Museo Carmen Thyssen

Passion and Death of Christ

In conjunction with the Context exhibition Faith and Fervour in the Carmen Thyssen Collection, from 22 March to 30 June the film Passion and Death of Christ will be shown in the Museum's Espacio ArteSonado. The film is known by a number of other names, including Passion and Death of Christ, The Passion Play, The Life and Passion of Christ, and Vie et Passion du Christ.

La Vie et la passion de Jesus Christ is a 1903 French silent film directed by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca, and is believed to be the first feature film to have colorized sequences. Colorization was achieved using the Pathecolor/Pathechrome stencil-based film tinting process, which had been invented around 1903 by Pathe Freres, one of the most important and innovative film companies in history. The film itself is a straightforward telling of the story of Jesus Christ, but does include some events usually omitted in films about Christ, like the Transfiguration. La Vie is filmed using a single camera mostly kept still in front of the set and capturing the actors and action as it unfolds. The only known cast members are Madame Moreau as Virgin Mary and Monsieur Moreau as Joseph.