If you can get past that it’s a 160-minute adaptation of just half of the Broadway hit, Jon M. Chu’s film is a large-scale, beautifully mounted musical.
I was somehow unaware of the GODSPELL movie, though in my defense it the same year I was born... Same year as the JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR movie, too, I guess.
JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR was always more of a Rilly Big Shew, and the film version played to that—including hiring Sixties/Seventies A-List Director Norman Jewison (hilariously, a "Methodist from the Midwest" just like I am, despite his last name!) to make the film adaptation, shot on location in the Holy Land. (Librettist Tim Rice wanted it even bigger, apparently—"an epic film in the style of Ben-Hur (1959), [with Rice] summarizing his workflow as figuring out 'which massive visual effect accompanied which song'", according to The Bouffant of All Knowledge Wikipedia.
GODSPELL felt more genuinely countercultural, presenting Jesus in mime makeup, a Jafro, and a Superman t-shirt in the parks and streets of New York City.
I don't know, I thought GODSPELL was a good shaggy film adaptation of a shaggy musical meant to be done modestly on the streets of New York City.
Also, Very Young Victor Garber as Gay Jesus! He really brings the righteous anger to "Alas For You", my favorite song from the musical....
I was somehow unaware of the GODSPELL movie, though in my defense it the same year I was born... Same year as the JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR movie, too, I guess.
JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR was always more of a Rilly Big Shew, and the film version played to that—including hiring Sixties/Seventies A-List Director Norman Jewison (hilariously, a "Methodist from the Midwest" just like I am, despite his last name!) to make the film adaptation, shot on location in the Holy Land. (Librettist Tim Rice wanted it even bigger, apparently—"an epic film in the style of Ben-Hur (1959), [with Rice] summarizing his workflow as figuring out 'which massive visual effect accompanied which song'", according to The Bouffant of All Knowledge Wikipedia.
GODSPELL felt more genuinely countercultural, presenting Jesus in mime makeup, a Jafro, and a Superman t-shirt in the parks and streets of New York City.