Superman and Christ

Marlon Brando lovefest continued with Superman: The Movie (1978), directed by Richard Donner. Brando played Jor-El--the father of Superman--with a doomed dignity. I had seen snippets and pictures of Christopher Reeves as Superman, but they conveyed nothing of his massive charm in the movie. Margot Kidder was a newly-toughened New Yorker of a Lois Lane. Gene Hackman a rather bland and silly Lex Luthor. The music, by John Williams, is soaring and lyrical, memorable as music used to be. 

The online reviews made much of the film's use of the Christ myth. In Midnight's Children, Cyrus' mum, in turn, transformed the Superman story into the origins myth of a new Indian guru. Religious to secular and back to religious again. 


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