialhistoricstraightforwarddetailedquietformal

What happens

Vie et Passion du Christ (English: Life and Passion of the Christ) is a 44-minute French silent film that was produced and released in 1903. As such, it is considered the first feature-length narrative film. The film, with sequences made in the stencil color process Pathéchrome, takes a straightforward approach to its subject matter. All scenes are introduced by an inter-title giving the traditional name of the event (the Annunciation, the Nativity, etc.) followed by the actors playing out the familiar stories from the Gospels. Other than the scene titles, there are no other inter-titles. Many of the scenes attempt to recreate the illustrations of the life of Christ by Gustave Doré in detail. In 1932, the film was re-issued in the U.S., distributed on a states-rights basis. Instead of the stencil coloring effect, however, the film was printed on red-tinted stock, with a musical score compiled by James C. Bradford. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Le descente de croix (1903)
• La cène (1903)
• The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906)
• La flagellation (1903)
• Le crucifiement (1903)
• Le mort du Christ (1903)
• Life and Passion of Christ (1907)
• La Sainte Famille (1903)