One of my favorite movies...

...is Godspell. I consider it one of the great musical films of the past 45 years. I love watching the DVD, one of the relatively few I own; I love listening to the songs. I'm an unabashed fan of the drama, the performances and the music.

I first came to know the show through a production at the Palo Alto Children's Theater, probably in the late '70s but just possibly in the very early '80s. I'm not sure when I first saw the movie but it was sometime after that and it was on television.

I'm not what you might call a person of faith. For one thing, I distrust any faith that cannot handle irreverence, and I dislike people who call themselves Christians but so far as I can tell, don't act like it. But I'm not as hostile to the idea of organized religion as some are either. I just think the separation of church and state is a good idea.

My point is, I don't love this movie (as did Roger Ebert, BTW) so much for any particuarly religious reasons. Why do I? Damned if I know. Maybe because it's fun. Maybe because it's actually, genuinely, really, there's no other word for it...inspirational.

Victor Garber, who played Jesus, has said in recent interviews that it is very difficult for him to watch the film today because the concept and costumes are so dated.

I know what he means, and I can see how somebody could be cynical about both those things and maybe more. But there's just something about it that goes over and above all my mostly-prudent cynicism.

Anyway, this is a little tribute video that a youtuber called (counterintuitively) "Erotimanic" put together including the first three songs in the film. It runs about nine minutes.



This video leaves out the first five minutes or so, where John the Baptist gathers the disciples as they go about their various jobs in Manhattan. He does so by appearing to them in visions playing the shofar, after that, once the film proper begins until the end, no one else is seen.

I want to say something about David Haskell, who plays John in the movie. He's the bearded fellow who is the first you see singing. I've always felt warmly towards his performance because it seems to be, again I don't know how else to say it, full of love.

He's the kind of man--or at least he appears to be in this movie--that I was attracted to as a fatherless child. The kind of man I'd really, really, like to think is the kind my nephew sees me as today.

And, I'm immensely sorry to say, he died in 2000. Jeffrey Mylett-the guy who just sits down in the middle of the fountain-has died, too. Lynne Thigpen, the black woman with the tiny 'fro, and Merrell Jackson-the black guy with the huge 'fro-have also passed.

They're all on that list of people I would like to have told that their work meant something to me.