BARABBAS

Italy/US, 1962, 134 minutes, Colour.
Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance, Vittorio Gassman, Silvana Mangano, Katy Jurado, Ernest Borgnine, Norman Wooland, Valentina Cortese, Harry Andrews, Arthur Kennedy.
Directed by Richard Fleischer.

Barabbas was one of the many big-budget historical and biblical epics of the late 50s and early 60s. Perhaps spurred on by the success of Ben Hur and Spartacus (which it more than resembles), it offered audiences of the time religious spectacle. This was also the period of The King of Kings and Sodom and Gomorrah (both of which were filmed in Europe) and in 1964, The Fall of the Roman Empire.

The cast is international. Anthony Quinn seems an obvious choice for Barabbas as does Jack Palance for the gladiator leader. Italian stars receive prominence including producer Dino de Laurentiis' wife, Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman. Director Richard Fleischer directed all genres of movies ranging from thrillers like Compulsion, The Boston Strangler to spectacles like The Vikings and Conan the Destroyer.

The more ambitious and significant film is Barabbas, also 1961. This was a huge production, by producer Dino de Laurentiis, with a cast of both Italians and Americans. The director was American Richard Fleischer, a more than competent director of many films of diverse genres. He has made a fine biblical epic. The screenplay was written by celebrated playwright, Christopher Fry, who had contributed (uncredited) to Ben Hur. He adapted a Swedish novel by Nobel Prize laureate, Par Lagerkvist, which had already been filmed in Sweden in 1953 by Alf Sjoberg. It was reported that this version was sidelined to make way for the De Laurentiis version. The musical score consists of repetitions and variations on the plainchant Kyrie Eleison.

The screenplay takes the briefly mentioned brigand Barabbas and weaves the story of a man bewildered by what he saw of Jesus' death, experiencing twenty years of imprisonment in the Sicilian sulphur mines and then transformed into a champion gladiator only to be tormented by the mystery of why he was saved - and ultimately dying on the cross himself.

Jesus is seen far more clearly in the opening sequences of Barabbas than before. However, he is still presented as silent, someone to be observed with pity and dismay.

Barabbas opens with Pontius Pilate's dilemma: to condemn Jesus or to let him go free. According to the customs of Jewish law, Pilate could release a prisoner because of the feast of the Passover. However, the crowd, incited by the religious leaders, clamour for the release of Barabbas. Barabbas is a scoundrel robber rather than a zealot. (A later set piece of an ambush and robbery after Barabbas fights and kills a fellow robber dramatises this.)

Pilate is seen here as a strong leader, making his demands. Jesus is seen, but at something of a distance, a living icon, backstage so to speak, dressed in white with two guards standing by him. He is then scourged, the visuals of which are rather different from the usual. Jesus is squatting, hands bound and tied to a short pillar. After the scourging he still squats but, when untied, falls to the floor. He is raised up to be crowned with thorns and mocked. Humiliated, tortured, he then stands exposed to the hostile mob. The art direction has relied on traditional paintings of the passion for the manner in which Jesus is dressed in a red robe and crowned with thorns.

Barabbas (Anthony Quinn) is released and, as he ascends the steps from the dungeon, pushed out to unexpected freedom, he is momentarily blinded by the light. He has a blurred vision of Jesus standing there. The glare fades and he sees the condemned Jesus – the framing and design are like a traditional painting. As Barabbas makes his way from the praetorium, ignored by the crowds, backs into a cross and out of the Gospel accounts and into biblical fictions like this film.

Soon, Jesus is seen being loaded with the cross and beginning his way to Calvary. The screenplay makes a dramatic contrast between the freed Barabbas and the condemned Jesus, his friends at the tavern welcoming him back declare that, since Jesus claimed to be king, they should crown Barabbas. He is enthroned as a mock king, broom for sceptre and bowl for crown. Surveying his drunken kingdom, he chances to look out the window just as Jesus is passing, bearing his cross to Golgotha and stops, shocked.

Soon the afternoon light darkens and Barabbas, stumbling, wanders towards the crosses on the hill. The sun is eclipsed, the people shudder and many run away, but the light comes back. Jesus is dead, is taken down from the cross. There is a pieta tableau, the focus on Mary who holds Jesus (his head away from the camera). Mary then gazes at the bewildered Barabbas. Jesus is buried in the garden and the stone rolled against the door. Barabbas and his friend, Rachel, watch. Rachel predicts that Jesus will be alive on the morning of the third day. Her description of her witnessing the Resurrection is rather apocalyptic: light in the sky, a horn, music and a giant spear appearing in the sky.

While the interpretation of the passion is acceptable to more literal, even fundamentalist interpretation, the fictional framework and the emphases on the contrast between Jesus and Barabbas, offer the possibility of a more symbolic reading (as in the Gospels themselves) of such phenomena as the eclipse. Christopher Fry's spare and reverent screenplay capture the spirit of the Passion narratives.

One of the features of Barabbas is its portrayal of early Christianity and the range of disciples that it presents. Audiences can gauge something of the way Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and the effect on men and women, especially those who were slaves and prisoners.

Already in the earliest sequences, we are introduced to Barabbas' woman, Rachel, whose life has been transformed by Jesus. It is she who explains the death and the hope of resurrection to Barabbas. She goes to the tomb early on the first day of the week and sees Jesus talking with Mary Magdalene but, like Mary, does not recognise him. Barabbas goes into the room mystified but soon takes a stance of scepticism.

However, Rachel’s significance in the movie is as a martyr. She speaks out about Jesus and the crowd and the religious leaders threaten her. She is dragged to a pit-quarry outside the walls. A blind man is forced to give testimony against her and cast the first stone. The scene, straight out of The Acts of the Apostles with the death of Stephen, is martyrdom by stoning.

The death of Rachel is one of the reasons for Barabbas' desperate behaviour with the robbers and the arresting soldiers. But Barabbas also visits the upper room and encounters Peter and some of the Apostles. Peter is fiddling, mending nets. He explains something of who Jesus was and how they were to become 'fishers of men’ (a ‘serious joke’, he says). However, Barabbas is sceptical and meets a kindred spirit in Thomas. He knows from Rachel that Jesus urged ‘love one another’. Barabbas says, ‘And they crucified him for that?’. This gives Peter the opportunity to explain Jesus as the risen Lord whose body, though real, has different qualities and powers from those Jesus had as he walked Judaea.

More than twenty years after this, Barabbas will encounter Peter the preacher in Rome and will find the strength and conviction to die, crucified, for the Jesus who had been the cause of his freedom and his years of imprisonment.

When Pilate condemns Barabbas to the sulphur mines of Sicily, Barabbas tells him that he couldn’t die. Jesus died in his place. ‘He has taken my death.’

The Gospel narratives have excited the imaginations of artists and storytellers for 2000 years. Barabbas fits into this imaginative reading. It is a historical fiction. Barabbas is mentioned only very briefly in the Gospels but his memory is still alive. Barabbas means, literally, 'son of the father`. It is most appropriate that he becomes a parallel/contrast for Jesus who is 'Son of the Father’. The story of Barabbas is one of a chance for a new life, of atonement and redemption, of a personal salvation. It is presented in the form of a life-journey, a life that should not have been lived beyond Good Friday, a life of pain and puzzle to Barabbas who could not understand why he had to live this life.

1. A successful biblical spectacle? What conventions of such films did it use? How well?

2. Audience expectations of biblical spectacles? Especially when they focus on Christ? Religious background, Gospel stories, religious style, religious sentiment? How were these audience expectations met?

3. The film's use of colour, wide screen, re-creation of atmosphere, sets, musical accompaniment, quality of language in the dialogue, the use of symbolism, close ups? How did these contribute to the quality of the film and its impact?

4. How religious was the film? What did the film makers understand by the word 'religious'? What kind of religious response did they wish from the audience? The authenticity of the period, the picture of Christ, the significance of Christ. His impact amongst early Christians, the depth of their following of Him?

5. The importance of the credits sequence and the focus on Christ? The picture of Christ, seeing Him only in his Passion, the scourging, the sequences with Pilate, "Behold the Man", the Way of the Cross, Calvary, Mary at Calvary? What was the overall impact of this presence of Christ? How real, how stylised?

6. The stylised atmosphere of the Crucifixion, especially the storm and the darkness? Their significance for the film?

7. The characterisation of Pilate and audience expectations of his character? His impact in the film, his relationship with Christ?

8. The focusing of attention on Barabbas' release? The Gospel authenticity of this incident? The effect on the people, on Pilate? The puzzle for Barabbas, the effect on him, his coming to life and to light (contrasting with the darkness of Calvary), his return, the symbolism of his mock kingship, watching Christ carrying the Cross, following him to Calvary? The significance and symbolism?

9. The character of Rachel and the followers of Christ? The contrast with Sarah? The changed world, the convert, the significance and style of her death? The impact on Barabbas?

10. The scenes showing Barabbas as a robber? Convincing for his character and his background? The reason for his arrest, his trial and condemnation?

11. How well structured were the scenes in Sicily? The atmosphere of Sicily, the mines, the attention to detail, the sulphur and the blinding, Barabbas surviving? Barabbas buried again as if dead, yet able to come alive?

12. The importance of Sahak? As a follower of Christ, asking for the memory of Christ from Barabbas, the irony of their chaining, the accident and their being saved, Barabbas as a saviour figure?

13. The contrast with Rufio and Julia? The atmosphere of the Roman Empire? The flightiness of Julia, her superstition? Barabbas coming again to life?

14.How authentic the presentation of Rome and its atmosphere? The spectacle of the Triumph, the details of the gladiators' school, the cruelty of the Romans, especially in their love of death in the arena, their "thumbs down"? The portrait of a cruel people? Rufio in this context, Julia?

15. The presentation of Lucius as a Roman Christian, a servant, his relationship with Barabbas, death?

16. The arrogance of Torvald? The film's use of arena sequences? Action spectacle? The role of Sahak and his death? The fight of Barabbas and Torvald? Torvald's death?

17. The impact of Peter on Barabbas? The early sequence after Calvary, the sermon at the end? The change in Barabbas? The fulfilment of meaning for his search?

18. The irony of the fire and Barabbas' joining in?

19. The irony and symbolism of his death?

20. The film's presentation of the following of Christ and His presence in the world? How important and convincing?