Watch: The Magi do musical comedy in a new Journey to Bethlehem featurette
Watch: The Magi do musical comedy in a new Journey to Bethlehem featurette
Also: co-writer/director/composer Adam Anders talks about how he adapted scripture in a new nine-minute video.
Journey to Bethlehem isn’t just a musical, it’s also something of a comedy, and nowhere is that more obvious than in its handling of the Magi, or the three Wise Men.
In the Bible, the Magi are mysterious figures from the east who come to Judea to pay homage to the Christ child after seeing his star in the sky. They bring gifts with them, but they also attract the attention of King Herod, which has tragic consequences when Herod decides to kill all the babies in Bethlehem just to make sure the Christ child can’t claim his throne.
Despite the seriousness of the story and the Magi’s role within it, recent films have made a point of using the Magi for comic relief. The Nativity Story, which played up the life-and-death stakes of the story right from its opening scene, showed the Magi bickering with each other to comic effect; the animated The Star gave the Magi wisecracking camels to ride; and now Journey to Bethlehem has its own bickering Magi and adds a song-and-dance routine to the mix, as the Magi introduce themselves to Herod—and make him laugh—with a tune called ‘Three Wise Guys’.
You can get a taste of all that by watching the featurette here:
I spoke to the film’s co-writer/director Adam Anders about his use of the Magi when I interviewed him a few weeks ago:
From the beginning, Anders wanted Journey to Bethlehem to be a fun movie for the whole family, and to that end, it has quite a bit of comedy—starting with the very first scene, in which one of the Magi gets lost in the astronomical jargon that another uses to describe the star he has just seen.
“It was very important to me that kids enjoy this from beginning to end, and I wanted to inject comedy from the very beginning to tell you what movie you were about to watch, and to let kids know you’re going to have fun—it’s not going to be a serious schlob of a movie, you’re going to enjoy it,” says Anders.
“The maps, all the different things I did—the colours, the look and feel and tone of the movie, the music, all of it—keeps the whole family engaged, and we can’t have a family movie without some comedy. It just doesn’t work. Kids don’t want to be serious for too long when they’re watching a movie.
“So we kind of had a rule that we can’t be serious too long. We have to be reverent—and it’s certainly reverent—but we can break it up with comedy, and the Wise Men gave me that mechanism. So that’s why I peppered them throughout.”
Anders and I also discussed how his film avoids directly depicting the darkest aspects of the Herod story; you can read more about that in the full interview.
Incidentally, while the Bible doesn’t specify which country the Magi came from, the word “magi” historically referred to Zoroastrian priests from Persia1—and, as it happens, one of the three Magi in this film is played by an actor of Persian descent: Omid Djalili, who plays Melchior, was born in the UK to Iranian parents.
Meanwhile, the Journey to Bethlehem publicity team has also released a new video in which Anders talks to a pastor named Bryan Loritts about the film:
This video covers some of the same material that my own interview with Anders did, but it’s worth checking out. Here are a few key bits that stand out to me:
1:32 — Anders says it was “very important for me that we followed what I call the tentpoles, you know, the things that are non-negotiable”. These include the depiction of Mary as a virgin, the words of Gabriel at the Annunciation (“if you listen to what he says, he’s quoting the scripture”), the fact that Zechariah can’t speak, the fact that Elizabeth is a pregnant older woman, and so on.
3:25 — Loritts talks about the lack of modern dating rituals in the first century, and Anders jokes that he actually had Mary and Joseph “meeting at the local In-N-Out, for the time, in the movie—if you see the movie, our version of it.”
4:25 — Anders says, “It was very important for me that Mary was strong. I was like, ‘Why would God choose her, of all the women available?’ I don’t think it was because she was weak, but I think God looked down and he said, ‘I need the strongest woman I can find to pull this off, the greatest task in history, the most important woman in history.’ And Joseph—he had to be strong.”
5:05 — Anders says, “The Wise Men weren’t there when Jesus was born, I know that, but we’ve also accepted the Nativity scene—the little barn with everybody there at the same time. I’m like, ‘Well, if that creative license is okay, I’m going to do that. I’m not going to make a Nativity movie and not have a Nativity scene.’”
7:25 — Anders and Loritts discuss how to pronounce “Antipater”, the name of Herod’s firstborn son; he’s played by Joel Smallbone in the film.
The Journey to Bethlehem soundtrack comes out November 3, i.e. three days from now, and the movie itself comes out November 10, i.e. ten days from now.
Previous videos for Journey to Bethlehem:
The teaser trailer (April 28, 2023)
The official trailer (September 14, 2023)
The ‘Heart of Journey to Bethlehem’ featurette (September 20, 2023)
The Mary and Joseph featurette (September 29, 2023)
The Mary’s sisters featurette (October 3, 2023)
The Antipater featurette (October 6, 2023)
The Fig (donkey) featurette (October 10, 2023)
The ‘Can We Make This Work’ clip (October 13, 2023)
The King Herod featurette (October 20, 2023)
The Gabriel featurette (October 25, 2023)
The ‘Brand New Life’ music video and featurette, the ‘Gift of Giving’ promo, and the Catholic and Protestant screening reactions (October 27, 2023)
Other previous posts on Journey to Bethlehem:
‘Has The Road to Bethlehem not been filmed yet?’ (August 19, 2022)
‘Adam Anders’ Nativity musical now filming in Spain’ (February 23, 2023)
‘Adam Anders’ Nativity musical gets a title’ (April 3, 2023)
‘Exclusive: Journey to Bethlehem director Adam Anders on his years-long quest to make a musical about the Nativity’ (October 23, 2023)
Side note: the Iranian film Saint Mary makes a point of noting that the Magi were not only Persian but, as Zoroastrians, they were monotheists just like the Jews—and just like the Muslims who made the film and were its primary audience.