Okay, I finally watched this one with my wife and son last night. It was a lot of fun, like I remember, and while it has been a long time, it was good to see the differences between this version and the album I reviewed a while back. Obviously, a movie and an old vinyl recording won't be the same. But the differences in the music itself are striking, nonetheless.
First of all, Ted Neeley was born for this role. He is absolutely amazing as Jesus, hitting the right mixture of all-knowing, all-wise mentor to the disciples, resignation to his ultimate fate, and his show-stopping performance of Gethsemane, pleading his case to know why God is about to allow him to be destroyed in the most horrible way imaginable. It's beautiful to watch.
Neeley is complemented by Carl Anderson, who plays Judas. I'll admit, when I first saw this movie, the notion of a black Judas threw me off; everyone knows the Apostles were Jewish, and they weren't black-skinned. But that's a stylistic casting choice, and it certainly works; Anderson's Judas is torn from the very beginning, trying desperately to hold back the landslide that he is sure is about to strike them all. In the original text of the gospels, of course, Judas is not what you would describe as a sympathetic character; he's a first-class, no-good rotten traitor who hands over the Son of God to be persecuted and crucified. But in this version, Judas gets some motivation beyond being a lousy traitor. He's scared, like the Pharisees, that Jesus' actions are going to bring down the wrath of the Romans upon them all, since the crowds are calling him the Messiah, ready to name him King, which the Romans would disapprove of in very explicit and strenuous terms.
There is more music in this version than in the album; a song called 'Then We Are Decided' is slipped in between 'Strange Thing, Mystifying' and 'Everything's All Right', providing a nice break from the scenes with Jesus and the Apostles. In the album, Caiphas and the rest of the priests don't show up for the first four scenes; this gives them an earlier introduction and provides a good explanation as to why Caiphas is so adamant that Jesus has to die.
The second new song is 'Could We Start Again, Please', which appears after King Herod's song as Jesus is being led back to Pilate for the fourth part of his trial. Mary and Peter sing a duet about how Jesus has gone beyond the bounds of reason to prove his message. It's a wistful song that fits nicely, and as I understand it became a permanent fixture of the stage play, unlike the other new song, which only appears in this movie (and on the soundtrack, of course).
Other songs have more to them than they did on the album, such as extra lines in the Trial Before Pilate, and I'm pretty sure there is at least one more verse in the Hosanna song. I'd have to go back and check the original, though.
Most of the cast from the Broadway show ends up in the movie; Neeley and Anderson, of course, both started out on the stage version. Two of them, Yvonne Elliman (Mary) and Barry Deneen (Pilate) were on the original album, as well. All are excellent in their roles, especially in those long-forgotten days before auto-tune was all the rage.
Now, for the one part of the movie my wife and son could not wrap their heads around: The setting for the movie. Sure, you've got Jesus wandering around in a simple shepherd's robe, and Mary is looking suitably Biblical in her attire, but you've also got most of the disciples wearing jeans or other 1970s' clothing. You've got Roman soldiers wearing purple wife-beaters and camo pants, carrying spears and machine guns at the same time. And you've got tanks. And fighter jets doing a fly-by over Judas after he's agreed to betray Jesus to the Pharisees. It's very, very surreal and weird. And yet, it works. Webber always intended for the play to have a modern feel, and Norman Jewison, who directed the movie, obviously agreed. The juxtaposition of the ancient and modern elements is silently explained during the overture, as a bus shows up with the entire cast aboard in their regular clothes. They actually take the props for the movie off the bus roof, change into their costumes right outside the bus (in the middle of the road in an Israeli desert; the 1970s were friggin' weird, man), before starting the actual movie.
So, why the tanks and machine guns? Why not? In the famous song 'Superstar,' which Judas sings after he's hanged himself from a tree in shame for what he did, Judas basically asks Jesus a bunch of questions about why he did what he did when he did it. 'Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication,' he reminds Jesus while glammed-up dancers do the most 70s routines you've ever seen behind him. Why did Jesus live then, and not in today's world where his message would have been instantly broadcast around the world? Of course, the movie doesn't answer that; it just moves on to Jesus' death on the cross, which is told in a much tamer manner than Mel Gibson did.
All in all, this is probably my favorite version, not the least of which because I like the new songs. The whole production, while it looks like it was done on the cheap, still shines. Regardless of the controversy about the story and how it's told in the movie/play, this is still a fantastic rendition of the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's a great movie, and I recommend it without reservation. And, as I said earlier, Ted Neeley absolutely nails the passionate Gethsemane song, and I'm sorry to any Ian Gillan fans out there, Neeley was better.
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