Pontius Pilate on Screen

Sinner, Soldier, Superstar

McDonough, Christopher

Pontius Pilate On Screen deals with one of history’s most controversial characters. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Pontius Pilate is a figure of evidently endless fascination to filmmakers. The Roman prefect is depicted at times as the hapless victim of machinations beyond his control and at other times as the heartless villain of the piece. If in films about the Passion Jesus represents eternal truth, Pilate symbolises the values of the present – whether it is the lingering trauma of the Holocaust, the ongoing struggle over Civil Rights or the polarised politics of the current day – as filmmakers endeavour again and again to portray in Pontius Pilate a compelling counter-figure to Jesus himself.