History Film / TheLastTemptationOfChrist

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* AdaptationDistillation: The film depicts the "Feet of Clay" dream occurring in tandem with Jesus' meeting with Pontius Pilate. In the original scripture, the dream actually occurs in the Book of Daniel, and was a dream of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar that the prophet Daniel interpreted, rather than being a dream of Jesus' that Jesus Himself discusses. Tying in with this, the film has the doomed statue in the dream represent Rome rather than Babylon.

* AffablyEvil: The way Pontius Pilate is depicted, played by Music/DavidBowie no less. He talks politely with Jesus, listens to the story of a dream he had which is interpreted as predicting the fall of the Roman Empire, then orders Jesus off to be flogged and crucified because the Romans don't want change.

** The film also flips over the whole "Pilate washing his hands" and trying to appeal for Jesus's release. Pilate is the one who wants Jesus dead and his sympathy comes from seeing Jesus as a deluded man condemning himself to death. He rejects Jesus message of love as "against the world and against Rome". The priests are not even suggested as to wanting Jesus dead and his confrontation with them comes off as them trying talk sense into him before he gets himself into trouble.

* DehumanizingInsult: [[spoiler: Satan calls Jesus "Nazorean", being the equivalent of calling him a peasant.]]
* {{Demythification}}: This movie portrays Satan and Jesus' divine origin as real, but offers a down-to-earth version of the latter and the Crucifixion. The unconventional-looking Creator/WillemDafoe plays Jesus, he is shocked when he pulls off his first miracle, the Last Supper scene avoids a LastSupperSteal by involving a lot more people than the traditional thirteen (including women) and having them seat on the ground, and the Crucifixion scenes skew from traditional religious portrayals in favor of archaeology and non-religious accounts of how Roman crucifixions happened (for example, Jesus only carries the horizontal section to Golgotha, he is nailed by the wrists and also tied, and the two thieves are nailed to dead trees). Jesus' cross looks like a traditional Latin cross by sheer accident, due to the wooden sign reading "Jesus Nazarene King of the Jews" being placed on top of it; if not for that, it would look like a 'T'.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Jesus rejects Satan's illusion, is immediately brought back to the cross, where he cries out "It is accomplished!" in ''utter triumph,'' having fulfilled his Father's plan.]]

** The film breaks from the tradition of portraying Jesus as an impossibly beautiful, angelic-looking handsome man in several ways. Creator/WillemDafoe, with his long, gaunt features and VillainousCheekbones is not exactly a traditionally handsome man, and certainly not the image of divine beauty. (As Creator/SergioLeone famously said, "That is the face of a murderer, not of Our Lord!") In addition, the depiction of Jesus as having sparkling white robes and unrealistically perfect hygiene is nowhere to be found; Jesus is allowed to look as grungy, malnourished, and generally unstable as a poor prophet (or cult leader, if you asked the Romans) would actually look. He is, however, as appropriately muscular as you would expect from someone who has been a ''carpenter'' for most of his life.

** Jesus is portrayed as the insane kind of WindmillCrusader. This is played straight for most of the movie; he's even cured of his messiah complex and gets to live a normal life. [[spoiler:In the TwistEnding, however, Judas accuses Jesus of betraying him by not going through with dying on the cross as they had previously agreed. Jesus’ guardian angel is then revealed to be the devil, who had tricked him into believing that he’s not the messiah. Thus, it turns out that it was NoMereWindmill after all.]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: Judas, summed up by the fact that in the climactic scene, it's he who yells "traitor!" at Jesus and it's totally justified in the context of the story. He gets here the very 20th Century characterization of an ally of Jesus who betrayed him per his own orders. The Gnostic Gospel of Judas and other ancient texts give a very similar portrayal, making this OlderThanFeudalism, but this idea didn't become popular until much later (ironically, even after the novel had been released).

* ApologeticAttacker: Pontius Pilate doesn't regret Jesus' crucifixion but he does take pity on the man and his cause, which he sees as a HopelessWar.

* BreakThemByTalking: The older, un-crucified Jesus confronts [[Creator/HarryDeanStanton Paul]] over his preaching, and is shut down right quick:

** Then again, [[spoiler:that speech occurs during the titular Last Temptation.]]
* CameBackWrong: Lazarus is resurrected as in the gospels, but the experience of dying and dwelling for a while on the underworld has left him visibly traumatized.

* CreatorCameo: Martin Scorsese did this many many times. In this film he pops up as the prophet Isaiah, who has his face obscured under his cloak.
** He is also [[VoiceOfTheLegion the distorted voice heard]] beneath Satan's regular speaking voice.
* CreepyChild: The guardian angel, not only for how slighty eerie she is, but also because she doesn't age like Jesus does. Justified as she is [[spoiler:actually {{Satan}}]].
* DeathByAdaptation: Lazarus, who doesn't get mentioned in the Bible beyond being raised from the dead, ends up getting murdered [[spoiler:by Paul]] to cover up the proof of Jesus' most incredible miracle.
* {{Deconstruction}}: A highly intellectually driven look at not only the life of Jesus but the way's he's depicted in art and movies. And averting ChristianityIsCatholic with its source novel written by a Greek Orthodox and co-screenwriter Paul Schrader being a Dutch Calvinist (with a [=PhD=] in theology), joining Scorsese as the Catholic.

** Scorsese also deconstructs JesusWasWayCool, pointing out that if Jesus was so charismatic then [[FridgeLogic there wouldn't have been such hatred]] or controversy provoked by him in the first place.[[note]] According to the Gospels, the reasons for the enmity towards Him included people disagreeing with Him saying He was the Messiah and He made enemies of those who were corrupt among the Pharisees and Chief Priests when He called them out on their corruption, hypocrisy, abuses of power and not doing their job.[[/note]] He shows Jesus as a KingOfTheHomeless attracting lepers, prostitutes and other outcasts who the establishment would regard as weirdos, with Willem Dafoe's Jesus getting AdaptationalAngstUpgrade rather than a MessianicArchetype we see. The movie also deconstructs Christian attitudes to sexuality, by foregrounding the conflict between "Fully Human and Fully Divine". Also ''The Last Temptation'' is the first work in Western art to depict women with Jesus at The Last Supper.

** The film breaks from the tradition of portraying Jesus as an impossibly beautiful, angelic-looking handsome man in several ways. Creator/WillemDafoe, with his long, gaunt features and VillainousCheekbones is not exactly a traditionally handsome man, and certainly not the image of divine beauty. (As Creator/SergioLeone famously said, [[WTHCastingAgency "That's not the face of our Lord, that's the face of a psychopath."]]) In addition, the depiction of Jesus as having sparkling white robes and unrealistically perfect hygiene is nowhere to be found, Jesus is allowed to look as grungy, malnourished, and generally unstable as a poor prophet (or cult leader, if you asked the Romans) would actually look. He is, however, as appropriately muscular as you would expect from someone who has been a ''carpenter'' for most of his life.

* DeconReconSwitch: Ultimately, as unusual as the film is as a dramatization of Jesus, the film is still highly respectful and as one reviewer noted, "the work of a believer". Scorsese said that the reason he made all these changes was because he wanted to take Jesus away from the pious and safe traditional iconography and make it relevant to a modern audience, since Jesus' ideas and messages are still radical and important to the world, and he wanted to place it in a more alien and unfamiliar context so that people would understand it fresh without the preconceptions and pomp and piety.

* {{Futureshadowing}}: Jesus' final temptation has [[spoiler:glimpsing Saint Saul/Paul proselytizing Christianity and twisting his beliefs for personal ends. He also glimpses the sack of Jerusalem, the end of Jewish independence and the birth of the diaspora]].

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: All of the actors, but Harvey Keitel got the most crap for it. This was a deliberate artistic decision by Scorsese, who wanted to subvert the highfalutin cliches associated with the [[EpicMovie Biblical epic genre]] up until that time.

* TruthInTelevision: Setting aside the controversy surrounding the film, one detail that's undeniable is that Dafoe's physical appearance as Jesus is more realistic than is usual for the Western canon. To elaborate, the Western Jesus is usually conceptualized as a long-haired, conventionally attractive white man who, beyond being just thin, usually appears emaciated in depictions of the Passion. While Willem Dafoe is certainly a long-haired white man, he's hardly what most people would consider "conventionally attractive", and his wiry physique in the film makes a lot more sense considering that Jesus was a ''carpenter'' before beginning his ministry, even if the bits about Jesus also being a Jewish Middle Easterner still did not make it into the film.

** The Catholic imagery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, usually an abstract/symbolic representation of Jesus himself with the heart just being on its own or visible on his chest or floating in his hand, and always depicted as being on fire, emitting rays of light and wearing a miniature crown of thorns, is interpreted in a stunningly literal way with Jesus digging into his chest and holding his bloody heart in front of the speechless apostles.

** Biblical scholar Robert M. Price made the argument that the film deconstructs the apologetic argument known as the [[Creator/CSLewis Lewis trilemma]] according to which Jesus was either a [[ConMan cynical con man]], [[JesusWasCrazy a complete madman]] or [[MessianicArchetype the messiah]].

* {{Futureshadowing}}: Jesus' final temptation has [[spoiler:glimpsing Saint Paul proselytizing Christianity and twisting his beliefs for personal ends. He also glimpses the sack of Jerusalem, the end of Jewish independence and the birth of the diaspora]].

* DeathByAdaptation: Lazarus, who doesn't get mentioned in the Bible beyond being raised from the dead, ends up getting murdered [[spoiler:by Saul]] to cover up the proof of Jesus' most incredible miracle.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Mary Magdalene walks around barefoot, showing off her elaborate tattoos. Also, the guardian angel is over things like footwear, in her case entering MagicalBarefooter field.

As stated earlier, the film/novel depart substantially from Literature/TheFourGospels' account of Jesus' life. First to come to mind is that Jesus, while still capable of miracle working, is a [[GodIsFlawed fallen and deeply flawed]] human being, who disrespects his mother, watches prostitutes have sex, and wants to be abandoned by God. Secondly, [[AntiVillain Judas isn't that bad of a guy.]] Instead of outright betraying Jesus, he's practically forced into it by the man himself. Because of these deviations, the film ends up using many tropes of Jesus movies while PlayingWith them in new and rather un-Christian ways.

* PassionPlay: SubvertedTrope. Just as Christ is put on the Cross, an angel rescues him and lets him live a life without the burden of being the Messiah. Jesus goes on to marry Mary Magdalene and lament the fact that people like Paul of Tarsus continue to use the story of his Passion as the center of a new religion. The TwistEnding plays with the trope further. [[spoiler:The movie is a Double Subversion, because the angel Christ was the Devil wearing a disguise, who gave Christ a vision of what could be in order to tempt Christ not to fulfill his mission to save humanity from sin.]]

* MsFanservice: Largely averted with Creator/BarbaraHershey's nude scenes. The fact that she (as Mary Magdalene) is servicing a long line of men, one after another while Jesus waits at the end of the line for a chance to speak to her, makes the scene itself repulsive FanDisservice, but she still looks stunning.

* MsFanservice: Largely averted with Creator/BarbaraHershey's nude scenes. The fact that she (as Mary Magdalene) is servicing a long line of men, one after another while Jesus waits at the end of the line for a chance to speak to her, makes the scene itself repulsive FanDisservice, but she still looks stunning.

* CompositeCharacter: Mary Magdalene is equated with the unnamed woman Jesus saves from being stoned to death.

* BigBad: {{Satan}}, represented here first as a snake, then a lion, later [[spoiler:as the angelic little girl and finally a pillar of fire.]]

%%* TheChosenOne: The original.

%%* WindmillPolitical: Saul, see WindmillCrusader above.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Jesus is given this compared to the gospels. Though as Paul Schrader and Scorsese point out this is an UnbuiltTrope, most notably when Jesus wonders why had God forsaken him.