From Humiliation to Honour: The Cross of Christ as a Symbol in the Modern Western World

Abstract

Although George Stevens’s 1965 film The Greatest Story Ever Told may not do justice to the claims of its title (as it has a 41% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes), it does have a number of striking images. Stevens’s film is an adaptation of the Gospels. Early in the film, Mary and Joseph are returning to their home country, after hiding in Egypt to escape Herod the Great’s slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. They are greeted by a sobering sight: as they look at the road ahead of them and see hundreds of crucified men from a Jewish insurrection, the crosses stretch far into the distance. The image of all the crosses serves to foreshadow the eventual fate of Christ, while also reminding the audience that many people were crucified in the ancient world. Nonetheless, in a later interview, the film’s star Max von Sydow recalled: