"The Last Temptation of Christ: On Location in Morocco" is a documentary short film shot by Martin Scorsese in 1987, November 1987 to be precise, on the set of the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ". It runs for under 16 minutes and back then it was merely for the purpose of Scorsese documenting his work, but of course later on this little piece could not be hidden from the world and got included as an additional feature on the DVD of the movie. You mostly see the set from Scorsese's perspective and there is not a huge amount of talking from him and instead we hear voices from nearby people, but here and there you also hear him and for that he also points the camera on himself then occasionally. Dark black hair and a beard is nothing you are used to from him if you are only familiar with what he did in the new millennium. Anyway, it is nice to see him now more than 35 years later still alive and kicking and in the race for his second Best Director Oscar this year, even if Nolan seems to be the frontrunner right now. For Marty's work here, by the way, he was also nominated for an Oscar, for the film of course, not for this documentary. It was the only Oscar nomination the film scored.
The subject was of course a controversial one, but we are not talking about the film and its contents now, but about this production short we have here: You see lead actor Willem Dafoe (always such a likable presence) on a few occasions, also bearded when he is interviewed by Scorsese in the end, plus there's inclusions of Harvey Keitel, my fellow German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (may he rest in peace) and actors Andre Gregory and John Lurie among others. The film is shot in color. You pretty much get exactly what you came for when watching this one: A solid insight into the set of the film without any true greatness. I found it nice to see that everybody seemed in a good spirit and having a good time here despite the massive heat that most non-locals were struggling with. I think Marrakech was mentioned on one occasion if the information that this was shot in Morocco is not enough for you. At this point (late 2023), you can watch the short on Youtube if you like and I would say it is a nice idea to watch it together with the film it is connected with, maybe a better idea to watch it beforehand if there are really not any spoilers in there, well at least none that you should not be aware of already when it comes to Christ. So yeah, I give the outcome here a thumbs-up, also nice to see Marty briefly at the hotel relatively early on, and I would say it is a nice prologue to the actual movie. The sun sometimes also felt so relentless that you can almost feel it right through the screen in you hopefully not equally heated apartment. I am admittedly not particularly big on Scorsese's very early short film works, but those were of course from much earlier already. As for this one here: Watch it.
The subject was of course a controversial one, but we are not talking about the film and its contents now, but about this production short we have here: You see lead actor Willem Dafoe (always such a likable presence) on a few occasions, also bearded when he is interviewed by Scorsese in the end, plus there's inclusions of Harvey Keitel, my fellow German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (may he rest in peace) and actors Andre Gregory and John Lurie among others. The film is shot in color. You pretty much get exactly what you came for when watching this one: A solid insight into the set of the film without any true greatness. I found it nice to see that everybody seemed in a good spirit and having a good time here despite the massive heat that most non-locals were struggling with. I think Marrakech was mentioned on one occasion if the information that this was shot in Morocco is not enough for you. At this point (late 2023), you can watch the short on Youtube if you like and I would say it is a nice idea to watch it together with the film it is connected with, maybe a better idea to watch it beforehand if there are really not any spoilers in there, well at least none that you should not be aware of already when it comes to Christ. So yeah, I give the outcome here a thumbs-up, also nice to see Marty briefly at the hotel relatively early on, and I would say it is a nice prologue to the actual movie. The sun sometimes also felt so relentless that you can almost feel it right through the screen in you hopefully not equally heated apartment. I am admittedly not particularly big on Scorsese's very early short film works, but those were of course from much earlier already. As for this one here: Watch it.
