Life and Passion of Christ

Pathé's Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, supervised by Ferdinand Zecca and staged by Lucien Nonguet, was probably seen by more people in North America and Europe than any other film of its decade. A remake of Pathé's own 1902-03 Passion, it unfolds in four parts across some thirty tableaux drawn from illustrated Bibles and the Oberammergau tradition. Segundo de Chomón supplied the photographic tricks and the Pathécolor stencil tints that give the Resurrection its uncanny precision. Exhibitors could buy the parts separately, in black-and-white or color, and keep them circulating for years. Early cinema as liturgy: not narrative montage but sacred picture, sold by the meter.