THE GOSPEL ROAD: A STORY OF JESUS
US, 1973, 85 minutes, Colour.
Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Robert Elfstrom.
Directed by Robert Elfstrom.
The Gospel Road appeared in 1973, the same year as the film versions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. It came in the aftermath of the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and of the revival in the charismatic movement, and in Pentecostal churches. It is very evangelical in tone.
The film was produced by Johnny Cash and his wife, June Carter cash. The Gospel screenplay was written by Cash himself with Larry Murray, responsible for the music.
The film was shot in Israel, using Biblical locations, especially the Judean mountains and the river Jordan. The film was directed by Robert Elfstrom, who had directed a documentary on Cash and his music in the late 1960s and a documentary on The Nashville Sound in the early 1970s, and who also appears as Jesus himself. His son, Robert Elfstrom Junior, appears as the young Jesus. June Carter Cash has a significant role as Mary Magdalene.
The film is almost like an illustrated homily or a Biblical class on the Gospels. The reason that it works as well as it does is the personality of Johnny Cash and his recounting of the Gospel story. He is filmed, especially on the mountains, and along roads and rivers, telling the story and looking straight to camera and connecting with his audience, which enhances his credibility. This means that there are a great many quotations from the Gospels, and a great deal of sayings from John 3 and from the Last Discourse.
As regards re-enactments of the Gospel, Jesus himself does not speech speak, as words and quotations are awful spoken by Cash within his narrative.
However, some of the other characters do have some lines, john the Baptist and, especially, Mary Magdalene and a very young and rather untidy Nicodemus.
The principal device for the film is the selection of Gospel songs which illustrate the life of Jesus and our son had significant stages of his life and ministry. There are some songs by Cash himself, but there are is a range of composers including Kris Kristofferson and John Denver, his ‘Follow me’ is sung very effectively by Mary Magdalene. Cash sings his own composition, Gospel Road.
The film shows Jesus as the young boy wandering in the hills, and while there is an emphasis on his humanity, there is not about no doubt about his divinity and his being the Son of God. This is dramatised in the baptism in the Jordan, with a very literal dove coming down and sitting on Jesus’ shoulder. He combats Satan in the desert, chooses the twelve apostles, heals Mary Magdalene of her demons. It may be the economies of the production, but some of the sequences of Jesus’ life are very effective because it is only Jesus who is present. A special case is Jesus alone on the mountainside speaking the beatitudes. He is also alone as he upsets the money changers tables in the temple.
Parables are narrated by Johnny Cash. There is the healing of a blind man. There is the wedding feast of Cana.This means that the various aspects of the four Gospels but brought into one story form.
Robert Elfstrom, who is too blond and western for Jesus (and was allegedly voted the least interesting screen Jesus in a poll), seems strangely aloof, even as he heals Mary Magdalene and she looks her love for him. However, when Cash announces that children loved Jesus, he is shown to be smiling and playing with them by the sea cheerfully (in a way that would not be permitted in later decades for fear of abuse).
A great deal of attention is given to the passion of Jesus, his being hit and spat upon being related specifically to the words of the servant songs and the prophet Isaiah. Again, the passion is stylized with Jesus before three individuals standing between pillars: Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate and Herod. Again, Jesus is almost alone in Gethsemane, but not at the last supper. However, as Jesus goes towards Calvary, in the streets of a contemporary Israeli village, he is alone carrying his cross, falls and has to lift it by himself.
The nailing to the cross is quite vivid. There is a comparatively small group at the foot of the cross, with many of the apostles seemingly there, not afraid. When Jesus says, ‘woman, this is your son’, it seems to be interpreted, not with John the apostle, but Jesus himself from the cross inviting his mother to look at him and his plight.
Strongly for 1973, the crucifixion is seen with contemporary cities and life in the cities in the background, salvation being universal.
As regards the resurrection, it is strongly affirmed in the narrative, Mary Magdalene urging Peter and the others to go to Galilee where Jesus goes into heaven, using the words of Matthew’s Gospel, rather than Luke’s where the ascension is just outside Jerusalem in Bethany.
This interpretation of the Gospels, the use of popular Gospel music, the narrative by Johnny Cash, is not for sophisticated audiences. Rather, it is for people of faith, a reinforcement of their belief, their understanding of Jesus and their commitment to him. For many, appreciating the music and responding to Cash is an invitation, it could lead them into examining the Gospels as well as the person of Jesus.
Perhaps the film was eclipsed at the time in the aftermath of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. However, it would have been successful with many American evangelical churches. But, with them, it may have then been exclipsed by the popularity of the 1979, Jesus, with Brian Deacon, the most popular Jesus film of all time, still shown and dubbed into a great variety of languages.
But still, Gospel Road came very early in the phase of Jesus films which had a new lease of life in 1961 with King of Kings.
