Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1312 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-03-07
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Collector's Edition, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ted Neeley makes for a wimpy looking Jesus in Norman Jewison's screen adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice "rock opera," which was a smash on stage in the early '70s. Jewison (Other People's Money) adds some good exterior settings in the desert, but Lloyd Webber and Rice's dialogue-free story (everything is sung, as in a real opera), with its quasi-profundities about the inner demons of principal figures in the life of Christ, is the real hook. Yvonne Elliman sings the show's best-known song, "I Don't Know How to Love Him." --Tom Keogh

Synopsis
The last week of Christ's life seen through the eyes of Judas. Tracks include 'I Don't Know How To Love Him', 'Gethsemane', 'Superstar' and many more.

Customer Reviews

Awesome musical spectacle !
Still as enjoyable to watch and listen to today as it was when I first saw it as a child. Even better watching it on DVD with a pristine picture & sound quality. If you have never seen this live, then watch this movie version first and what could be better than in the privacy of your own living room. It's just as enjoyable if not more so than watching it live at a theatre. I have experienced both and the movie version still wins hands down quite simply, because the singing and acting performances are better than any I have witnessed at any theatre I have seen it in.
Don't get me wrong though, I would still go to see it again at the theatre because it's a fantastic and enjoyable night out for all the family.

Absolutely stunning!
I must have watched this film dozens of times - it's one of my all-time top ten!! It's a very moving story, for a start. Every time I watch it I discover something new, another subtle little nuance I haven't noticed before... The casting is fantastic - each actor is just so right for their role, and the acting is superb. The backdrops/photography are truly wonderful - it is an amazing landscape. I love the way that the film's costumes and sets very cleverly combine period and modern styles so seamlesslessly - the secene where HE chases everyone from the temple is a good example. My own favourite scene is in the garden of Gethsemane, where he has his dark night of the soul - the passion in his singing at God is awesome. I loved the film as a video and was thrilled when it came out as a DVD - I bought it immediately. It was extremely interesting to see the film with the comments/chit chat by Ted Neeley (Jesus) and the Director - I learned so much about the film and now know why the performances were so wonderful. The music is divine. Even though it's very 70s, it still is a wonderful, inspiring film - please get it and watch it!!!!! (And no,I'm not religious at all...)

Was this the best Lloyd-Webber / Rice ?
There is an experience with which those of us of a certain age will be sadly familiar. It involves going back to something we really liked in the 1970s (or 1960s, or 1980s, depending on our age) and wondering, perhaps cringing slightly, what on earth we saw in it. Having had that experience often enough I approached this DVD with some caution. After all, I had _loved_ the film when it was in the cinemas several decades ago and I was a young student, but what would I feel now?

I need not have worried. Apart from the occasional wince-making turn of phrase used to force a rhyme I have no complaints. In fact I still liked "Jesus Christ Superstar" a lot. Of course it helps that this was quite possibly the best work to result from the Andrew Lloyd-Webber / Tim Rice collaboration, but the transition to the big screen is handled very well indeed. The play-within-a-play approach, with the acting troupe using the desert countryside and ruins and the absolute minimum of materials like a theatre production opened out into a grander scale open-air performance, really works. The direction and photography are excellent and the casting generally very good, Like the stage version the film reflects the main events of the Gospel story leading up to Christ's' crucifixion, even though it puts a secular spin on some of them.

"Jesus Christ Superstar" is a rock opera (not a musical) and a very good one. Those who are not automatically offended by its approach should find it thought-provoking as well as enormously entertaining.