Mean streets
Call The Last Temptation of Christ my favorite Martin Scorsese film-- not perhaps his best or most ambitious, just my favorite. Grew up Catholic, saw many of the classic Jesus movies, liked most of them with little contextual knowledge or sense of discernment. By '88 I'd seen and enjoyed Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, King of Comedy, After Hours; the idea of Scorsese tackling the life of Jesus-- knowing he wasn't shy about using Catholic imagery, or about putting personal beliefs and feelings about his faith on the big screen-- seemed like an especially interesting idea.
That was the theory; in practice I arrived at the movie theater with a picket line blocking the entranceway, folks waving signs like 'SCORSESE PRINCE OF LIES' and 'LEW WASSERMAN CAUSING JEW HATE' (Wasserman was chairman of MCA, Universal Studio's parent company). "Would you like to know the real story of Christ?" a cleancut young man in a necktie asked me, waving a bible. "I read it," I told him, stepping into the theater.
