A Perspective on Perspectives

Photo by Yuvy Dhaliah on Unsplash

Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying,

“Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went, and came into

the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.

-Joshua 2:1

Perspective is important.

Even more important is knowing the others' perspective.

I watched Zack Snyder's 2006 film, 300, in the theatre and loved it, especially the reveal at the end. Everyone else, from critics to friends, lambasted the film for being unhistorical, fantastic, unrealistic,.... I couldn't understand their criticism of the movie, since I was assuming they had seen the same ending I had. It wasn't Clue. It seemed, though, they had missed the significance of the ending.

The final scene of the movie provides the perspective for the entire rest of the movie. Nothing we had been watching was an historical reenactment of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae. It was, instead, the speech Dilios was giving to the Spartan troops before the Battle of Plataea. Dilios, understanding the importance of a rousing story of Spartan courage and professionalism under the worst of conditions, embellishes the size, strength and grandeur of the enemy and the military prowess of the Spartans to rouse his troops' pride, courage and resolve. What was depicted was absolutely not an historical reenactment, but it was an incredible pre-battle speech.

Some people I know seem to have made the same mistake with Jesus Christ Superstar, the 1973 Norman Jewison movie based on the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice. Saint Paul VI loved the movie, but most of the people I've known believe it to be blasphemous and horrible. Again, perspective is everything.

What Christopher Nolan does with timeline in Memento, Norman Jewison does with perspective in Jesus Christ Superstar. There are several different perspectives and they overlap, but two are most relevant to understanding the narrative. The first is from the perspective of the characters in the movie, who do not yet know Jesus is God, because He has not yet died and risen from the dead. The Gospels attest to this: "And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). While this perspective may be difficult for many post-resurrection Christians to understand, it makes for a great meditation. This perspective, too, provides the rationale behind the most beautiful song in the movie, "I Don't Know How to Love Him," sung by Yvonne Elliman. Also, the film takes advantage of this perspective to satirize the modern culture's ignorance of Jesus's true identity and its misuse of Jesus to justify so much of what it does.

The second perspective is that of Judas Iscariot. While the perspective of the characters in the film is limited to their historical milieu (A. D. 33), Judas Iscariot's perspective is out of time and is an hostile critique of the way in which Jesus conducted his life and mission. Modern society's misunderstanding of Jesus is even more apparent in Judas' words. One of the criticisms of the movie was, that either Jesus didn't know he was God or didn't want to be the Messiah. This criticism is made in ignorance of this perspective. Of course, Judas, having denied Jesus and handed him over to death, doesn't believe he's God and didn't want to be the Messiah. The movie uses Judas Iscariot's perspective in a vain attempt to satirize Jesus Himself. That Judas fails is brought out beautifully in the final scene.

Once these two perspectives are understood, then the movie becomes a beautiful rock opera worthy of consideration and study.

Perspective is vital.