Independent Films, Film Profiles

Jesus of Nazareth (miniseries)
by Franco_Zeffirelli

Jesus of Nazareth is a 1977 Anglo-Italian television miniseries dramatizing the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus based on the accounts in the four New Testament Gospels.The miniseries was directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and produced by Lew Grade through his ITC Entertainment company. Zeffirelli co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Burgess and Suso Cecchi d'Amico. It was filmed entirely on location in Tunisia and Morocco. The total runtime is nearly six hours, twenty minutes.The origin of the film dates back to a conversation Zeffirelli, who is Roman Catholic, had with Pope Paul VI some time earlier in which the pope asked the director to make a film about the life of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth premiered March 27, 1977 on British television on the ITV network courtesy of ITC's parent company, Associated Television; it made its American premiere as an NBC Easter special, on April 3, 1977. The miniseries is now broadcast every Easter and Christmas, sometimes on the History Channel, and currently, in rather edited form, on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. (Strikingly enough, the TBN telecast omits the moment during the Last Supper when Jesus announces that one of the twelve apostles will betray him, and that it will be "he who dips his hand in the dish with Me". A moment later, in the complete version of the miniseries, Judas dips his hand and Christ says to him "What you must do, do quickly." Judas then leaves. The TBN version merely shows him running out of the doorway furtively, after which the Supper proceeds without him.)For its fifth airing on American television at Easter 1987, TV Guide called Jesus of Nazareth "the best miniseries of all time" and "unparalleled television".