hippies - 1973 - Godspell

Godspell 
David Greene
Columbia Pictures
1973
103 min.

Godspell is the film that I expected Hair to be. I assumed, before watching, that Hair would be tedious and obnoxious and instead it was actually fun to watch and its music was pretty good. Godspell, a retelling of the Gospel of Matthew, features a group of clowns who are double metaphors: firstly for Hippies and secondly for Christ and his disciples. These clowns wander around an unpopulated lower Manhattan following a charismatic clown christ-figure who imparts his wisdom and sings songs. The clowns clown constantly and almost every line of the film is delivered in a different goofy voice. I'm sure there's some degree of theatrical virtuosity in pulling that off but I found the constant clown routines and cartoony voice switching to be just so unbelievably irritating that I found it difficult to appreciate anything I was watching.

When the clowns were singing heartfelt songs the obnoxiousness was suspended, and a couple other key scenes were okay to watch, such as this film's version of the crucifixion where the Christ figure was lashed to a fence with red scarves. Like Hair, this film depicts Central Park in New York City, what must be the most represented park in the world, as a site of contemporary spiritual awakening.

Following the lamentation scene, the city's population appears, indicating that, just like on the theater stage, the space depicted is removed from real space.