The Body, 2001

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Director & Screenwriter: Jonas McCord (based on the novel by Richard Ben Sapir)

Studio: TriStar Pictures with MDP Worldwide, in association with Green Moon Productions

Locations: Israel and Rome

According to Antonio: “My role in the movie is to initiate an investigation on [a] found corpse, a corpse that has all the signs of having been that of Christ. It is a movie that reflects on religion and faith at the end of a millennium in which has been apportioned too much blood.”

Kim Ayer, Contributing Writer, popmatters.com:

“The feud between science and religion has accelerated over the last century. This is increasingly visible in recent movies…Jonas McCord’s [film] examines the threat science poses to organized religion. It begins as archaeologist Sharon Golban is venturing into a tomb, recently discovered beneath a small shop in Jerusalem. Inside the tomb, dated at 32 A.D., is a clay wall that hides the remains of a crucified man. The point that piques [her] interest is that during this time in history, all crucified people were denied the luxury of a tomb, except for Jesus. As [she] makes a more thorough investigation of the site, she discovers other clues that lead her to believe the deceased man is Christ. When a local priest [Derek Jacobi] confirms her findings and begins to doubt his own faith (which, of course, has a very particular story about what happened to Christ’s body), the Vatican sends Father Matt Gutierrez (Antonio), a former military intelligence agent turned priest, to Jerusalem with specific instructions. Due to the potential damage an ‘unrisen’ Christ could cause to Christianity, [Matt] is told to debunk the recent findings, at any cost.

[Matt] at first uses the influence of Moshe Cohen, the Prime Minister’s aide, to stop the publication of [Sharon’s] report. However, when they put all the evidence together, the two begin to bond, as even [Matt] cannot deny that all signs point to the body being Christ’s. Tension builds when religious and civil strife breaks out in the city. Both Moshe Cohen and the fanatical leader of the Popular Front of Jerusalem attempt to steal the bones in order to blackmail the Church, knowing that if the public were to find out that Christ was a mere mortal, the Vatican might face extinction. At the same time, even Cohen admits that what he is doing poses no real threat to the Church, because ‘faith’ cannot be broken by logic or material ‘proof’. He points out that, if people want to believe that Christ had risen, even when the existence of the man’s remains prove otherwise, then there is no stopping them.

The [film] is most intriguing in its refusal to take a clear stance on either side of the issue. This strategy is clear from the beginning, as the priest and archaeologist work side by side. Viewers are allowed to make their own decisions, based on the ‘facts’ in this fiction film. And sometimes the ‘facts’ are not so clear. It turns out that [Matt] is a stubborn believer himself, asserting that if the body did turn out to be the unrisen Jesus, he would pray to God for guidance and his faith would not sway.

More unconventional is the light that McCord casts on the politics of organized religion, questioning the motives and practices of the Church. When the Church rejects any possibility that the body might be Christ’s, it shows no consideration for its believers who might be understandably upset at such news. ‘The Body’ depicts the Church leaders as corrupt and tyrannical…and, in doing so, the movie argues that organized religion is fallible.

Perhaps most importantly, [it] explores the possibility, or impossibility, of a universal faith. Everyone in the film is futilely struggling to find the one true religion. In the end, Golban’s daughter shows how unimportant this struggle is. As her mother tucks her into bed, [she] asks if the girl is bothered that she cannot see her God (they are Jewish). The daughter replies that her dead father sees God in the afterlife, implying that we all report to the same creator when we die.”

Related Information

- Antonio was paid his highest salary to date, $12,000,000.00.

- The legendary Vilmos Zsigmond is the cinematographer on the film. He has won several Academy Awards for his work. He was the cinematographer on "Assassins" and his numerous credits include "The Witches of Eastwick", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "The Deer Hunter".

Synopsis compiled by Lisa