Jesus of Montreal
Encyclopedia
Jesus of Montreal is a 1989 Canadian film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Denys Arcand
Denys Arcand
Georges-Henri Denys Arcand, is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. He has won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions...

.

Plot and allegory

The film centers on a group of actors in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 who are gathered by Daniel, an actor hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play
Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....

 in its gardens.

The sanctuary is implied to be Saint Joseph's Oratory
Saint Joseph's Oratory
Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, , is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine on the west slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-History:...

 (although this organization actually refused permission to film there). In fact, the idea for the film came to its director after an actor apologized for appearing with a beard at an audition. The actor explained that he had the role of Jesus in a passion play at St-Joseph's Oratory. Arcand went to see the play and recalls "I saw actors in a mediocre production which received shouted applause from the tourists. I decided I had to make a film".

Through learning trust in each other, each in the group of actors comes to face compromises and sorrows that had been weighing down his or her life.

The actors' interpretation of the life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 is unconventional (including, for example, the statement that the biological father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, who left Palestine shortly afterwards). Still, it draws on current academic theories and research. The challenging production becomes the toast of the city. The higher authorities of the religious order that controls the sanctuary (or of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

, this is left vague) strongly object to this Biblical interpretation, and forcefully stop a performance.

After an ensuing accident, Daniel is first taken by ambulance to a Catholic hospital. He is completely neglected there and leaves. He then collapses on a Montreal Metro
Montreal Metro
The Montreal Metro is a rubber-tired metro system, and the main form of public transportation underground in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada....

 platform. The same ambulance takes him to the "Jewish Hospital" (which is not given more specific identification but can be assumed to be the Jewish General Hospital
Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital
The Jewish General Hospital is an acute-care McGill University teaching hospital with 637 beds, serving patients from Montreal, from across the province of Quebec and around the world.The Jewish General...

). Despite immediate, skilled, and energic efforts by the doctors and nurses to revive him, Daniel is pronounced brain-dead
Brain death
Brain death is the irreversible end of all brain activity due to total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of brain oxygenation. It should not be confused with a persistent vegetative state...

. Daniel's doctor asks for the consent of his friends to take Daniel's organs for donation (since Daniel has no known relatives). Daniel's physician states that the staff would have been able to save him, if he had been brought to them half an hour earlier.

The film is structured so that Daniel's story parallels that of Christ, some of the points of contact are:
  1. Daniel has returned to Montreal after spending a long period traveling in "the East".
  2. In the opening scene, one actor points to Daniel, calling him "a much better actor", which echoes John the Baptist
    John the Baptist
    John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

     foretelling the arrival of Jesus the Messiah
    Messiah
    A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

    .
  3. The first actor later "sells-out" and lets his head be used in an advertisement, parallelling John the Baptist's beheading.
  4. The actors then gather for the Passion play, some of them leaving safe jobs to do so, recalling Jesus gathering the disciple
    Disciple (Christianity)
    In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. While Jesus attracted a large following, the term disciple is commonly used to refer specifically to "the Twelve", an inner circle of men whose number perhaps represented the twelve tribes of Israel...

    s.
  5. Daniel wrecks an advertising casting session, where the casting director enjoys humiliating participants, and displays deep contempt for them. This is a parallel of when Jesus casts the money-lenders out of the Temple
    Jesus and the Money Changers
    The narrative of Jesus and the money changers, commonly referred to as the cleansing of the Temple, occurs in all four canonical gospels of the New Testament....

    .
  6. Daniel's arrest and court appearance before an indecisive judge, played by the film's director himself, parallels Jesus' appearance before Pontius Pilate
    Pontius Pilate
    Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...

    .
  7. The smooth elite lawyer, who lays out a grand commercial career for Daniel, looking down from a skyscraper at the city, refers to the temptation of Christ
    Temptation of Christ
    The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...

     by the devil atop a high pinnacle.
  8. Jesus' miracles are paralleled by the gift of Daniel's body as an organ donor.
  9. The founding of the Christian church becomes the plans for an experimental theatre company.

Awards

Jesus of Montreal won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury is an independent film award for feature films at the Cannes Film Festival since 1974. The Ecumenical Jury is one of three juries at the Cannes Film Festival, along with the official jury and the FIPRESCI jury. The award was created by Christian film makers, film...

 at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival
1989 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Wim Wenders *Christine Gouze-Renal*Claude Beylie*Georges Delerue*Hector Babenco*Krzysztof Kieślowski*Peter Handke*Renée Blanchar*Sally Field*Silvio Clementelli-Feature film competition:* Chimère by Claire Devers...

 and the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film of 1989. It has twice been placed second on the TIFF
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

 List of Canada's Top Ten Films of All Time, and was nominated for the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

.

Cast

  • Lothaire Bluteau
    Lothaire Bluteau
    Lothaire Bluteau is a French-Canadian actor. He was born in Montreal, Quebec and performs in both French and English. He had a recurring role in the third season of the television series 24 as the character Marcus Alvers.-Biography:...

     (Daniel)
  • Catherine Wilkening (Mireille)
  • Johanne-Marie Tremblay (Constance)
  • Rémy Girard
    Rémy Girard
    Rémy Girard is a Canadian actor and former television host from Quebec.-Acting career:He played the role of Rémy, the main character, who is dying of terminal cancer, in the Canadian film Les Invasions barbares by director Denys Arcand. This film was awarded the 2003 Academy Award for best...

     (Martin)
  • Robert Lepage
    Robert Lepage
    Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...

     (René)
  • Gilles Pelletier
    Gilles Pelletier
    Gilles Pelletier, OC is a Canadian actor. He is probably best known for his portrayal as Corporal Jacques Gagnier in the police drama R.C.M.P.. In 1964, he founded the Nouvelle Compagnie théâtrale, a live theatre for youths and served as director for fifteen years...

     (Fr. Leclerc)
  • Roy Dupuis
    Roy Dupuis
    Roy Dupuis is a Canadian actor best known for his role as counterterrorism operative Michael Samuelle in the television series La Femme Nikita...

     (Marcel Brochu)

See also

  • Cinema of Quebec
  • Culture of Quebec
    Culture of Quebec
    The Culture of Quebec emerged over the last few hundred years, resulting from the shared history of the French-speaking majority in Quebec. It is unique to the Western World; Quebec is the only region in North America with a French-speaking majority, as well as one of only two provinces in Canada...

  • Dramatic portrayals of Jesus
  • List of Quebec movies
  • Passion (Christianity)
    Passion (Christianity)
    The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...


External links


Jesus of Montreal is a 1989 Canadian film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Denys Arcand
Denys Arcand
Georges-Henri Denys Arcand, is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. He has won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions...

.

Plot and allegory

The film centers on a group of actors in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 who are gathered by Daniel, an actor hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play
Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....

 in its gardens.

The sanctuary is implied to be Saint Joseph's Oratory
Saint Joseph's Oratory
Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, , is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine on the west slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-History:...

 (although this organization actually refused permission to film there). In fact, the idea for the film came to its director after an actor apologized for appearing with a beard at an audition. The actor explained that he had the role of Jesus in a passion play at St-Joseph's Oratory. Arcand went to see the play and recalls "I saw actors in a mediocre production which received shouted applause from the tourists. I decided I had to make a film".

Through learning trust in each other, each in the group of actors comes to face compromises and sorrows that had been weighing down his or her life.

The actors' interpretation of the life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 is unconventional (including, for example, the statement that the biological father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, who left Palestine shortly afterwards). Still, it draws on current academic theories and research. The challenging production becomes the toast of the city. The higher authorities of the religious order that controls the sanctuary (or of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

, this is left vague) strongly object to this Biblical interpretation, and forcefully stop a performance.

After an ensuing accident, Daniel is first taken by ambulance to a Catholic hospital. He is completely neglected there and leaves. He then collapses on a Montreal Metro
Montreal Metro
The Montreal Metro is a rubber-tired metro system, and the main form of public transportation underground in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada....

 platform. The same ambulance takes him to the "Jewish Hospital" (which is not given more specific identification but can be assumed to be the Jewish General Hospital
Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital
The Jewish General Hospital is an acute-care McGill University teaching hospital with 637 beds, serving patients from Montreal, from across the province of Quebec and around the world.The Jewish General...

). Despite immediate, skilled, and energic efforts by the doctors and nurses to revive him, Daniel is pronounced brain-dead
Brain death
Brain death is the irreversible end of all brain activity due to total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of brain oxygenation. It should not be confused with a persistent vegetative state...

. Daniel's doctor asks for the consent of his friends to take Daniel's organs for donation (since Daniel has no known relatives). Daniel's physician states that the staff would have been able to save him, if he had been brought to them half an hour earlier.

The film is structured so that Daniel's story parallels that of Christ, some of the points of contact are:
  1. Daniel has returned to Montreal after spending a long period traveling in "the East".
  2. In the opening scene, one actor points to Daniel, calling him "a much better actor", which echoes John the Baptist
    John the Baptist
    John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

     foretelling the arrival of Jesus the Messiah
    Messiah
    A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

    .
  3. The first actor later "sells-out" and lets his head be used in an advertisement, parallelling John the Baptist's beheading.
  4. The actors then gather for the Passion play, some of them leaving safe jobs to do so, recalling Jesus gathering the disciple
    Disciple (Christianity)
    In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. While Jesus attracted a large following, the term disciple is commonly used to refer specifically to "the Twelve", an inner circle of men whose number perhaps represented the twelve tribes of Israel...

    s.
  5. Daniel wrecks an advertising casting session, where the casting director enjoys humiliating participants, and displays deep contempt for them. This is a parallel of when Jesus casts the money-lenders out of the Temple
    Jesus and the Money Changers
    The narrative of Jesus and the money changers, commonly referred to as the cleansing of the Temple, occurs in all four canonical gospels of the New Testament....

    .
  6. Daniel's arrest and court appearance before an indecisive judge, played by the film's director himself, parallels Jesus' appearance before Pontius Pilate
    Pontius Pilate
    Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...

    .
  7. The smooth elite lawyer, who lays out a grand commercial career for Daniel, looking down from a skyscraper at the city, refers to the temptation of Christ
    Temptation of Christ
    The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...

     by the devil atop a high pinnacle.
  8. Jesus' miracles are paralleled by the gift of Daniel's body as an organ donor.
  9. The founding of the Christian church becomes the plans for an experimental theatre company.

Awards

Jesus of Montreal won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury is an independent film award for feature films at the Cannes Film Festival since 1974. The Ecumenical Jury is one of three juries at the Cannes Film Festival, along with the official jury and the FIPRESCI jury. The award was created by Christian film makers, film...

 at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival
1989 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Wim Wenders *Christine Gouze-Renal*Claude Beylie*Georges Delerue*Hector Babenco*Krzysztof Kieślowski*Peter Handke*Renée Blanchar*Sally Field*Silvio Clementelli-Feature film competition:* Chimère by Claire Devers...

 and the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film of 1989. It has twice been placed second on the TIFF
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

 List of Canada's Top Ten Films of All Time, and was nominated for the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

.

Cast

  • Lothaire Bluteau
    Lothaire Bluteau
    Lothaire Bluteau is a French-Canadian actor. He was born in Montreal, Quebec and performs in both French and English. He had a recurring role in the third season of the television series 24 as the character Marcus Alvers.-Biography:...

     (Daniel)
  • Catherine Wilkening (Mireille)
  • Johanne-Marie Tremblay (Constance)
  • Rémy Girard
    Rémy Girard
    Rémy Girard is a Canadian actor and former television host from Quebec.-Acting career:He played the role of Rémy, the main character, who is dying of terminal cancer, in the Canadian film Les Invasions barbares by director Denys Arcand. This film was awarded the 2003 Academy Award for best...

     (Martin)
  • Robert Lepage
    Robert Lepage
    Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...

     (René)
  • Gilles Pelletier
    Gilles Pelletier
    Gilles Pelletier, OC is a Canadian actor. He is probably best known for his portrayal as Corporal Jacques Gagnier in the police drama R.C.M.P.. In 1964, he founded the Nouvelle Compagnie théâtrale, a live theatre for youths and served as director for fifteen years...

     (Fr. Leclerc)
  • Roy Dupuis
    Roy Dupuis
    Roy Dupuis is a Canadian actor best known for his role as counterterrorism operative Michael Samuelle in the television series La Femme Nikita...

     (Marcel Brochu)

See also

  • Cinema of Quebec
  • Culture of Quebec
    Culture of Quebec
    The Culture of Quebec emerged over the last few hundred years, resulting from the shared history of the French-speaking majority in Quebec. It is unique to the Western World; Quebec is the only region in North America with a French-speaking majority, as well as one of only two provinces in Canada...

  • Dramatic portrayals of Jesus
  • List of Quebec movies
  • Passion (Christianity)
    Passion (Christianity)
    The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...


External links


Jesus of Montreal is a 1989 Canadian film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Denys Arcand
Denys Arcand
Georges-Henri Denys Arcand, is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. He has won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions...

.

Plot and allegory

The film centers on a group of actors in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 who are gathered by Daniel, an actor hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play
Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....

 in its gardens.

The sanctuary is implied to be Saint Joseph's Oratory
Saint Joseph's Oratory
Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, , is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine on the west slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-History:...

 (although this organization actually refused permission to film there). In fact, the idea for the film came to its director after an actor apologized for appearing with a beard at an audition. The actor explained that he had the role of Jesus in a passion play at St-Joseph's Oratory. Arcand went to see the play and recalls "I saw actors in a mediocre production which received shouted applause from the tourists. I decided I had to make a film".

Through learning trust in each other, each in the group of actors comes to face compromises and sorrows that had been weighing down his or her life.

The actors' interpretation of the life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 is unconventional (including, for example, the statement that the biological father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, who left Palestine shortly afterwards). Still, it draws on current academic theories and research. The challenging production becomes the toast of the city. The higher authorities of the religious order that controls the sanctuary (or of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

, this is left vague) strongly object to this Biblical interpretation, and forcefully stop a performance.

After an ensuing accident, Daniel is first taken by ambulance to a Catholic hospital. He is completely neglected there and leaves. He then collapses on a Montreal Metro
Montreal Metro
The Montreal Metro is a rubber-tired metro system, and the main form of public transportation underground in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada....

 platform. The same ambulance takes him to the "Jewish Hospital" (which is not given more specific identification but can be assumed to be the Jewish General Hospital
Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital
The Jewish General Hospital is an acute-care McGill University teaching hospital with 637 beds, serving patients from Montreal, from across the province of Quebec and around the world.The Jewish General...

). Despite immediate, skilled, and energic efforts by the doctors and nurses to revive him, Daniel is pronounced brain-dead
Brain death
Brain death is the irreversible end of all brain activity due to total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of brain oxygenation. It should not be confused with a persistent vegetative state...

. Daniel's doctor asks for the consent of his friends to take Daniel's organs for donation (since Daniel has no known relatives). Daniel's physician states that the staff would have been able to save him, if he had been brought to them half an hour earlier.

The film is structured so that Daniel's story parallels that of Christ, some of the points of contact are:
  1. Daniel has returned to Montreal after spending a long period traveling in "the East".
  2. In the opening scene, one actor points to Daniel, calling him "a much better actor", which echoes John the Baptist
    John the Baptist
    John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

     foretelling the arrival of Jesus the Messiah
    Messiah
    A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

    .
  3. The first actor later "sells-out" and lets his head be used in an advertisement, parallelling John the Baptist's beheading.
  4. The actors then gather for the Passion play, some of them leaving safe jobs to do so, recalling Jesus gathering the disciple
    Disciple (Christianity)
    In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. While Jesus attracted a large following, the term disciple is commonly used to refer specifically to "the Twelve", an inner circle of men whose number perhaps represented the twelve tribes of Israel...

    s.
  5. Daniel wrecks an advertising casting session, where the casting director enjoys humiliating participants, and displays deep contempt for them. This is a parallel of when Jesus casts the money-lenders out of the Temple
    Jesus and the Money Changers
    The narrative of Jesus and the money changers, commonly referred to as the cleansing of the Temple, occurs in all four canonical gospels of the New Testament....

    .
  6. Daniel's arrest and court appearance before an indecisive judge, played by the film's director himself, parallels Jesus' appearance before Pontius Pilate
    Pontius Pilate
    Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...

    .
  7. The smooth elite lawyer, who lays out a grand commercial career for Daniel, looking down from a skyscraper at the city, refers to the temptation of Christ
    Temptation of Christ
    The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...

     by the devil atop a high pinnacle.
  8. Jesus' miracles are paralleled by the gift of Daniel's body as an organ donor.
  9. The founding of the Christian church becomes the plans for an experimental theatre company.

Awards

Jesus of Montreal won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury is an independent film award for feature films at the Cannes Film Festival since 1974. The Ecumenical Jury is one of three juries at the Cannes Film Festival, along with the official jury and the FIPRESCI jury. The award was created by Christian film makers, film...

 at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival
1989 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Wim Wenders *Christine Gouze-Renal*Claude Beylie*Georges Delerue*Hector Babenco*Krzysztof Kieślowski*Peter Handke*Renée Blanchar*Sally Field*Silvio Clementelli-Feature film competition:* Chimère by Claire Devers...

 and the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film of 1989. It has twice been placed second on the TIFF
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

 List of Canada's Top Ten Films of All Time, and was nominated for the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

.

Cast

  • Lothaire Bluteau
    Lothaire Bluteau
    Lothaire Bluteau is a French-Canadian actor. He was born in Montreal, Quebec and performs in both French and English. He had a recurring role in the third season of the television series 24 as the character Marcus Alvers.-Biography:...

     (Daniel)
  • Catherine Wilkening (Mireille)
  • Johanne-Marie Tremblay (Constance)
  • Rémy Girard
    Rémy Girard
    Rémy Girard is a Canadian actor and former television host from Quebec.-Acting career:He played the role of Rémy, the main character, who is dying of terminal cancer, in the Canadian film Les Invasions barbares by director Denys Arcand. This film was awarded the 2003 Academy Award for best...

     (Martin)
  • Robert Lepage
    Robert Lepage
    Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...

     (René)
  • Gilles Pelletier
    Gilles Pelletier
    Gilles Pelletier, OC is a Canadian actor. He is probably best known for his portrayal as Corporal Jacques Gagnier in the police drama R.C.M.P.. In 1964, he founded the Nouvelle Compagnie théâtrale, a live theatre for youths and served as director for fifteen years...

     (Fr. Leclerc)
  • Roy Dupuis
    Roy Dupuis
    Roy Dupuis is a Canadian actor best known for his role as counterterrorism operative Michael Samuelle in the television series La Femme Nikita...

     (Marcel Brochu)

See also

  • Cinema of Quebec
  • Culture of Quebec
    Culture of Quebec
    The Culture of Quebec emerged over the last few hundred years, resulting from the shared history of the French-speaking majority in Quebec. It is unique to the Western World; Quebec is the only region in North America with a French-speaking majority, as well as one of only two provinces in Canada...

  • Dramatic portrayals of Jesus
  • List of Quebec movies
  • Passion (Christianity)
    Passion (Christianity)
    The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK