The Silent Pilate

After a discussion of the controversial history of staging Passion Plays in nineteenth-century America, the chapter turns to a consideration of early filmmakers who looked to Bible as a source of inspiration. Competing versions of Jesus’ story were made by Thomas Edison and Siegmund Lubin in the 1890s, but a fuller and more impressive movie was realised in 1911 with the release of From the Manger to the Cross. The “stylistic retardation” of this film, as identified by Charles Keil, had a deadening effect on future portrayals of Jesus, though it allowed some freedom for the filming of its Pontius Pilate (Samuel Morgan). No criticism of flatness can be levelled against Victor Varconi’s performance as Pilate in Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings (1927), in which we have the final flowering of silent film as a fully formed genre. Just as H.B. Warner did for Jesus in this film, so Varconi’s subtle but powerful Pilate sets the tone for a generation of filmmaking to come. So great was the impact of King of Kings that Hollywood would not make another portrait of Jesus and Pilate for another three decades.